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 
>
>
>
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