[B-Greek] Ephesians 1:13

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Oct 1 15:31:32 EDT 2006


Jason Hare wrote:
<snip>
> "it is standard in Greek that the event expressed by an aorist
> participle takes place before the main verb expressed in aorist." This
> would indicate that the answering in "having answered, he said" took
> place before the saying itself. Does this even make sense? It is a
> repetitive feature of Semitic language. I have not myself figured out
> why Semitic language (Hebrew, in particular) uses such repetitive
> verbs, but it is very common.

We cannot translate a Greek construction literally into English and then ask if this translation makes sense. I am used 
to a combination of the general word for saying combined with a more specific word like answer, ask etc, from Amharic, 
so it seems to be a feature of at least some Afro-Asiatic languages beyond Semitic.

> There is no aorist in Hebrew, unless one counts the active participle
> as a type of aorist. So, the structure cannot really be compared
> directly to Hebrew, as I'm sure you know. Whereas this repetitiveness
> may come from Semitic influence, the use of the aorist participle in
> conjunction with an aorist main verb does not, and the meaning must be
> drawn from the Greek structure itself.

Well, the best I can do is to compare the Hebrew construction in the OT with how it was translated by the LXX.
When I look at the close to 90 instances of APOKRINOMAI followed within 4 words of EIPON, and look at the corresponding 
Hebrew, I find that in two instances in the LXX a future indicative is used for the first word followed by a future 
indicative of the last word. In all other cases, APOKRINOMAI occurs in the aorist, most of these being participles. The 
Hebrew text normally has both verbs in a waw consecutive form. I suppose one might have expected a present participle of 
APOKRINOMAI, but that never occurs in the LXX when combined with a form of EIPON. I cannot tell you why this happens. I 
am only saying that this is what is happening, so you can compare the Hebrew structure with what the LXX considered to 
be the best or normal equivalent in Greek. It is this equivalence that is the same in LXX and the NT. I don't know how 
common the structure is outside of LXX or NT Greek.

Iver Larsen 




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