[B-Greek] John 3:29 hO hESTHKWS KAI AKOUWN

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Dec 20 08:34:42 EST 2006


On Dec 20, 2006, at 10:23 AM, Richard Lindeman wrote:

>  Carl & Elizabeth:
>
>  Thanks, this is very helpful to me.  "The one who is now standing and
>  hearing" makes good sense to me. It isn't that the perfect hESTHKWS
>  functions as exactly the equivalent of a present here, but rather  
> that it
>  retains its perfect aspect while it expresses its root meaning in  
> present
>  time statively.  However, now I am tempted to translate this  
> phrase: "The
>  one who is now standing and always hearing" in order to  
> distinguish between
>  the aspects.  Am I going too far with this?

For my part, I think that IS going too far. And yet, it is certainly  
true (or at
least, I think it's true) that the Johannine text generally tends to  
imply more
than it says on the surface. I think you might get the implication in  
by making
it, "the one who simply stands there and keeps listening."

What came to mind from your question is the closing line of John  
Milton's
eloquent sonnet, "On his Blindness""

"They also serve who only stand and wait."


>>
>>> Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:18:55 -0500
>>> From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 3:29 hO hESTHKWS KAI AKOUWN
>>> To: Elizabeth Kline <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
>>> Cc: greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>>> Message-ID: <98732C01-5A34-4785-B678-5431FEDDB5C3 at artsci.wustl.edu>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 19, 2006, at 1:04 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Carl,
>>>
>>> Is intransitive perfect hO hESTHKWS stative or imperfective?
>>
>>> I guess the proper word is "stative." Is EIMI existential stative? I
>>> think that hO hESTHKWS means "the one who is now standing," hESTHKA
>>> means "I am now standing" (= "I have risen to my feet" or "I have
>>> come to a halt."
>>>
>>
>
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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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