The movement of the story line and the imperfect (Mark 1:45-2:1)

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at sogang.ac.kr
Mon Dec 30 20:12:25 EST 2002


I want to test the following hypothesis by using Mark 1:45-2:1.

 The main story of line of narrative is moved by the aorist tense.
 In the story line, the imperfect explains the situation stated by
 the aorist, by  adding background information or further details
 to the situation.

Mark 1:45-2:1.

1.45: hO DE EXELQWN HRXATO KHRUSSEIN POLLA KAI DIAFHMIZEIN TON LOGON,
hWSTE
MHKETI AUTON DUNASQAI FQNERWS EIS POLIN EISELQEIN, ALL' EXW EP'
                                        infinitive 
ERHMOIS TOPOIS HN. KAI HRCONTO PROS AUTON PANTOQEN. 
             imperfect imperfect
2.1:  KAI EISELQWN PALIN EIS KAFARNAOUM DI' hHMERWN hKOUSQH hOTI EN OIKW
                                        after a few days
ESTIN. 

 The time flow of the above narrative is as follows:

 (1) The man with leprosy began to spread the news against Jesus' warning.
 (2) As a result, Jesus could not enter the city and remained [impf] 
     outside the city. The people came [impf] to him outside the city. 
 (3) After a few days, Jesus terminated his stay outside city and
     entered the city again. 

Because the infinitive and the imperfect do not move the
story line, the time focus of the story line at the beginning of the
verse 2.1 is the time at which the man began to spread the news.
So, DI' hHMERWN (AFTER A FEW DAYS) should be counted with respect to the
current time focus. It means: it turned out that Jesus's stay outside
city lasted A FEW DAYS.  But, here is my question, how the stay of 
A FEW DAYS outside the city can allow the narrator to say
"Jesus no longer could enter the city freely and he stayed
outside the city. Instead the people came to him from all
directions." The stay of a few days seems to be too short to contain
these events. 

The oddity I feel might be because I understand the imperfect tense
incorrectly or I do not understand the meaning of temporal phrase 
DI' hHMERWN. Perhaps DI' hMERWN should be translated as " After 
quite a while" in this context?

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





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