[B-Greek] EILHFEN, Rev. 8:5 -- "aoristic"?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Nov 13 16:16:09 EST 2006
I rather think that the aorist and present perfect overlap
increasingly in usage in the Koine -- I think that many an aorist can
be legitimately Englished as "I have ... /he/she has ... "; it's
possible that influence of Latin usage (the Latin aorist and perfect
merged into the single tense -- perfect-- very early. Certainly the
perfect tense is less common in Koine than it was in earlier periods.
On Nov 13, 2006, at 3:46 PM, George F Somsel wrote:
> Robertson terms this "The 'Aoristic' Present Perfect" on pp 898-902
> of his _A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of
> Historical Research_. He also references Burton, _Syntax of the
> Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek_, pp 43-44
>
> Still other cases should perhaps be explained as Aoristic Perfects,
> but for the reasons mentioned in 86 it is impossible [Page 44] to
> decide with certainty. While there is clear evidence that the
> Perfect tense was in the New Testament sometimes an Aorist in
> force, yet it is to be observed that the New Testament writers had
> perfect command of the distinction between the Aorist and the
> Perfect. The instances of the Perfect in the sense of the Aorist
> are confined almost entirely to a few forms, ESXHKA, EILHFA,
> hEWRAKA, EIRHKA, and GEGONA, and the use of each of these forms in
> the sense of an Aorist mainly to one or more writers whose use of
> it is apparently almost a personal idiosyncrasy. Thus the aoristic
> use of GEGONA belongs to Matt.; of EILHFA to John in Rev.; of
> ESXHKA to Paul; but see also Heb. 7:13. The idiom is therefore
> confined within narrow limits in the New Testament. Cf. Ev.Pet. 23,
> 31.
>
> Burton, E. D. W. (1898). Syntax of the moods and tenses in New
> Testament Greek (3rd ed.) (43). Edinburg: T. & T. Clark.
>
>
> george
> gfsomsel
> _________
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Webb <webb at selftest.net>
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 2:45:40 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] EILHFEN, Rev. 8:5 -- "aoristic"?
>
>
> KAI EILHFEN hO ANGELOS [AGGELOS?] TON LIBANTWNON, KAI EGEMISEN
> AUTON EK TOU
> PUROS... Rev. 8:5
>
>
>
> Can someone confirm for me that EILHFEN (perfect) is truly
> equivalent to
> ELABEN (aorist) here, as ZG says? If it isn't, what nuance do we
> get from
> the use of the perfect?
>
>
>
> Webb Mealy
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
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/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list