NUN plus Aorist

Alex / Ali alexali at surf.net.au
Tue Oct 29 07:50:19 EST 2002


I have been interested in the discussion of tense and testable assertions;
having just downloaded the latest postings, I see this has now moved to NUN
plus Aorist.  The following was mainly jotted down last night, before the
change of header, but it was NUN plus Aorist which chiefly interested me.

Jonathan Robie mentioned John 13:31:

hOTE OUN EXHLQEN, LEGEI IHSOUS, ***NUN*** EDOXASQH hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU,
KAI hO QEOS EDOXASQH EN AUTWi

I’ll say a little of my own understanding of this verse later on;  but it
might be of interest to note that it is not particularly unusual for the
aorist to be used with adverbs of present time, as here in the collocation
of NUN with EDOXASQH.

Examples of the aorist used with ARTI or with HDH could be cited, but I will
here give only some other examples of the aorist + NUN.  These include
Matthew 26:65, Luke 19:42, John 21:20, Acts 7:52, Romans 5:9, 5:11, 6:22,
7:6, 11:30, 11:31, 16:26, 1Co 5:11, Gal 4:9, Eph 3:5, Col 1:26, 2 Tim 1:10,
1 Peter 1:12, 2:10, 2:25. (Some of these have already been noticed in the
course of our discussion. The list is not intended to be exhaustive.)

It might be worth noting, too, that NUN is also used in conjunction with the
imperfect (e.g. John 11:8), while with the (hortatory) subjunctive at Acts
7:34, for example, it looks to the future.

Taking one of the examples of the aorist with NUN, let’s look at the scene
at the end of John’s gospel, where the risen Lord appears to the disciples.

John 21:10 LEGEI AUTOIS hO IHSOUS, ENEGKATE APO TWN OPSARIWN hWN **EPIASATE
NUN.**

'Bring some of the fish that *you have just caught*' is the NRSV
translation.  Despite the NUN, the reference of the verb is to the past.
The effect of the NUN is, I think, to indicate that the reference is to the
immediate past, but it is past nevertheless.  Our English ‘now’ can be used
similarly.  The words might be rendered ‘
 the fish that *you caught just
now*.’

Our discussion has already noticed Matthew 26:65:

TOTE hO ARCIEREUS DIERRHXEN TA hIMATIA AUTOU LEGWN, EBLASFHMHSEN, TI ETI
CREIAN ECOMEN MARTURWN? IDE **NUN HKOUSATE** THN BLASFHMIAN.

I take the collocation of NUN + Aorist here to be working in the same way,
referring to something in the immediate past: ‘You have just now heard his
blasphemy’.

The use of NUN, then, is flexible, and does not confine the action of a verb
to present time.  Although I would not want to push the point too far, this
seems to me to represent something of a difficulty for Porter’s attempt to
divest the tenses of temporal meaning.  If it is argued that it is not the
tenses that convey temporal meaning but temporal indicators such as NUN,
then the meaning of these indicators needs to be inflexible.  The more
‘rubbery’ the temporal indicators, the more the tenses must take the weight
of conveying the temporal information.

Jonathan mentioned the Romans 11:31 reference:

Romans 11:31 hOUTWS KAI hOUTOI NUN HPEIQHSAN TWi hUMETERWi ELEEI, hINA KAI
AUTOI NUN ELEHQWSIN

Jonathan noted two translations:

Traditionally: “these also *were* disobedient”
Mari (Broman Olsen): “these also *are* disobedient”

One of the matters that this particular example and its translation raises
is the question of past-extending-to-present actions;  if the aorist is
thought of as defining a completed action, then I suppose that the
traditional translation is alone admissible.  However, such a view of the
aorist is, I think, defective.

When the rich young man says to the Lord, with reference to the
commandments, PANTA TAUTA EFULAXA, (Mat 19:20), we are hardly to imagine
that his obedience to the commandments belongs wholly to the past; and
similarly with instances such as John 13:34, ENTOLHN KAINHN DIDWMI hUMIN,
hINA AGAPATE ALLHLOUS, KAQWS **HGAPHSA hUMAS** hINA KAI hUMEIS AGAPATE
ALLHLOUS.

If it is allowed that the aorist does not necessarily denote completed
action but can speak of actions upto and inclusive of the present, then the
traditional and Mari Olsen’s translation of Romans 11:31 are both possible.
But neither is correct exclusively of the other, for the possibilities of
the aorist are broader than either of them.  It is, as often, a case where
translation ought not be confused with meaning.

Another matter which I hope it might be helpful to question briefly can
again be introduced with some of the references and their translations,
traditional and of Mari Broman Olsen, which Jonathan quoted.

