[B-Greek] atelic histrocal present

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Thu Apr 9 15:05:11 EDT 2009


On Apr 9, 2009, at 11:43 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

>> Rijksbaron's book. At 7.3 in the sections on
>> 'historic present', note 1, he points out that "the historic present
>> is only found with terminative (telic), not with stative (atelic)
>> verbs (cp. sec. 2). Thus, the present indicative of verbs like
>> βασιλευω, ειμι, εχω, οιδα, ρεω is never used as
>> a historic present."
>> This is a profound observation that lines up with a claim
>
> I have looked into this a little, seems like this proposition is
> perhaps something just a little bit short of a tautology. If you find
> a present indicative, e.g., BASILEUEI (Matt 2:22, Eurip. Electra 12)
> it will represent an on going state of affairs from the perspective of
> the speaker and for that reason cannot be an historical present. Is it
> possible make up an example of BASILEUEI functioning as historical
> present?
>
> The point needs some clarification, it is a little too profound for me
> to unpack it.


What about

ROM. 5:14 ALLA EBASILEUSEN hO QANATOS APO ADAM MECRI MWUSEWS KAI EPI  
TOUS MH hAMARTHSANTAS EPI TWi hOMOIWMATI THS PARABASEWS ADAM hOS ESTIN  
TUPOS TOU MELLONTOS.

could it be changed to

ROM. 5:14 ALLA **BASILEUEI** hO QANATOS APO ADAM MECRI MWUSEWS KAI EPI  
TOUS MH hAMARTHSANTAS EPI TWi hOMOIWMATI THS PARABASEWS ADAM hOS ESTIN  
TUPOS TOU MELLONTOS.

  But wound any Koine author use BASILEUEI in this manner? No. But  
what does that prove? That the Aorist/Present temporal disitinction  
was honored in the Koine? I am not sure that is what it proves.

Elizabeth Kline







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