Frequency of Historical Present Luke-Acts

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Mon Apr 13 1998 - 10:34:04 EDT


A small note on the frequency of the use of the historical present in
Luke-Acts.

Fanning (on p238-39 of Verbal Aspect) states that the historical present is
extremely rare in Luke-Acts. In Luke it occurs 11 times but 8 of these are
verbs of speaking. Historical presents with verbs of speaking are a somewhat
stereotyped expression. For Acts Fanning gives 13 occurrences where 11 are
verbs of speaking. So in all of Acts there are only two occurrences of the
historical present which are not verbs of speaking. hEURISKEI in Acts 10:27 is
one of these two.

Note that Fanning *cites Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, pp143-9 for these
statistics.

*Note my use of the historical present.

-- 
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062


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