What an interesting proposal. I do hope you pursue it. Ordinarily, the reference time for a present is the utterance time of the speaker, but with adverbials, this reference time-frame can be extended back into the past. English, on the other hand, prefers to use a perfect progressive form for such "extended now" constructions, but the verb "to be" does not take a progressive form, so a rendering would be a perfect "I have been."Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:But now some musings of my own. The best explanation to say that it's correct, normal grammar is the "extending from past" present (as Wallace names the category). The problem is that the clause is unlike the undisputed examples. There's no logic in that explanation. The deeper problem is that the EFPP category hasn't actually been researched very deeply and has been understood incorrectly, IMHO. I have been trying to write a some kind of essay or paper (very unofficial, never journal quality) about it, but it's in so bad shape that I don't want to publish it in any form. One of the biggest problems is that I don't have enough examples, so if anyone can find an EFPP in extrabiblical Koine literature I would be very thankful.
You might find Robertson's discussion of this helpful with good examples, though he unhelpfully rejects this reading for εἰμί in John 8:58:
(As Robertson does not have an "absolute" category in his explanation of the present tense, I don't find this comment helpful.)Robertson, pp. 879-880 wrote:(β) The Progressive Present. This is a poor name in lieu of a better one for the present of past action still in progress. Usually an adverb of time (or adjunct) accompanies the verb. Gildersleeve [n.318] calls it "Present of Unity of Time." Cf. ἐστὶν ἕως ἄρτι (1 Jo. 2:9). Often it has. to be translated into English by a sort of "progressive perfect" ('have been'), though, of course, that is the fault of the English. "So in modern Greek, ἑξῆντα μῆνας σ' ἀγαπῶ (Abbott, Joh. Gr., p. 222). The durative present in such cases gathers up past and present time into one phrase" (Moulton, Prol., p. 119). Cf. Ἰδοὺ τρία ἔτη ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἔρχομαι (Lu. 13:7); τοσαῦτα ἔτη δουλεύω σοι (15:29); πολὺν ἤδη χρόνον ἔχει (Jo. 5:6); τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν εἰμί (14:9); ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐστε (15:27); πάλαι δοκεῖτε (2 Cor. 12:19). Cf. ἀπὸ βρέφους οἶδας (2 Tim. 3:15). It is a common idiom in the N. T. Cf. 2 Pet. 3:4; 1 Jo. 3:8. In Jo. 8:58 εἰμί, is really absolute.
Wallace cites McKay's New Syntax, p.42, for this proposal but dismisses it for lack of parallels.