[B-Greek] Relative time of participles

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Feb 12 06:30:02 EST 2007


On Feb 10, 2007, at 4:33 PM, Bert de Haan wrote:

> 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?

For what it's worth, I did a study of supposed adverbial participles  
of subsequent action and posted my results to B-Greek on Oct. 10,  
1998. It's accessible in the archives at http://tinyurl.com/2hvmze

The subject-header was "Adverbial aor ptcs of subsequent time rfc  
(LONG)"

My conclusion was that what appear to be aorist adverbial particles  
of subsequent action cannot be shown convincingly to be so. That  
includes the case of Acts 25:13. If I may cite myself from that message:

"Reference is made to the possible existence of such a grammatical  
category
as aor ptc of subsequent time and even to the existence of non-Biblical
instances, but nothing cited in any of these discussions has struck  
me as
genuinely convincing. In my opinion, for what it's worth, the only  
passage
to which I'd be ready to acknowledge a serious possibility of instancing
such an aor ptc. is Acts 25:13, where ASPASAMENOI is coordinated with
SUNHNTHSAN; but even that one seems to me best understood in terms of
coordination rather than a greeting action that follows significantly  
later
than the arrival in Caesarea."



Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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