[B-Greek] on entertaining angels
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Mar 15 03:49:47 EST 2006
On Mar 14, 2006, at 9:46 PM, wmhboyd at aol.com wrote:
> Hebrews 13:2 - DIA TAUTHS GAR ELAQON TINES XENISANTES AGGELOUS
>
> XENISANTES is aorist. I understand that this means the tense/aspect is
> undefined.
>
> 1) Since it is undefined, could it be anything or everything?
> 2) Why do all my translations put it in the past tense? (entertained -
> have entertained - did entertain)
> 3) Is it past by default?
The key to the tense here is not XENISANTES but ELAQON; ELAQON
( succeed in avoiding attention or awareness) is aorist indicative
and here indicates completed past action; XENISANTES is complementary
participle with it, indicating what it is they were doing when they
escaped notice or awareness: "For this reason some have escaped
notice (when) hosting angels."
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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