[B-Greek] Fwd: Tenses, perspectives, etc.

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Sep 15 11:01:45 EDT 2006



Begin forwarded message:

> From: "A. J. Birch" <AJBIRCH at terra.es>
> Date: September 15, 2006 10:56:19 AM EDT
> To: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
> Subject: Tenses, perspectives, etc.
>
>
> Dear Dr. Buth (hope that's the correct form of address),
>
> Like some of the others who have posted on this whole subject, I'm  
> trying to understand things that I was never taught (as far as I  
> remember) as a student of Classics.
>
> Just on the example of Enoch, is this not 'simply' an example of  
> what used to be referred to as 'the prophetic past tense' - i. e.  
> still-future events, etc., are described as if they had already  
> happened, because (a) theologically, it's so certain that they're  
> going to happen that they are described as if they already had; and  
> (b) grammatically, because - often - the prophet, like John in  
> 'Revelation', 'sees' things, whether in visions, or dreams, or  
> whatever, and then describes what he has seen / saw - now in the  
> past, which is 'when' he saw what he saw. Surely that is not  
> 'outside grammar', as you put it - the prophet is describing what  
> he saw (in the past, even if it was in the very recent past). Maybe  
> this is what you were saying - I'm not sure.
>
> Yours,
>
> Andrew J. Birch
> Palma de Mallorca, Spain
>




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