[B-Greek] Gnomic Subjunctive Aorist? (was Aorist Subjunctive in 1 Jn 1:9)
Alastair Haines
haines at alastairs.com
Tue Apr 5 23:30:38 EDT 2011
Hi again David
I'm going to be a little naughty, and try to steal your example (Matthew 12:29), which I think you have accurately identified as a subjunctive aorist in the protasis of a conditional, where a generic/gnomic/omnitemporal reading might be a possibility. Although you provide evidence that, at least in this case, the aorist isn't generic/gnomic/omnitemporal, please allow me to offer counter-evidence.
29b ἐὰν μὴ πρῶτον δήσῃ τὸν ἰσχυρόν;
29c καὶ τότε τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ διαρπάσει.
29b EAN MH PRWTON DHSHi ISXURON;
29c KAI TOTE THN OIKIAN AUTOU DIARPASEI.
The example is slightly complicated because the verb (in this case DEW, "I bind") is negated (by MH). Additionally, the example suggests, to me at least, that the connection between protasis and apodosis, in this particular case, is procedural (note PRWTON ... TOTE) rather than deontological or teleological, as in Matthew 6:14-15. However, it is nicely analagous to Matthew in that the conditional structure is "EAN + (aorist) subjunctive (DHSHi) ... future indicative (DIARPASEI)".
There's another complication, though, in that the protasis does double-duty, providing a condition both for 12:29a and 12:29c.
29a ἢ πῶς δύναται τις εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ
29a καὶ τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ ἁρπάσαι, ...
29a Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house
and carry off his property,
29b unless he first binds the strong man?
29c And then he will plunder his house. (NASB)
The basic idea seems to be:
(all x) (all y) (possible for x to rob y implies possible for x to bind y)
equivalently
(all x) (all y) (impossible for x to bind y implies impossible for x to rob y).
The significance, of course, is that Jesus (according to the text) is not only asserting power to bind, but intention to rob. The dispute with the Pharisees is regarding them acknowledging Jesus' power, but questioning his motives. So, yes, as you said David, "the strong man" in this gospel tradition, refers to the Devil: Jesus' boss according to the Pharisees, but his "target" according to Jesus. However, I think you're too smart for the text, David. Jesus is his typically (almost annoyingly) circumlocutionary self here, talking of some abstract, generalised "strong man" rather than giving the Devil his name in this verse.
I should stop there, and just ask some questions.
Why does the text have a future tense hARPASAI?
Why not a perfect instead of the aorist DHSHi?
Why does the NASB translate both into the English present?
I think there are a lot of generic indicators in this verse.
"How is it possible for just anybody to go into the home of the strong and grab his stuff?
Unless..."
alastair
----- Original Message -----
From: =)
To: Alastair Haines ; B-Greek List
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Gnomic Subjunctive Aorist? (was Aorist Subjunctive in 1 Jn 1:9)
Dear Alastair,
It is true that the definite article would not in general exclude the possibility of a statement being gnomic. However an article usually means one of three things. We would first expect it to refer to an antecedent, which is usually the closest in grammatical proximity. If there is none in the expected places, we would then expect the articular noun to be specified by one or more adjectival clauses, which may include prepositional clauses or participles. If neither of the two are present then it usually refers to a known entity in the wider current scope, which may end up being the common frame of reference. This is meant mostly for ordinary nouns and names are not included. "pneumati qeou" therefore falls into the third category, referring to "[the] spirit of God" in the Jewish frame of reference. "h basileia tou qeou" is in the second category, referring to "the kingdom which is of God". The second "the strong man" is of course in the first category, referring to the previously-mentioned "strong man". Within that sentence alone it is impossible to decide for the first, however Matt 12:24-28 indicates that Jesus had a specific "strong man" in mind, therefore it must be non-gnomic, although of course anyone may disagree with this analysis. The point is that it is most probably non-gnomic. =)
Regards,
David Lim
On 6 April 2011 00:48, Alastair Haines <afhaines at tpg.com.au> wrote:
Hi David
Great! I think we agree. Yes, of course, gnomic use of the aorist is certainly not intrinsic to the tense. The vast majority of NT indicative aorists are not gnomic, for a start. I also like your example of ambiguity in English, dependent on context for resolution. Better still (imo) is your comment regarding NHPIOS. Fanning offers two characteristics observable in contexts that suggest gnomic use:
1. semantic--[the verb] "refers ... not to a single occurrence in the past but to universal occurrences of the event"; and
2. lexical--"nouns with generic articles, indefinite noun or pronoun references".
