[B-Greek] Mission Creep (Was Gnomic Subjunctive Aorist? (was Aorist Subjunctive in 1 Jn 1:9)
=)
p1234567891 at gmail.com
Tue Apr 5 23:41:34 EDT 2011
Dear Mark,
Indeed I agree, that is why I would rather have considered an aorist to be
simply indefinite and an aorist subjunctive to be simply an indefinite
possibility, therefore any other "sense" must be implied by the context and
not the verb tense. And I think that is what Alastair, you and I all agree
on. Perhaps we simply have slightly different opinions on contextual signs
that indicate the "gnomic sense", that's all. In fact, I would render 1 Pet
1:24-25 as "inasmuch as all flesh [is] as grass and all glory of man [is] as
[a] flower of grass. the grass withered and its flower fell off, but the
word of [the] lord remains into the age..." because it may be possible that
the author meant to convey a distinction, between the grass having withered
and its flower having fallen off, though not necessarily in the past, and
the word of the lord remaining, though not necessarily in the present only.
I would of course agree, however, that considering the first part of verse
25 to be a generic truth of flesh and man's glory is also possible. I am
just generally less inclined to see "generic" statements. =)
Regards,
David Lim
On 6 April 2011 10:15, Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi, David and Alastair,
>
> I may be missing something, but the only reason we need the term "gnomic
> aorist" is because, at least from the English way of looking at things,
> proverbs are expected to be in the present. That they are sometimes in the
> aorist indicative seems a little strange, so we have invented a grammatical
> category to make understanding this part of Greek a little easier. So far,
> so good.
>
> But in the subjunctive, as with infinitives and maybe participles, the
> aorist is the default aspect. An aorist does not have to be explained. I
> don't remember the question that started this thread, but I think Carl
> answered it okay. But what he should have said is, you have to explain an
> progressive subjunctive; an aorist subjunctive is by definition unspecified
> and needs no further label.
>
> What has happened here is what I call meta-language mission creep. These
> terms were invented, presumably, to do some good in helping us learn a
> language. But then the discussion becomes about the terms themselves, and
> you get a Wallace-like quagmire far removed from the original mission with
> no exit strategy. I'm sure you can find an aorist subjunctive with a gnomic
> force, because any language is capable of expressing anything. But to call
> an aorist subjunctive "gnomic" is like putting the label "fat free" on a
> pack of cigarettes.
>
> Or, am I missing something again?
>
> Mark L
> Φωσφορος
>
> FWSFOROS MARKOS
>
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