[B-Greek] The present tense in Hebrews 6:4-6

CTCE jfs at jfsanders.com
Tue Jan 23 02:11:24 EST 2007


The text:

KAI PARAPESONTAS PALIN ANAKAINIZEIN EIS METANOIAN ANASTAUROUNTAS hEAUTOIS TON hUION TOU QEOU KAI PARADEIGMATIZONTAS 

My view is that the present and past tenses are latent, latent because they are unintended consequences of the primary and secondary endings.  Therefore, the "tenseness" of the verbal form will only show when context requires such, and then it will re-inforce that context.

So my rendering into English would be:

And falling away again to renew into repentence the crucifying and shaming to themselves the Son of God.

Or, to attempt a translation,

And falling away again, to renew to repentence their crudifying and shaming the Son of God.

Again, in my view, the present tense is what the context requires, and so over-rides the "past tenseness" of the aorist.

John Sanders
Suzhou, China


Thank you for your responses.
>From reading them, the conclusion here seems to be that it can either be
temporal or
causal depending on the context.
There was an argument I found that it is actually causal which I will quote:
**
*"The two present participles in v. 6 are causal, modifying the predicate
and answering the question
 why is it "impossible." See the discussion in Attridge, Hebrews, p"*

Once again, I'm not a big shot at this so I'm not sure if the argument holds
any water,
so I'd like to know comments on that one.

If causal, does that 100% rule out *anastaurountas* and *paradeigmatidzontas
*being a present ongoing action?

I pretty much have little clue or understanding of how this all works, so
any further
understanding would be appreciated.

Thank you.



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