[B-Greek] Present imperative in Matt. 7:1

Louis Sorenson llsorenson at hotmail.com
Tue Dec 8 21:00:21 EST 2009




Martin M. Culy in I, II, III John: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament)
http://www.amazon.com/II-III-John-Handbook-Testament/dp/1932792082/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260323408&sr=8-2
has an analysis of imperatives in Chapter 1 or 2 . (A Student has confiscated by book, so I cannot look at it.)
If I remember correctly, he says that of about 400+ present imperatives in the New testament, 250 show 
the idea of "stop doing something" and 150 do not have that idea/aspect. Perhaps someone can post that portion
of Culy's Text. Culy's point is that you cannot make the statement (propounded by Moulton?) that the
present imperative + MH = "Stop Doing Something" and the Aorist Imperative + MH = "Don't Start doing something."

Louis Sorenson

---Iver Larson's Email as follows----------------------


 
> Thank you Dr. Conrad -
> 
> Your answer made me wonder if, perhaps, this was an idiomatic expression of which we are not aware, and, therefore, in this case, should not be open to such literal scrutiny. Therefore, your suggestion ?Don?t be judgmental? would be spot on.
> 
> B.Harris
 
The basic distinction between the present and aorist imperative is a matter of aspect with the present indicating imperfective aspect and the aorist perfective aspect. So, if we study what these different aspects mean, we have come a long way.
 
Imperfective aspect can refer to several things, such as a continuing or prolonged action or a repeated action. Perfective aspect see the event as completed whole and often as a single action, not to be repeated.
 
So, in Matt 7:1 "Don't be judgmental" covers the imperfective aspect well. One might also say: "Don't go around judging people". It is questionable to translate with "Stop judging".
 
There is a correlation between imperfective and plurality of subjects or objects.
 
When I did a count of second person singular and plural imperatives in the NT, I got the following numbers (not counting some subjunctive aorists and futures functioning as imperatives):
 
2nd person singular:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 2nd person plural:
present imperatives: 262? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 468
aorist imperatives: 371? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 325
 
Why are present imperatives much more common in plural? My suggestion is that when several people are doing the same action, it often comes under the concept of repeated action.
 
But there might be other reasons. It could be because most of the general commands in the NT are directed to a group of people, and general commands are normally in the present tense. It would be interesting to do similar counts outside the NT.
 
A negated present tense command may indicate the stopping of a continuous, prolonged or repeated action, but it would be too simplistic to say that it always does. It can also mean "Do not continually or repeatedly do X". As always, it is the context that may clarify the intended nuance of meaning.
 
Iver Larsen
  		 	   		  
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