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

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Sep 15 11:25:23 EDT 2006


ANDREUS EGRAPSE
> 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

Yes, this whole 'to do' is about a so-called prophetic-past-tense. The
possible point of confusion is that the PROPHETIC part of the
'prophetic past'  in most linguistic theory is not considered part of
a grammatical system but part of an interpretative system. In the same
way that a past-narrative structure does not make a fairytale to be
historical "LRRH said, 'what big eyes you have!'", neither does a
past-narrative structure make a prophetic discourse past.
The grammatical system only covers the past description. the literary
use of that 'past description system' is beyond grammar, per se. It
uses the grammar but is not the grammar.

ERRWSO esta bien
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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