The movement of the story line and the imperfect (Mark 1:45-2:1)
Harry W. Jones
hwjones2 at earthlink.net
Tue Dec 31 03:44:23 EST 2002
Hi Moon-Ryul Jung!
Why couldn't a few days be 6 days? And why couldn't the people come from
the city close by?
Best,
Harry Jones
> [Original Message]
> From: Moon-Ryul Jung <moon at sogang.ac.kr>
> To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Date: 12/30/02 5:10:03 PM
> Subject: [b-greek] The movement of the story line and the imperfect (Mark
1:45-2:1)
>
> 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
>
>
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [hwjones2 at earthlink.net]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to
$subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu
>
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list