Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Barry <nebarry AT verizon.net>]

On 9/26/2013 12:45 PM, C L wrote:

I love talking about Greek on this list... :)

> Regarding your questions about aorist verbs in Greek Isaiah 44:24: The
> aorist forms in Greek are timeless. Often, the aorist is correctly
> translated as past-tense because it refers aspectually to events that
> are viewed as complete (or punctiliar, as a snapshot, etc.). The past
> tense is a tidy way of expressing complete events in English, since the
> present and future tenses are essentially aspectually incomplete or
> irrealis.

> Therefore, it is completely appropriate for a Greek aorist verb to
> express present tense for a simple, aspectually unmarked event.
>
> Dan Wallace discusses this at length, with very helpful examples, in
> Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 554-555. On page 556, he describes the
> gnomic use of the aorist, which seems to fit the usage you depict in
> Isaiah 44:24.

I think you misunderstand what Wallace is saying. If I may paraphrase 
his grammar-speak, the aorist views the action as simple action, rather 
than as a process (imperfect) or in terms of completion (perfect). With 
regard to the aorist indicative, this means that the action is viewed as 
taking place in the past (from the point of view the speaker or writer 
of the text, or represented as so from the point of view presented in 
the text). The aorist indicative is the normal narrative past tense verb 
(we see it all over the place in this unspecialized usage). If I were 
simply to read this text with no reference to this discussion, and 
unaware that it's translation literature:

Οὕτως λέγει Κύριος ὁ λυτρούμενός σε καὶ πλάσσων σε ἐκ κοιλίας Ἐγὼ Κύριος 
ὁ συντελῶν πάντα, ἐξέτεινα τὸν οὐρανὸν μόνος, καὶ ἐστερέωσα τὴν γῆν.

Thus says the Lord, the one redeeming you and forming you from the womb, 
"I am the Lord, the one completing all things. I alone stretched out the 
the heaven, and I made firm the earth."

I would find it normal and natural to translate these as ordinary aorist 
indicatives expressing past action, particularly since the description 
of what God has done in the past supports the description of God's 
actions in terms of the present participles. The gnomic aorist, which 
"is used to present a timeless, general fact," doesn't seem to fit at all.

> The verbs in the Masoretic Text of Isaiah 44:24 are participles: I, Y",
> am the MAKER (ptcp) of all, STRETCHER [of] the heavens, BEATER
> (EXTENDER) of the Earth."
>
> Or you could take the participial construction as progressive: "I am the
> one MAKING/DOING all, STRETCHING the heavens, BEATING OUT the Earth."

The LXX author took them as substantive participles, describing God in 
terms of his activity. As such, the aspect of the participle is not in 
view so much as the fact that God does these things.


--
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Semper melius Latine sonat


All opinions in this email are my own, and
reflect no institution with which I may be
associated