[B-Greek] Perfect Passive Participles: Is the past action a process or punctiliar event? Eph. 2:8

Arsenia Joaquin arseniajoaquin at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 24 00:27:05 EST 2005


To understand better, here's Ephesians 2:8:
   
  "For you are having been saved by grace through faith; and this is not out of you, the gift of God."  -  THE WILL (A Plain Translation of The New Testament from Greek to English)
   
  SESWiSMENOI is I think Aorist Passive Participle.  Paul was talking to the Ephesians who have obeyed the Word.
   
  Arsenia R. Joaquin
  628 Grapes St.
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"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
  
On Friday, December 23, 2005, at 01:12PM, Laurence Schell wrote:

>In Ephesians 2:8, "are saved," I recall is a perfect passive, I think but am not sure, participle. Does this refer to a one-time event completed in the past or a process completed in the past? Also does the participle make it a past process? Or is a any kind of perfect referring to a past process anyhow? There are several instances in the NT of the words "are sanctified" being translated from a perfect passive participle. I understand why the English present tense is used; but is the Greek perfect to be understood as speaking of a process completed in the past? If so, then is Ephesians 2:8, for grammatical reasons, to be understood differently as a one-time event completed in the past with continuing results? I will be checking e-mails the Tuesday or Wednesday after Christmas. Perhaps some people may have time to answer.

It helps to have the text at hand:

Ephesians 2:8 THi GAR CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS KAI TOUTO OUK EX hUMWN QEOU TO DWRON 

This is a periphrastic perfect tense: ESTE SESWiSMENOI is equivalent to SESWiSQE; it indicates the present state in which the addressees stand; what is underscored is the state as fully achieved, not action itself or when it took place.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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