[B-Greek] John 1:12-13 - translating the participle

Jonathan Borland jborland at lwconline.com
Thu Aug 14 15:23:15 EDT 2003


Hey Eric,

I'm not an expert, but views differ as to your questions.

As to Aspect, I prefer the view that the "default" aspect for 
non-finite verbs comes in the aorist tense, meaning that if an author 
simply wanted to express something _without_ emphasizing its aspect, he 
would use the aorist.

If an author wanted to emphasize the aspect, he would use an 
imperfective tense (= present or imperfect) for continuous aspect.  
Note that such aspect only applies to non-indicative verbal forms.

As to Time with participles, the present is usually the same time as 
that of the finite verb, the aorist before that of the finite verb, and 
the perfect even before that.

So, ". . . to those who kept on believing in his name" is allowed.  But 
if, as you mentioned, the finite verbs in the sentence have the force 
of present tense, the participle's time would better be translated as 
present, with its aspect (continuous) staying the same.

My preference is keeping the aorist finite verbs as past tense here 
(John gives the saving record of those who have believed), and harping 
on the present and future aspect in Jo 20:31.  In other words, John 
could have used the present tenses here had he wanted to, but he chose 
to use the aorists for a reason.

Jonathan Borland
Lakeland, FL




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