[B-Greek] Hebrews 1:3-4 participles and verb aspect

John Sanders jfs at jfsanders.com
Sat Mar 10 08:10:02 EST 2007


Although I am not an verbal aspect type fellow, at least not how aspect is 
usually presented (can I say the “classic form” of aspect), I have some 
qualms about the use of tense (time) in thes verses, though.  I think that 
the association of tense (time) with each verb is a modern conceit.  That 
does not mean that tense is not there, it can be extracted when required.  I 
define the present tenses as “on-going” and the past tenses as some form of 
“existence”.  The future tenses are time encoded.

So when is time required?  When there is some sequence of events identified. 
  Let me give an example of my thinking.  If I say that the square of the 
hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares two adjoining sides, the verb 
“is” does not convey any sense of time.  I am saying that time is not part 
of the matrix of this conversation at all.  Euclid uses ISON ESTI for my “is 
equal”, if anyone is interested.

So I am looking at these two verses, and I see two present participles, an 
aorist participle, and aorist verb, an aorist participle and a perfect verb. 
  So the Son is being, carrying, both in the on-going aspect, he made clean, 
meaning the cleaning exists, he sits, meaning his sitting exists, he became, 
meaning his becoming exists, and he inherited, meaning that the inheriting 
has already occurred but still continues.  I see no need to have any time 
frames at all.  I see no need to sequence these events at all.

John Sanders
Suzhou, China

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