[B-Greek] OU EDOKEN HEMIN (aorist discussion)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Aug 19 09:24:04 EDT 2006


On Aug 19, 2006, at 7:30 AM, Jacob Abshire wrote:

> I am pretty new to Biblical Greek.  I began reading Bill Mounce's  
> "Basics of
> Biblical Greek" book just recently.  I had a question about 2  
> Timothy 1:7
> which reads "For God has not give us a spirit of timidity."  I am  
> examining
> the words OU EDOKEN HEMIN.

The text, in our normal transliteration scheme is: OU GAR EDWKEN  
hHMIN PNEUMA DEILIAS ALLA DUNAMEWS KAI AGAPHS KAI SWFRONISMOU.

> I am trying my best to understand verb tense
> called aorist (in the word 'given').  The NASB has translated it "has
> given."

And that's appropriate; the aorist is often enough used to indicate a  
definitive action in the past and may in that case be Englished as a  
present perfect tense as "has given" in this instance. It's also true  
that, although there's a present perfect tense in Greek, it isn't  
used very much, relatively speaking, and the aorist in the Koine  
seems to be taking over the usage of the perfect that emphasizes past  
completion.

> Now the way I understand it, an aorist indicates a past tense verb  
> with
> present tense continuation.  In other words, it might be rendered  
> "God did
> not nor has he ever since given."  Would I be correct by saying  
> that?  I
> would suggest that the word 'did' would only indicate a past action  
> while
> 'nor ever since' would indicate a continuation to the present.  Is  
> this the
> way to understand the aorist?

If you have recently begun work in Biblical Greek, it may be too  
early for you to grasp any particular definition of the aorist -- you  
really need to become familiar with its usage through meeting it  
repeatedly in a variety of texts using it. For me personally, the  
most helpful description of the aorist is to say that it is the verb  
form that looks upon an event as a whole rather than as continuing.  
An aorist verb in the indicative mood most generally indicates a past  
action without defining anything about that action.

Consider the verb APOQNHiSKW, "die." The present tense 3 sg.  
APOQNHiSKEI means "he/she/it is dying"; the imperfect tense 3 sg.  
APEQNHiSKE(N) means "he/she/it was dying" (action or event begun in  
the past but not necessarily completed); the aorist tense 3d sg.  
indicative means "he/she/it died" or "he/she/it has died" --  
indicating the factuality of the event in the past; the perfect-tense  
3 sg. APOTEQNHKE(N) means "he/she/it is dead" -- indicating that the  
event is at this time a completed action.

The aorist in 2 Tim 1:7 EDWKEN simply indicates a past action; "gave"  
or "has given" -- it tells us nothing about the action other than  
that it happened.

There are other things to learn about the aorist, particular when you  
are dealing with a non-indicative form -- infinitive, participle,  
subjunctive, or imperative. But so far as an aorist indicative form  
is concerned, I think it's enough to say that it ordinarily simply  
indicates an action in the past without telling you anything more  
about that action.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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