Gnomic Aorist / Heb 7:2a

Roe d.roe at t-online.de
Sun Dec 10 11:28:49 EST 2000



Carl Conrad wrote:

>   ... a "gnomic"
> aorist expresses a proverbial "timeless" truth; what happened 
> repeatedly in the past but no longer does must fall into the 
> category of what Whitehead once called "the immortality of 
> past objective fact"

[snip]

> >hWi KAI DEKATHN APO PANTWN EMERISEN ABRAAM

> I don't think EMERISEN in Heb 7:2a is a gnomic aorist at all; 
> I think it is simply a factual statement about a past event 
> ... a one-time 
> happening, a historical event of a particular time and place.
 

That was my inconclusive "feeling" about it...  So, had the author
wanted to express Whitehead's "immortality of past objective fact", what
would he/she have used, the imperfect? Or is it at all possible to
express this with the aorist?

Thanks again!

David

D.W. Roe
Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany



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