Bill,
When I was studying advanced Greek grammar, we called these
principles "first-year lies." Which is to say, in the first year profs
often over-simplify things, then have to go back and explain what's
really going on later. I don't know of a single case of the type you
describe in the NT; there are some of the reverse, such as Mark's
omnipresent "historic present," but that seems to be more a case of
one writer's idiolect than anything else. Outside the indicative mode,
it's possible that the "tenses" were aspect-based, though even this
can be questioned. In the indicative, however, as in Gen 1:1, the
present tense was not an option. Had the translator understood
some sort of "linear" aspect in addition to the past tense, s/he would
likely have used an imperfect. In the indicative, the aorist (as its
name suggests) is the simple past tense. In English I can say "I
went to the kitchen" or "I went to Paris" and only the context -
specifically the pragmatic fact that I live in Boise, Idaho, can tell a
listener that the latter event took much longer than the former.
Again, I recommend reading Stagg before making too many
sweeping comments about the aorist.
> Dave,
>
> Since the discussion is really about Gen. 1:1 I won't dwell on the finer
> points of Greek. And some real Greek scholar might correct me. And this
> comment does not really deal with the use of aorist in Gen. 1:1. However as
> far as Greek tenses are concerned they are less time specific than aspect
> specific. In other words the Greek writter used aorist in some cases
> because it was "punctiliar" rather than because it represented a "past"
> event. The use of the present tense in Greek more often meant an act in the
> present time that is in process. I believe there are cases in the New
> Testament at least where the writer used the aorist to express an event in
> "present time (at least to the mind of the English speaker)" with
> "punctilar" action.
>
> Bill Burks
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