Re: Future Perfect Paraphrastic

From: David Moore (dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us)
Date: Fri Nov 17 1995 - 13:55:08 EST


Bruce Terry <terry@bible.acu.edu> wrote:

>The most notable example of [future perfect paraphrastic] is in Matt. 16:19 where we
>find ESTAI DEDEMENON and ESTAI LELUMENON. The NASV translates these
>as future perfects in English "shall have been bound" and "shall have been loosed."
>Somewhere (for the life of me I cannot remember where) F.F. Bruce has written
>that such a translation misses the meaning of the Greek. Unfortunately, he does
>not go on to explain what that meaning is.

>This being the case, I would like to float another idea on B-Greek and see if
>it gets sunk.

>The basic significance of the perfect aspect (linguists should read "stative
>aspect") seems to be action which happens at a single point in time but which
>has continued results. This being the case the future perfect in Greek would
>signify action in the future that produces a continued state. By way of
>contrast, in English the future perfect is used for action which is past
>relative to a future point in time. If I have correctly described the
>significance of the Greek future perfect, a suitable English translation of
>the words above in Matt. 16:19 would be "shall stay bound" and "shall stay
>loosed."

        A look at Robertson's treatment of the perfect might be worthwhile
in deciding on the meaning of the perfect participles in this passage. On
p. 893 of his big grammar he says that the perfect may indicate
intensification of the action of the verb. He gives the example "OLLUMAI=
'I perish,' OLWLA= 'I perish utterly.' It has seemed to me for some time
that the perfect participles in Mat. 16:19 are best understood as
intensive. Nevertheless, Bruce's understanding them as expressing
enduring effect would amount to about the same thing in terms of meaning.
Besides, the more up-to-date grammars seem to go the latter route without
mentioning the former.

All the best,

David L. Moore Southeastern Spanish District
Miami, Florida of the Assemblies of God
dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Department of Education



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