The interplay of the aorist and the present (Mk 1:43-44)

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at sogang.ac.kr
Mon Dec 30 19:14:06 EST 2002


I have a strange text before me:

Mark 1:43-44:

KAI EKAQARISQH KAI EMBRIMHSAMENOS AUTW EUQUS EXEBALEN AUTON
     aorist                                   aorist

KAI LEGEI AUTW: hORA MHDENI MHDEN EIPHS.
     present


It is obvious what is going on here. It can be best captured by the
following translation:

 He was cleansed. And warning him by saying "Don't tell this to
 anybody", he sent him away immediately. 

The question is: what is the relationship between the historical present
LEGEI AUTW and the previous sentence EMBRIMHSAMENOS AUTW EUQUS
EXEBALEN AUTON.

I can form the following hypothesis:

    LEGEI does not move the main story line, because it is "imperfect".
    (The present tense is "imperfect")
    It explains or add more details to the event just described.
    The details added here is the content of the warning EMBRIMHSAMENOS. 
    The imperfect form of LEGEI would have been just fine for this 
    purpose. But the present form is used to add more vividness to the
    scene. 
   

Does it make sense?

Moon
Moon R. Jung
Associate Professor
Dept of Media Technology
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
  


 

So, in the 




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