[B-Greek] historical present tense in romans revisited

Joseph Descans jdescans at hotmail.com
Fri Oct 7 17:28:48 EDT 2005


Pastor Eddie,

Thank you for your response to the second half of my letter. I agree with 
your revised definition of the Historical Present Tense and stand corrected. 
Could you possibly respond to the first half of my letter--and original 
question-- in light of your clarification of the historical present tense. 
let me remind the readers here;

"After studying a healthy stack of both secular and religious books, essays 
and commentaries on the use of Historical Present Tense in many languages 
(including items from a list obtained through this forum) I have found very 
little that directly addresses this subject in the book of Romans. In my 
opinion (and in the opinion of some other sources) the text in Romans 
7:14-25 is a textbook example of the HPT as Paul refers to his past 
experience under the law. Do you agree with this conclusion?"

And let me add this question:

Does anyone know of any scolarly works addressing this hypothesis in either 
an affirming or negating posture?

Joseph Descans
San Diego


>From: Eddie Mishoe <edmishoe at yahoo.com>
>To: B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>Subject: Re: [B-Greek] historical present tense in romans
>Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 12:17:39 -0700 (PDT)
>
>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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