Eph 3:5 - hO hETERAIS GENEAIS OUK EGNWRISQH TOIS hUIOIS TWN ANQRWPWN hWS
**NUN APEKALUFQH** TOIS hAGIOIS APOSTOLOIS AUTOU KAI PROFHTAIS EN PNEUMATI

Mari: “as it is now revealed”
Traditional: “as it now has been revealed”.

And,

1 Peter 1:12 hOIS APEKALUFQH hOTI OUC hEAUTOIS hUMIN DE DIHKONOUN AUTA, hA
**NUN ANHGGELH** hUMIN DIA TWN EUAGGELISAMENWN hUMAS EN PNEUMATI hAGIWi
APOSTALENTI AP' OURANOU, EIS hA EPIQUMOUSIN AGGELOI PARAKUYAI.

Traditional: “now has been revealed to you”
Mari: “is now revealed to you”

A question I’d like to raise here concerns the significance of the “is” in
the above translations.

It’s noticeable that in both translations, Olsen uses the word “is”.  This
can make these sound as if they represent a present tense in the original.
In such cases, one test I sometimes find helpful in trying to work through
the maze of tense and aspect is to substitute a continuous present for the
simple present;  in these instances comparing “as it is now revealed”  with
“as it is now *being* revealed (Eph 3:5) and “is now revealed to you” with
“is now *being* revealed” (1 Peter 1:12).  When I apply that test here, any
sense of present *action* dissipates; what Olsen’s “is revealed” denotes is
not a present *action* but a present *state*.

One reason I raise this is that I believe Porter’s treatment of the
present-referring aorist is confused or potentially confusing at just this
point;  see page 226 particularly.  For example, he cites Mat 9:18, hH
QUGATHR MOU ARTI ETELEUTHSEN, and glosses, ‘my daughter is now dead’.
Again, the sense of the present is suggested in translating ‘*is* now dead’,
but how little present *action* is actually in view is revealed by trying,
“my daughter is now dying”;  the latter formulation is simply false, for the
daughter actually is dead.  An English translation might decide to use a
present verb to convey the state that has arisen through the past action,
but it seems to me misleading to say that this aorist is present-referring.
(It does seem odd to me, moreover, that Porter should state, ‘The Aorist may
be used to grammaticalize reference to present time if that process is seen
as a complete process in its entirety’ (226) when his fundamental thesis is
that “Greek does not grammaticalize tense in any of thee three major tense
categories” (78), and with specific reference to the aorist, “Greek does not
grammaticalize temporal reference in the Aorist, even in the Indicative”
(79).)  And the same consideration applies here as was mentioned above, the
need to be wary of making a translation the basis of our understanding.  It
may be idiomatic English to translate as ‘my daughter is now dead’, but is
that what the Greek actually means, rather than something like ‘my daughter
died just now’?

I note that Iver mentioned in one of his posts (under a different heading)
that there is a difference between perfective aspect and the perfect;  I
take that point.  In some of the instances with NUN + the aorist, it seems
to me that something similar to the stative aspect of the perfect tense is
in view.  I would include Romans 5:1 as an example of this:

Romans 5:11 OU MONON DE, ALLA KAI KAUCWMENOI EN TWi QEWi DIA TOU KURIOU
hHMWN IHSOU CRISTOU DI' hOU **NUN THN KATALLAGHN ELABOMEN**.

There does seem to me to be here a quasi-stative effect, i.e. that the NUN +
aorist has the effect of indicating that we are in a state of having
received reconciliation, rather than stating that it was recently that we
received this reconciliation.

To finish up what has become a long post.  My own view is that the simplest
attack on the aorist in the indicative is to understand it as referring to
past time, though without implying that the action is necessarily completed.
In some cases, considerations of English idiom may suggest that we translate
in ways that to some degree obscure its being past-referring, and in a
number of instances, too, it actually is used in ways other than
past-referring, but these are in the minority.

With regard John 13:31, hOTE OUN EXHLQEN, LEGEI IHSOUS, ***NUN*** EDOXASQH
hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU, KAI hO QEOS EDOXASQH EN AUTWi, I take the NUN
EDOXASQH to refer to what has just taken place.  To move somewhat into
interpretation, I suspect that the Lord’s telling Judas to do quickly what
he was about to do was an affirmation of the Lord’s obedience to the will of
the Father and as such is in view here as having glorified the Son of Man.
However, my fundamental point is not in taking sides on the interpretative
issue but rather to argue that there is grammatical support for the case
that NUN EDOXASQH refers to the past, and more generally that the
collocation of NUN + Aorist neither determines the sense as
present-referring nor compels us to believe other than that the usual
reference of the aorist is to the past.

Alex Hopkins
Melbourne, Australia





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