[B-Greek] Relative time of participles

Bert de Haan b_dehaan at sympatico.ca
Sat Feb 10 16:33:17 EST 2007


In his book “An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek”  C.F.D. Moule writes 
concerning the time relationship between a participle and the main verb: 
[quote]  “When the context positively demands a decision as to the 
sequence of the actions referred to in the participle and the main verb 
respectively, it often turns out that a Present Participle alludes to an 
action with which the action of the main verb coincides (at least in part), 
while an Aorist Participle refers to action previous to what is referred to 
in the main verb.  Consequently, the ‘schoolboy’ translation of an 
Aorist Participle by <having done so-and-so>,  though entirely false to the 
essential meaning of an Aorist as such, turns out to be a fair approximation 
to the to the sense in its context more often than it deserves 
to.”[/quote]
A bit later he writes that this ‘schoolboy’ rule may even be safer for 
N.T. Greek than for the Classical writers.
He lists a few exceptions (all the ones he knows of,) to this principle. (HE 
called it principle.)

He writes all this after he explains the difference in aspect between the 
different tenses so I assume that that is what he is referring to when he 
writes; 'essential meaning of an Aorist as such.'

My question is;  Why would he call it entirely false?  If it works that 
often, wouldn’t there be more than coincidence at play here? It seems to 
me that the authors may well have intentionally written a participle in a 
particular tense to indicate relative time as well as aspect.
Any thoughts?

Bert de Haan





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