[B-Greek] aorist and its temporal reference

furuli at online.no furuli at online.no
Sat Jan 24 07:40:20 EST 2004


Dear list-members,

In our quest for the temporal reference of aorist we encounter 
several problems. In Jude 1.14 the aorist of ERCOMAI has future 
reference, but a scrupulous differentiation between semantics and 
pragmatics makes us ask: Is future reference an uncancelable part of 
the aorist? There is absolutely no evidence for the widespread belief 
that Jude quoted the Ethiopic Enoch (Greek translations of Enoch is 
younger than manuscripts of Enoch). But the texts of Jude and Enoch 
in this verse are so similar that both may be quotations of an older 
Hebrew document. The Ethiopic text uses a verb in the perfect, and to 
use perfect with future reference is not very common (I have 965 
examples (6,9 %) of Hebrew perfect (QATAL) with future reference 
though). This may suggest that the possible Hebrew source of both 
texts used a perfect (QATAL), and this may be the reason why the 
Ethiopic text uses a perfect. So we  must ask whether this is also 
the reason why Jude chose aorist.

I will illustrate the case further by examples from the MY and the 
LXX. In the Hebrew OT there are 94 examples of the phrase (AD HYYOM 
HAZZE (until this day). In all these examples the deictic center (C) 
is "this day," and the reference seems to be present (event time 
coincides with C).  Of the 94, there are 7 nominal clauses, 1 with 
infinitive, 5 with active participles, 1 with WAYYIQTOL+ participle, 
41 with WAYYIQTOL (consecutive imperfect), 3 with YIQTOL (imperfect), 
and 36 with QATAL (perfect). In all the 94 clauses with the different 
verbs we expect the event time to coincide with C.  This is actually 
the case, but there are interesting differences which illustrates the 
differences between the imperfective (consecutive imperfect) and 
perfective (perfect) aspect in an elegant way.

1) Joshua 8:29 (NIV) And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, 
which remains to this day.

2) Deut 3:14 (NIV)  it was named after him, so that to this day 
Bashan is called Havvoth Jair.)

3) Josh 22:3 (NIV) For a long time now - to this very day - you have 
not deserted your brothers

4) Josh 23:9 (NIV) to this day no one has been able to withstand you.

In all the five clauses there is one Hebrew verb pointing to the 
adverbial "to this day".  In 1) and 2) there are consecutive 
imperfects and in 3) and 4) there are perfects.  In the LXX 1), 2) 
and 4) have aorists while 3) has a perfect.

If we look at 3) and 4) the period is seen as a whole, and RT 
intersects ET at the coda, which coincides with C. This may also be 
the reason for the choice of Greek perfect in 3). But  1) and 2) is 
different, because the action of raising a large pile and Jair's 
naming ended a long time before the deictic center. This means that 
the force of 1) and 2) is resultative; the actions ended a long time 
before C, but the resultant stage held at C.  So the imperfective 
aspect makes a part of event time (ET may include both action and 
state) visible at the beginning of ET, while the perfective aspect 
aspect does not make a particular part of ET visible. The resultative 
force is illustrated by the English translation which must use two 
English verbs (one fientive and one stative) in each verse to 
translate one Hebrew (or one Greek verb).  Example 5) below has the 
adverbial "until the evening"; it has a Hebrew consecutive imperfect 
and a Greek aorist, and the clause can be treated exactly as 1) and 
2).

5) Joshua 7:6 (NIV) Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to 
the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening.

Returning to the question about aorist and its reference, we may ask: 
The resultative force of the aorists of 1), 2) and 5) is that an 
uncancellable part of the aorist, or is it only a result of 
translation?  And we may ask a similar question regarding the NT? Do 
we find so much translational noise and so much noise due to the 
Hebrew mother tongue of the writers that it is difficult to find the 
semantic meaning of the aorist in the NT? I do not claim that this is 
the case, but the questions should be asked, and there should be a 
methodology to deal with the matter.

The point I want to stress by this post and my previous one, is that 
when we look for examples of the temporal reference of the aorist, we 
should take into consideration that  preconceived ideas regarding 
aspect and the meaning of aspect may lead us into circular thinking, 
and that there may be noise in the texts that can mislead us in our 
temporal assessments.


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo











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