NHPIOS is an indefinite noun in the context from the Iliad, just as you say, and as Fanning notes is the sort of clue we often find correlated with gnomic usage of the aorist.
I believe I commented that the subjunctive marking of aorist verbs in Mt 6:14-15 seemed to arise from the conditional context. I'd still hold to that. Since the future conditional requires the subjunctive anyway, it would be hard to prove Matthew had some other (or additional) reason for chosing it. Anyway, I agree with your final point wholeheartedly: recognising gnomic use of the aorist is decided by cues in the context.
I'm not sure I agree with the analysis in your last paragraph. I hope you'll forgive me being a little cute and asking you to clarify how you think a DEFINITE article is evidence for an "indefinite possibility" rather than the "generic truth". I'm not sure the two are so very different, though, nor that a definite article is out of place with either. However, a gnomic aorist imperative sounds a little off to me. There's a binary opposition in that mood, where I'd have thought the present imperative would be used for commands expecting timeless, omnitemporal or habitual fulfilment. Like English, Greek does also express gnomic ideas in the present. Gnomic does not imply aorist, just like aorist does not imply gnomic. They are just possibilities, ruled out or reinforced by context, as we have already agreed, which seems like a nice kind of place to end this post.
alastair
From: David Lim
Subject: Re: Gnomic Subjunctive Aorist?
Dear Alastair,
I do consider "gnomic" to refer to generic meaning, however there does not seem to be evidence that this generic meaning is intrinsic to the verb or, for that matter, even a whole complete clause, just as in English the statement "I will get what I want" is ambiguous, either meaning "I will get later what I want at the present" or the gnomic "I will get what I want in general", so whether some statement is gnomic in English depends completely upon the wider context, not even the immediate context and certainly not the verbs. I do believe the same is true in Greek.
For example, that which you quoted from Iliad is:
[Iliad II:17:30-32] "but you having retreated, I urge [you] to go into [a] crowd, not even standing opposite me, before [you] suffer something evil. moreover [it] having been done, even [a] fool shall know [it]."
Yes, in this context the gnomic meaning is intended, but it is dependent on the context and independent of the verb tense. The anarthous "nhpios" is part of it, because it has no referrent and therefore implies a "general" fool.
And I cannot agree that we should assume that "ean" only influences the choice of mood and does not affect the semantic meaning. As far as I have seen, the usage reflects not only the choice of the subjunctive mood but also the range of semantic meaning that can be expressed. Also the subjunctive does not exist in certain "tenses" and therefore cannot have a one-to-one correspondence with its indicative counterpart. So all my examples were meant to prove is that the gnomic meaning is determined solely by the context and not by the verb tense.
As for those which I listed, you might dispute Matt 12:29, but it means "how can anyone enter into the house of the strong man unless [he] first binds the strong man?". If it said "[a] strong man" I agree that it can be gnomic, but because it refers to "the strong man", and the context has Jesus saying "if I cast out the demons in [the] spirit of God, then the kingdom of God came upon you" before and "and then [he] will plunder his house" after, the context indicates the intended meaning to be association between Jesus and the one who binds the strong man, the strong man having been referred to earlier. Other examples similarly refer to an indefinite possibility rather than a generic truth. Matt 18:13 uses both present imperative "go" and aorist imperative "reprove" as well, if we consider imperatives also in our study.
Regards,
David Lim
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