[B-Greek] Semantic Features and Rhetorical Use of the Greek Perfect

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun Mar 7 16:44:04 EST 2010


On Mar 7, 2010, at 7:42 AM, yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net wrote:

> As is well known perfect tense is said to imply the completion of an action. Forgive my made-up Greek sentence: ‘συνπέπτηκεν ἡ γέφυρα’ "the bridge has collapsed" implies both something that happened rather recently and that it is still in a state of disrepair – a natural context would be in a sentence that continued ἀνάγκη οὐν ἡμῖν ἐστί περιπορεύεσθαι διὰ τὴν ὁδόν τὴν μακρότεραν  "so we will have to go the long way around’, i.e. stressing the present consequences. (This may be the way the Greek perfect was often used: to emphasize the present results/consequences of past actions.)   Cf. Mk 8:6 ὁ παῖς μου βέβληται ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ παραλυτικός, δεινῶς βασανιζόμενος.  


Yancy,

I spent some time looking at the grammars (sans Wallace and Porter, the fathers of confusion) to see what they would say about the perfect. Most of what you have said here would found in one or more of the standard reference works of the last 120 years. I was particularly looking for a statement about "permeant result" as semantic property associated with the perfect form. I found it in H.W. Smyth, #1852b "... completed action with permanent result." At first glance this appears to exonerate J.R.W. Stott in regard to his reading of 1Jn 4:2. However, a glance at the examples in Smyth raises further questions. 

#1852.b.1
GEGRAFA EPISTOLHN  I have written a letter

HNQHKE has bloomed (and is in flower)

The first example, denotes a "completed action with permanent result" and calls to mind Pilate's words Jn 19: 22 ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Πιλᾶτος· ὃ γέγραφα, γέγραφα. 22 APEKRIQH hO PILATOS· hO GEGRAFA, GEGRAFA.

The second example isn't very obvious. Being "in flower" is proverbially a transient state, not a permanent one. I suspect that Smyth probably intends us to understand the state as continuing until the time of speaking which is a different notion of permanence than what J.R.W. Stott suggested (tentatively) 1Jn 4:2. 


Elizabeth Kline
 

 




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