[B-Greek] Heb 10:29 who is he..?

Yancy Smith Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Fri Nov 18 12:26:04 EST 2005


Craig,

The subject of AXIOQHSETAI is everything in the verse with its  
qualifiers and sub-modifiers including and after the article hO. "He"  
is restricted or described by three attributive aorist participles.  
The syntactical relationship of the future with an aorist participle  
relates the action of the participle to the future, in this case a  
hypothetical. Note the comment by the second century Greek grammarian  
Appollonius Dyscolus, De constructione 2.2.114:

"Now the indicative mood in the present or in the past relates the  
participle more to the verb, as in the example "the one who killed  
the tyrrant is honored" or "the one who killed the tyrrant was  
honored." And again the undefined (aoristic) future is perceived in  
accordance what the same principle, "The one who killed the tyrrant  
will be honored," as completely correct, for concerning what is  
happening and what has happened the rule is clear, concerning what  
what will happen is more clear in which case the participial syntax  
is undefined."

I think this native Greek speaker has grasped something important  
about this case. So it would not really be grammatically proper to  
assume that the author is talking about people who have actually done  
this. Remember, the aorist participle does not indicate time in and  
of itself, and, especially when construed with a future, it refers to  
something future or potential but often previous to the action of the  
main verb.

Yancy Smith
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Brite Divinity School
Texas Christian University






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