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

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Mon Sep 26 13:19:38 EDT 2005


> From: "Marty Cauley" <Marty.Cauley at sfrep.com>
> Date: September 26, 2005 9:59:53 AM EDT
> To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] MH PEPISTEUKEN in John 3:18
>
> Hey Carl,
>
> Thank you for your clarification. I'm in agreement with you that the
> durative nature of the participle has been overdone. I had  
> concurred with
> this conclusion as expressed by Dale Wheeler's in the archives  
> before I made
> my original post. (I particularly liked his post at
> http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/ 
> html4/1998-03/24188.html.) But
> that discussion focused on the participles and then turned  
> theological. I
> would prefer to just clarify the grammatical options and  
> terminology for the
> perfect.
>
> You apparently acknowledged that MH + VERB "might well be"  
> semantically
> equivalent to an ALPHA PRIVATIVE + VERB.
>
> But you were hesitant to affirm that Jn 3:18 could fall into the  
> category of
> a stative alpha privative for a number of reasons:
>
> 1.    Jn 3:18 uses MH rather than OU. You said, "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"
> a.    In response, I note that Robertson makes a similar  
> distinction as
> you between the hypothetical MH and actual OU (found in 1Jn 5:10).  
> I have no
> disagreement here.
> b.    Like you, I would find the durative sense odd with OU  
> PEPISTEUKEN.
> So I'm certainly open to your aoristic approach for the perfect in  
> Jn 3:18.
> (I would still prefer stative in Jn 11:27, as does Robertson  
> apparently. But
> that is not in a negative construct and so may not be applicable to
> discussion of 3:18.)
> 2.    You stated your preference for aoristic perfect in 3:18 by  
> saying,
> "I really think that there's little difference in John 3:18 between
> PEPISTEUKEN and EPISTEUSEN."
> a.    I assume that you are not making this a sweeping statement  
> for all
> perfects but only for this context. If so, I have reason to agree  
> with your
> assessment. But clarification would be helpful as to when to expect  
> aoristic
> perfects.
> b.    Wallace and Robertson, as I recall, only acknowledged aoristic
> perfects in narrative contexts. Others, such as Brooks and Winbery,  
> make a
> distinction between aoristic perfects and dramatic perfects. Would  
> you make
> a distinction and not limit aoristic perfects to narratives?

I don't want to overgeneralize regarding the Koine perfect tense; for  
one thing,
I repeatedly insist that Koine Greek is very much a language in flux,  
that we
find older and younger concurrent forms and usages in different NT  
authors
and sometimes even within the same author (although incorporated oral
tradition may account for some of these concurrences). We sometimes see
-A endings on first-aorist stems; we sometimes see -QHN and -MHN/SO/TO
aorist with identical semantic force. I think it is also true that  
the perfect
indicative and the aorist indicative are increasingly overlapping in  
usage even
as the aorist is supplanting the perfect as an expression of the  
perfective
indicative; apart from forms of hESTHKA and OIDA and their compounds
which are equivalent to present-tense forms, perfect-tense forms are  
considerably
rarer in NT Koine than in older Greek. In Latin the perfect and the  
aorist
coalesced earlier; I think they are in the process of doing that in  
the Koine,
and I suspect that John may be one author who uses the perfect when he
might just as well use the aorist. This would be worth a careful  
study, but
I haven't made such a study. This is just something I suspect to be  
the case.

> 3.    Another point you mentioned was, "KEKRITAI does seem to have  
> stative
> force ("he stands condemned"), I don't think that PEPISTEUKEN does."
> a.    I agree that this is very strong possibility. HDH is added in  
> 3:18
> to bring out the stative for KEKRITAI, but PEPISTEUKEN has no such  
> adverbial
> amplification.
> b.    All in all, I certainly find your aoristic perfect to be an
> attractive option. But it would still appear that the aoristic  
> understanding
> does not render a stative understanding unreasonable or incompatible.

I wouldn't rule it out altogether; I just doubt that it is the case  
here.

> 4.    You noted, "APISTEW is not a Johannine word." And that  
> although its
> perfect, HPISTHKA, is "not in the GNT," it would be "easy enough to
> conceive."
> a.    True. For that mater I did not find HPISTHKA in the LXX either.
> Nevertheless, I did find reference to HPISTHKA in Liddell-Scott. So  
> I assume
> it does occur outside of biblical Greek. Is there any software/web  
> site by
> which I might look up these occurrences?

Well, of course this could be checked on the TLG disk and the papyri  
could
be checked.

