[B-Greek] PEPOIHKEN in Heb. 11:28
Webb
webb at selftest.net
Tue Jun 5 14:27:28 EDT 2007
The notion that the Passover pre-dated Moses in some form may or may not be
true as a historical proposition, but it is a red herring for our
discussion. There is no real doubt that the author of Hebrews will have
regarded Moses as the prophetic inaugurator of that ongoing ritual. That
presumption, together with his choice of the perfect tense here and the fact
that the perfects in Hebrews uniformly carry their full force, is
suggestive.
On the other hand, Iver's citation of 2 Cor 11:25 (NUCQHMERON EN TWi BUQWi
PEPOIHKA) is also suggestive to me, in a different direction than what he
proposes. Consider the relative weights of the following pair of sentences:
I spent a night and a day in the water.
I've spent a night and a day in the water.
There is a way in which the second of these--in English--seems to make a
permanent claim based on the one experience. Paul asserts that he is a
person who "has" that experience to brag about. The first says I did such
and such in the past; the second says, as I stand here now, I can claim that
experience. I suspect that this sort of nuance may be behind Paul's choice
of the perfect.
Webb Mealy
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Iver Larsen
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 4:08 AM
To: B-Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] PEPOIHKEN in Heb. 11:28
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
>
> On Jun 4, 2007, at 9:43 AM, Webb wrote:
>
>> PISTEI PEPOIHKEN [MWUSHS] TO PASCA KAI THN PROSCUSIN TOU hAIMATOS
>> (Heb.
>> 11:28).
>>
>>
>>
>> Zerwick-Grosvenor says that PEPOIHKEN, as perfect, refers to
>> "inauguration
>> of a rite still observed". This seems reasonable to me, but I also
>> find
>> perfect forms tossed in as though they were aorists occasionally in
>> the GNT.
>> Is Zerwick-Grosvenor over-interpreting the perfect here?
>
> It is possible that Z-G is over-interpreting the perfect. Westcott
> (Ep.Hebrews p.177) gives a list of perfects in Hebrews which he
> considered significant and PEPOIHKEN in 11:28 is on the list.
> Ellingworth (Hebrews NIGTC) "... the perfect in contrast to the
> aorists in vv. 27 and 29, marks the establishment of the passover as
> a permanent institution ..." C.Koester (Heb.AB) "he kept the
> passover" with no comment on tense/aspect.
Well, I am afraid I disagree somewhat with both Koester and Ellingworth. The
word POIEW here does
not mean "keep", but "create/institute". I don't think the perfect indicates
the passover as a
permanent institution, but rather that it was definitely and unarguably
instituted by Moses.
> In narrative the relative levels of markedness for verb tense/aspect
> looks something like:
>
> aorist [perfective] -- imperfect/present [imperfective] -- perfect
> [stative]
For some verbs the semantic content will allow the perfect to indicate a
stative aspect, but I don't
think that applies to POIEW. There are 18 perfect forms of this verb in the
NT, and none of them can
reasonably be described as stative. However, the perfect does seem to have a
ring of finality about
it. It might be called an "emphatic past". That this event has happened
cannot be argued against.
For instance, Paul says in 2 Cor 11:25 that he has spent a night and day in
the deep (ocean):
NUCQHMERON EN TWi BUQWi PEPOIHKA.
Paul is not in a stative position in the deep, nor is the "day and night" in
any way stative. He is
emphasizing that he actually did spend a day and night in the deep waters.
One might say that he is
in the position of having had this experience, but IMO that is stretching
the idea of "stative"
beyond its normal usage.
Iver Larsen
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