[B-Greek] historical present tense in romans

Eddie Mishoe edmishoe at yahoo.com
Fri Oct 7 15:17:39 EDT 2005


Joseph:

You wrote:

Obviously the study of the Historical Present Tense
opens up a linguistic can of worms in Greek as well as
any other language because the term is applied to a
variety of contexts and usages, but I am Referring to
the most common denominator: a present tense verb
expressing a past action. 


Your definition should probably be refined a little. I
wouldn't call it a present tense verb expressing a
"past" action. It is a present tense verb used in a
historical context (the temporal reference point is
the historical event itself, not the time of
writing/speaking). And, it does not express PAST
action, but rather CONTEMPORANEOUS action within its
surroundings. The Present Tense denotes "in progess"
action. So, the HPT describes some other event that is
"in progress" DURING the historical event.

It is a common error to impose two (2) deictic centers
with a historical narrative, for example. If the
deictic center, however, is the historical event
itself, then the Present Tense is not referencing some
PAST event; it is referencing the PRESENT event under
discussion. The Present Tense does not reference a
PAST event from the deictic center. The Present Tense
will reference a CONTEMPORANEOUS event from the
standpoint of the deictic center. A Secondary Tense is
needed to reference a PAST event from the historical
event under discussion.

Eddie Mishoe
Pastor

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