> b.    Granted, this is a point against my taking MH PEPISTEUKEN as
> semantically equivalent to HPISTHKA. If John had meant HPISTHKA, he  
> could
> have used that form. But I'm not necessarily dissuaded by this  
> observation.
> The fact that GJ does not use these alpha privatives to express MH
> PEPISTEUKEN does not seem to be a considerable reason for rejecting  
> them as
> conceptually semantic equivalents for several reasons.
> i.    John does not use APISTEW, but he does use an adjectival  
> contrast in
> 20:27 between APISTOS and PISTOS. A similar contrast between verbal
> counterparts would not beyond the realm of reason.

NIce observation.

> ii.    John uses a verbal contrast in 3:36 between APEIQEW and  
> PISTEUW.
> (But no APEIQHS, which further suggests that the contrast is simply  
> between
> belief and unbelief.)
> iii.    It would seem that APEIQEW would have been another alpha  
> privative
> possibility in Jn 3:18 for MH PEPISTEUKEN.

Another nice observation.

> c.    If we do not agree on this matter, would it at least be  
> possible to
> agree that if a stative result is conveyed by a perfect in 3:18, the
> negation of that perfect may denote the fact that the action "never"
> happened? That is, if MH PEPISTEUKEN conveys a stative result, it  
> could
> accurately be expressed by, ""He stands condemned on grounds that  
> he NEVER
> believed."

Once again, and still, and yet, I really would hesitate to concide  
this with the MH.

> d.    It would seem that the negation of a perfect by MH could mean
> never/ever, even if speaking hypothetically. I would find a  
> durative notion
> for this construction in Num 5:19 (LXX) to be out of the question:  
> (1) "If
> no man has continually lain with you and if you have not  
> continually gone
> astray into uncleanness.be immune." This is obviously not the  
> intention of
> the negation of the perfect. Nor is the alternative any better: (2)  
> "If man
> has lain with you and but does not continue to do so and if you  
> have gone
> astray into uncleanness but are continuing to do so.be immune."  
> Neither
> durative rendering is acceptable.

Agreed. But these aren't stative either; surely they are aoristic,  
aren't they?
It's the fact of the action in the past that is (theoretically) denied.

> e.    Rather, she is immune if only if she has "NEVER" been guilty  
> of the
> offense. If she had "EVER" lain with another man, then she would  
> still stand
> condemned.

You seem to be thinking also of the possibility of an act in past time.

> f.    A conceptually semantic parallel might be: "If she has been  
> chaste,
> she is immune." Now, suppose I had substituted an alpha privative  
> that meant
> "caste." It would have conveyed the same point.

How would you express that? Wouldn't it have to be in negative terms?  
EI MH
PARABEBHKEN ... ? Wouldn't normally Greek for that idea you want use a
present tense, e.g. hEWS ARTI AQWiOS ESTIN = "she has continually to
this moment been chaste?"

> g.    It appears that the perfect of APISTEW or APEIQEW would have
> accomplished much the same thing as MH PEPISTEUKEN: "He stands  
> condemned on
> the grounds that he has NEVER believed." So I'm still open to the
> possibility that MH PEPISTEUKEN might mean that they stand  
> condemned because
> they disbelieved and as a result continue to disbelieve up to the  
> present
> rather than because they simply did not believe. The exegetical  
> difference
> would be mute. I'm just exploring the aspectual possibilities.
> h.    If you disagree regarding this aspectual conclusion in  
> connection
> with APEIQEW, would it be because you do not find PEIQEW sufficiently
> synonymous with PISTEUW?

Don't you mean APEIQEW with APISTEW? There is no verb PEIQEW. I will
say, however, that my impression is APEIQEW is more concerned with
implicit trust and obedience than with what readers more readily  
associate
with "belief."

> i.    If you disagree regarding this aspectual conclusion in  
> connection
> with APISTEW,
> i.    WOULD it be because APISTEW is an alpha privative derived from
> APISTOS rather from PISTEUW itself? Would it be technically  
> inaccurate to
> describe APISTEW as an alpha privative of PISTEUW? They are used in
> antonymous juxtaposition in Mk 16:16 and 1Pet 2:7. So how do I  
> describe
> their relationship? If APISTEW is not an alpha privative of  
> PISTEUW, would
> it still be considered a cognate? Is the most I can say is that  
> APISTEW is
> an alpha privative that is an antonym of PISTEUW?
> ii.    If my semantically-equivalent-alpha-privative argument is  
> rejected
> on the basis of the above technicality over derivation, would it at  
> least be
> agreed that OU PISTEUW (which is a common Johannine term) is  
> equivalent to
> APISTOS (which is also Johannine) and thus to APISTEW?

I'm not quite sure why you are pushing this matter so far. You say  
you're not
concerned with theological implications but with getting the grammar  
precise,
but for my part I'm not so sure we CAN get the grammatical usage here  
quite
so precise.


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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