[B-Greek] Tense of EXESTH Mk. 3:21

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Apr 19 13:25:32 EDT 2003


At 8:58 AM -0700 4/19/03, mark lama wrote:
>Dear All, The text of Mark 3:21 reads as follows: KAI AKOUSANTES hOI PAR'
>AUTOU EXHLTHON KRATHSAI AUTON: ELEGON GAR hOTI "EXESTH." My understanding
>is that Jesus' family is concerned with his present mental status (see the
>previous verse for context). Why then is EXESTH aorist, as if it meant "He
>was (not is) out of his mind." ? Or is EXISTANAI active, not stative here,
>thus, "He has gone out of his mind," as we would say in English, "He has
>flipped."?  A relevant example that occurs to me is 2 Cor. 5:13: EITE
>EXESTHMEN, QEWi, EITE SWFRONOUMEN, hUMIN. Here the aorist EXESTHMEN is
>contrasted with the present SWFRONOUMEN, both of which seem to be
>referring to the subject's present mental state. I would, on the strength
>of this example, be tempted to treat this and the occurrence in Mark 3 as
>virtual presents, at least in semantic force. This seems, however,
>dangerously unwarranted by what I know of Greek syntax. Could EXESTHN have
>idiomatically acquired the force of a present,
> or is there another better way to treat it? CARIS KAI EIRHNH, Mark

I'd say that the aorist EXESTH here has the force of a perfect
middle--increasingly in Hellenistic Greek the aorist is replacing the
perfect; I think your suggested version, "He's flipped" is quite
appropriate here--or even, "he's lost his mind." But it is NOT active so
much as intransitive or middle in force.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/


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