From: Jon Robertson (jmrober@pop6.ibm.net)
Date: Thu Oct 01 1998 - 06:25:13 EDT
Carl,
Yes, some examples would be in order. I was just being lazy! There
are actually a number in the book of Acts. To name just a couple:
Acts 23:35 - DIAKOUSOMAI SOU, EFH, hOTAN KAI hOI KATHGOROI SOU
PARAGENWNTAI KELEYSAS EN TWI PRAITWRIWI TOU hHRWIDOU FYLASSESQAI
AUTON
The question here is the temporal relation between when the governor
"said" (EFH) what is reported and when he commanded (KELEUSAS) Paul
to be kept in the Praetorium. While it is possible he did the
ordering first and then spoke to Paul, before he was led away, it
seems much more natural to take it in the opposite order, i.e. - he
spoke to Paul and then ordered him to be taken to the Praetorium.
This would mean that the action of the aorist participle took place
after the action of the main verb. Simultaneous action seems
impossible here.
Acts 25:13 - AGRIPPAS hO BASILEUS KAI BERNIKH KATHNTHSAN EIS
KAISAREIAN ASPASAMENOI TON FHSTON
In spite of several attempts I have come across, it seems to me
nearly impossible to understand that Agrippa and Berenice greeted
Festus before they came to Caesarea. Of course, sometimes the
action of an aorist participle can take place at the same time as
the main verb, explaining how the action of the main verb took place
(something like "he did (finite verb) this by doing (aorist
participle) this"), but this seems to really stretch the point here -
they arrived at Caesarea by greeting Festus?? Or that they
arrived simultaneously with greeting? Well, maybe... Again, the
aorist of subsequent action, if allowed, would give wonderful sense
- Agrippa and Berenice arrived at Caesarea and (then) greeted Festus.
Other examples to glance at are Acts 12:25 (where some translations
make the preposition EIS mean "from" to make sense out of an
aorist participle of antecedant action); 16:6,7; 23:27 (where we
could then take the tribune's words to mean exactly what is
previously described, rather than a "white lie"), and Luke 1:9. Acts
17:26 is also often cited, but theological concerns make it more
difficult to decide what is in mind. In all of these narratives, the
syntactical order seems to establish the narrative order. Porter,
in his Verbal Aspect, pp. 385-6 also cites a number of possible
extra-biblical cases. I came up with a couple of classical instances
he does not mention, but I don't have them at hand. (My work was
done in Chicago, I now am in Quito Ecuador and my somewhat "over
zealous" wife seems to have packed it in the boxes to stay...)
Robertson's treatment (in the BIG grammar) of the issue is (and I say
it with great reverence) quite cavalier and does not really answer
the issues, in my opinion (HTIB="humble though it be"). I would love
to hear a little more feedback on this!! Another interesting point
is that in all the possible cases the aorist participle comes after
the main verb (thus possibly setting up the relation between
syntactical order and narrative order). Also, in my study of aorist
participles in Acts (which conveniently I cannot produce at the
moment), I was surprised to find that aorists of contemporaneous
action actually outnumbered the aorists of antecedent action. Of
course, all of this has to do with the larger picture of verbal
aspect and how far the greek tenses grammaticalize (or not) temporal
ideas. I would prefer not to enter into that now and stay on the
issue of the meaning of these passages.
Jon Robertson
jmrober@ibm.net
--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:03 EDT