[B-Greek] MH PEPISTEUKEN in John 3:18

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Tue Sep 20 16:50:26 EDT 2005


You're digging pretty far back in the archives -- to 1998. I  
personally think this exegesis, whether Blackwelder's or someone  
else's, is leaning too heavily on the aspectual force of these verbs  
PISTEUWN, PEPISTEUKEN, etc. to read meanings into the text that are  
not necessarily present.

On Sep 20, 2005, at 1:37 PM, Marty Cauley wrote:

> Hey everyone
>
> In consulting arichives for PEPISTEUKEN in John 3:18, I found a  
> discussion
> (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1998-03/24055.html)
> stimulated by Blackwelder's comments, with these braketted insertions:
> -----------------
> "The one who continues trusting [PISTEUWN, pres. part.] in him
> is not condemned; the one who does not continue trusting [same  
> construction
> but with negative particle] is already condemned [KRISIN, perf.  
> pass., is in
> a
> state of condemnation] because he has not believed with abiding  
> results
> [PEPISTEUKEN, perf. tense, indicating permanent attitude of  
> unbelief] in the
> name of the only Son of God."
> -----------------
>
> I do not know if the brakets are original with Blackwelder in the  
> above, or
> added by the poster. I assume the latter. But it appears to be rather
> inconsistent in its intent in defining the perfect in this verse as,
> "indicating permanent attitude of unbelief." This statement would  
> seem to
> indicate that the judment associated with the perfect in v. 18 is  
> due to the
> fact that one never believed rather than failed to continue to  
> believe. My
> inquirey is regarding how valid is the insert in the above archive  
> as a
> grammatical option that the perfect in this verse indicates a  
> "permanent
> attitude of unbelief"?
>
> If MH PISTEUW could be equivelent to APISTEW, then it would appear  
> that one
> grammatical option would be that those who disbelieved, and as a  
> result
> continued to disbelieve, would be condemned and a "permanent  
> attitude of
> unbelief" may be in view.
>
>
> So my questions regarding the perfect in Jn 3:18 are:
>
> (1) Could MH PEPISTEUKEN be grammatically equivilent to an alpha  
> privative +
> PEPISTEUKEN?

I think that you mean "semantically" equivalent; it might well be,  
but the fact is that APISTEW is not a Johannine word.

> (2) Does APISTEW have a perfect form ?

Not in the GNT, although it's easy enough to conceive an HPISTHKA.

> (3) For sake of curosity, why is the from APISTEW rather than  
> APISTEUW?

I think the reason would be that PISTEUW is a primary verb taken  
directly from the nominal root/stem PISTEf-, while APISTEW is a  
secondary form derived from the noun adjective APISTOS.

> (4) Also, for classificaiton purposes, Wallace says that the  
> perfect of
> stative would be an "Aoristic Perfect and Perfect with Present  
> Force" (pp.
> 579-580). Would this classification be generally applicable to the  
> perfect
> of PISTEUW? (I would think so in Jn 11:27?)

The question in my mind would be whether we ought to consider this  
PEPISTEUKEN as a stative at all, especially as it is negatived by MH  
and is hypothetical. I can conceive of a stative OU PEPISTEUKEN --  
theoretically -- although even that seems somewhat odd: "he does not  
stand in a state of belief" ??? I really think that there's little  
difference in John 3:18 between PEPISTEUKEN and EPISTEUSEN. While  
KEKRITAI does seem to have stative force ("he stands condemned"), I  
don't think that PEPISTEUKEN does; rather I think it simply has the  
force of an aorist EPISTEUSEN: "he stands condemned on grounds that  
he didn't believe."

Moreover, I really think that too much is being read into a durative  
aspect of these present participles (PISTEUWN, MH PISTEUWN); they  
are, after all, alternative formulations of a present general  
condition = hOSTIS AN PISTEUHi OU KRINETAI, hOSTIS D' AN MH PISTEUHi  
HDH KEKRITAI.

Text: hO PISTEUWN EIS AUTON OU KRINETAI; hO DE MH PISTEUWN HDH  
KEKRITAI, hOTI MH PEPISTEUKEN EIS TO ONOMA TOU MONOGENOUS hUIOU TOU  
QEOU.


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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