[B-Greek] Matt 27.30 Why the Imperfect ETUPTON

Wayne Leman wayne_leman at sil.org
Wed Aug 22 21:04:47 EDT 2007


> Mitch, Greek doesn't have Past, Present, or Future tenses. It only has two
> time categories which have traditionally been called tenses, Imperfect and
> Aorist.

Mitch, this was a slip on my part. There are, of course, more than two Greek 
"tenses".

> But they do not reflect past, present, or future action as English
> tenses do. So when we look at the "tenses" of this verb, the Imperfect of
> ETUPTON may indicate that the beating action continued for a period of 
> time
> (or was "incomplete"), from the point of view of the author.

Mitch, I should have said that the Imperfect here probably focuses on the 
repetitive nature of the action.

Wayne
----
Wayne Leman
Better Bibles Blog:
http://englishbibles.blogspot.com

> This is
> actually closer to the linguistic category of aspect than tense, a topic
> which has been discussed here many times in the past.
>
> Wayne




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