[B-Greek] 1 Cor 14:5: present infinitive aspect

Scott Stocking scottsox at conxxus.com
Sat May 13 08:37:39 EDT 2006


[This is the text of the response gfsomsel sent to me via e-mail. It was
"scrubbed" by the list, evidently for an incompatible font.]

I don't know as this fully answers your question, but I think it points
toward a solution.

7. Time Element in Tense. But for the indicative the Greek tenses would have
had a simple history. There are no past tenses in the subjunctive. The
future subjunctive is an anomaly of very late Greek. The future optative
occurs only in indirect discourse and is not found in the N. T. The time
element in the infinitive is confined to indirect discourse and MELLW. Time
in the participle is only relative to the principal verb. It is thus kind of
action, not the time of the action, that is expressed in these forms. But in
the indicative the three grades of time had tenses of their own. The Greeks
evidently felt that there was no need for time in the other modes except in
a relative sense. As a matter of fact, the real time of subjunctive,
optative, and imperative is future in relation to speaker or writer. It was
evidently with difficulty (cf. absence of time in Hebrew) that time was
expressed in a positive (non-relative) sense even in the indicative. It is
only by the augment (probably an adverb) that past time is clearly
expressed. "Homer and later Greek writers often use the present with an
adverb of time instead of a past tense, a construction which has an exact
parallel in Sanskrit and which is therefore supposed to be Indo-Germanic."
There is no really distinctive form for the present indicative. The future
was a later development out of both the present and aorist. See chapter
VIII, Conjugation of Verb. The augment was not always used. Homer used it
only when it suited him. But past time was objective and the three kinds of
action (punctiliar, durative, perfected) were regularly expressed with the
tenses (aorist, imperfect, past perfect). There is Aktionsart also in the
present and future time, but the tense development did not go on to the full
extent here. There are only two tense-forms in the present and practically
only one in the future. ** But both punctiliar and linear action are
expressed, but not differentiated, in the present time by the same tense, as
is true also of the future. ** The kinds of action exist, but separate
tense-forms unfortunately do not occur. There might thus have been nine
tenses in the indicative: three punctiliar (past, present, future), three
linear (past, present, future), three perfect (past, present, future).
Because of this difference between the indicative and the other moods in the
matter of time some grammars give a separate treatment to the indicative
tenses. It is not an easy matter to handle, but to separate the indicative
perhaps accents the element of time unduly. Even in the indicative the time
element is subordinate to the kind of action expressed. A double idea thus
runs through tense in the indicative (kind of action, time of the action).

A. T. Robertson, _A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of
Historical Research_, pp. 824-25.

_____________

Note the section set off with asterisks.  I think sometimes that too much is
made of such distinctions -- especially when it becomes a judgment call.  It
must also be remembered that the manner in which an action is described in
anything other than the indicative (e.g. aorist as opposed to present) says
nothing regarding how it actually occurs.  It only sets forth the way the
writer is conceiving it.  I think one should avoid a "theology of the
tenses."


george
gfsomsel






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