[B-Greek] Matt 3:17 - import of 1 per sing aorist EUDOKHSA

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Nov 30 09:21:18 EST 2007


On Nov 30, 2007, at 8:35 AM, Eddie Mishoe wrote:

>
> --- Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> KAI IDOU FWNH EK TWN OURANWN LEGOUSA: hOUTOS ESTIN
>> hO hUIOS MOU hO
>> AGAPHTOS, EN hWi EUDOKHSA.
>>>
>>
>> This is a Greek word that was popular in the LXX and
>> Jewish religious
>> contexts. However, Josephus, Philo, and Plutarch do
>> not use the word.
>>
>> The aorist is easily explained as a carryover from
>> Hebrew where
>> ratsiti and Hafatsti (he`avar, typically past
>> tenses) were used for
>> present situations (like the Greek perfect
>> PARAKEIMENOS). One could
>> call these Semitisms or perfective aorists.
>>
>> A contributing factor in the choice of the aorist is
>> the irregularity
>> and rarity of the perfect form of this verb.
>> would one say EYDEDOKHKA? EYDEDOGMAI? HUDOKHKA?
>> The simple choice for the ancient author was to use
>> a form in current
>> use in their circles and this was the aorist.
>
> The first element to check for is the temporalness of
> the proposition. This can be done a number of ways,
> but the easiest is: This is my son in whom I am
> currently well pleased...in whom I shall be well
> pleased..., etc. There is no temporal proposition
> being uttered here. So don't try to figure out why the
> Aorist is used in these kinds of propositions.
> Non-temporal propositions do not inform us about the
> temporal nature of the Aorist.

I don't understand the assumption here that this is a non-temporal  
proposition. It doesn't seem to me to be derived from anything that  
the text itself says. Even if, for the sake of argument, one wanted to  
say that the utterance of the narrative must come from outside of time  
and space, yet the narrative indicates that it is heard from within  
time and space. It would seem to me that those in the narrative text  
who are supposed to have heard and understood the utterance would  
apprehend it as a statement about a completed action.

> Failure to partition propositions into temporal and
> non-temporal, forces irregularities on a language. The
> Aorist tense is natural in this non-temporal
> proposition; no need to resort to Semitism here. Also,
> resorting to the perfective aorist is trying to
> analyze a non-temporal statement in a temporal
> statement's world.
>
> It's almost comical to watch linguists deal with the
> famous "the grass withers..." This aorist puzzles them
> as if the statement should be understood "the grass withered..."
>
> Eddie Mishoe
> Pastor
>
>
>       
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)




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