[B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist, for Bert

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Tue Sep 19 08:51:29 EDT 2006


Dear Randall,

Are you saying that aorist in all cases aignals *completed* action or state?


----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>
To: "B-Greek at Lists. Org" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:12 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] Imperfect and Aorist, for Bert


> Bert deHaan EGRAPSE
>>I wrote:
> " If the aorist is meant to give a summary view ( or is the unmarked or
> the
> default tense) of a past action, how am I to  understand the Ingressive
> aorist.
> Would the Imperfect not be the more logical tense for that?">
>
> Picture something that 'was heavy', how would you describe the entry
> into that state, when it 'became heavy?' Many a language will use a
> simple past to refer to a full, completed process of 'becoming heavy.
> For Greek, that is a natural way of using the aorist. If the focus is
> on the completed process. The 'summary' view as you call it normally
> includes the end of the process, too. Hence, the simple past marks the
> entrance into a state.

> [[If you are interested, note 1Sm (=LXX Kindoms) 5:11
> καὶ ἐβαρύνθη χεὶρ κυρίου KAI EBARUNQH XEIR KURIOU
> and the hand of the Lord 'became heavy'.
> (Granted, this is simply translating vattixbad [equally perfective and
> past with the aorist here], but the Greek verb is both normal and
> clear. [PS: I am not presuming Hebrew in order to understand the
> Greek, simply acknowledging that the Greek is a translation.])]]

Since the example above implies *action* (became heavy =inflicted them), it
does not illustrate ingressive states. But my example to Con (SIGAW in Luke
9:36) does. If you claim that the aorist always signals completed action or
state, please show how SIGAW is completed? Is the meaning that they "had
kept quiet," which would signal a completed state? Or is the beginning of
the state of being quiet somehow separated from the state of being silent,
to the effect that the beginning is completed but it has nothing to do with
the holding state?. In other words, is the lexical meaning of SIGAW blotted
out by the aorist? Is no SIGAW made visible to the readers, only the
entrance into SIGAW, which is completed? I am very much confused here.

Two similar examples:

Luke 2:7. "She placed (aorist) him in a manger" (NIV). Is only the movement
down to the manger focussed upon, and there is no ANAKLINW? Or, if there is 
ANAKLONW, then we must also accept that at least a short time while the 
state is holding is included in the aorist. And that would imply that the 
state is not completed.

Matt 2:16 "He was furious.." (NIV); "He bacame furious." (NAB). Is only the 
start of Herod´s reaction focussed upon, and there is no state of QUMOW? Or, 
if there is QUMOW, then at least for a short while the state was holding.

I do not understand what kind of linguistic thinking is behind a view saying 
that the aorist only relates to the completed entrance into a state, and the 
kind of state expressed by the lexical meaning of the word is not at all 
entailed in the aorist. But perhaps I misunderstand your model completely.

snip


> ERRWSO
> 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
> ---
Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo 





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