[B-Greek] historical present tense in romans
bitan buth
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sun Oct 9 06:04:34 EDT 2005
Good.
AS THOUGH they were in-progress also means
AS THOUGH they were present.
(i.e., the historic present momentarily changes the deictic center. That is
what gives it its rhetorical effect, beyond semantic aspect or semantic
tense.)
Thus, the historic present is equally true
(or untrue, depending on how one views half-full water glasses)
to both its aspect AND its tense.
Of course, the normal verb for marking the in-process aspect
contemporaneous in the past is the PARATATIKOS, not the ENESTWS.
[And as mentioned on Romans, this context requires a rhetorical analysis.
See Stanley Stowers for more discussions.]
Blessings
Randall Buth
Randall Buth, PhD
Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
c/o margbuth at gmail.com
also, Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
under Rothberg International School,
Hebrew University
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
-----Original Message-----
From: Eddie Mishoe [mailto:edmishoe at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 5:55 PM
To: bitan buth; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] historical present tense in romans
I wrote:
> Having said the above, let me add a comment on one
> response:
> > 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.>
Dr. Buth wrote:
> I would say just the opposite, though I agree that
> the historic present
> does not "express" [i.e. signal] the PAST. If you
> read through the
> contexts in the gospels, not to mention other
> literature, you will find
> that the historic present is used for PERFECTIVE
> events, that is events
> that are completed within their context. They are
> not contemporaneous in
> a technical sense and are not "in progress" during
> the surrounding events.
> The historic present cuts AGAINST its aspectual
> grain, as well as against
> its temporal grain. It is a literary feature that is
> best described as an
> emotive device for making the story 'real, actual'.
> Like in English: he
> goes [=he said], . . . and then the other guy goes
> ". . . " In other
> words, the historic present in Greek takes a
> completed, past action and
> describes it AS THOUGH it were in progress.
This last sentence caught me off guard since it is
exactly as I argued. I'm not sure now what to make of
all this, but I'll just state again that the HPT...
...takes past events and describes them AS THOUGH they
were in progress. Of course, there are many examples
of non-completed, past (from the standpoint of the
writer/reader) events that are portrated with the HPT.
Eddie Mishoe
Pastor
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