How much should we ask of our students? (Mark 12:28)

The difference between an aorist participle and a present participle is that the present participle expresses an action as presently happening and the aorist participle doesn't express anything at all, neither time nor aspect, but only the fact of the action, since it is, by the very definition of the word, αοριστος, indefinite. Time and sequence are then assumed from the context, not the grammatical conjugation, so we know in Mark 12:28 and Matt 2:16 that these are past-time sequences because they are historical narratives. One thing you can ask of your students is to think for themselves, to read, read, read the Koine Greek as Koine Greek (not as translated English), not memorize, memorize, memorize paradigm tables and dictionary entries, and to develop critical thinking skills. Having studied Biblical Greek for so many years completely independent from seminary academia, I often cringe at the complications that I hear from the traditional academic sources. It seems as if English (or, previously, Latin) is thought of as the master language by which all other languages are evaluated, a bias easily seen from the days of Erasmus through the reformation era, up through today. Students should endeavor to get used to the flow of Koine Greek before translating. Then the student will understand what the writer wrote. Can he translate it? Maybe not properly. Will he generate "Yoda-talk"? It doesn't matter. What the original writer said is what is important. It is, after all, another language, and maybe you can't render it in English very well, or at least not properly. But so what? It is another language. So, why learn Koine Greek? It is so that we can understand the source as the original writer expressed it, without the burden of imposing the rules of the English language upon the Greek text. Or does seminary academia have as its ultimate goal the production of more translators to copyright and publish yet more English translations of the same New Testament? I hope not. We need to know what the Word of God says, so that we can understand and live our lives accordingly. That is the goal. Am I rogue for saying that no aorist intrinsically implies any time or aspect? A.T. Robertson certainly recognized and characterized it as such for what it was (even though he then proceeded to describe and elaborate upon all the usual complicating "aorist categories" anyway). A.E. Knoch wrote of it in his pamphlet, "The English and Greek Indefinite," and I credit this for tipping me off to the problem many years ago; Frank Stagg wrote of it in JBL 1972 (p. 222-31), and Charles R. Smith did the finest job I've seen of decomposing and debunking the collection of status quo aorist conglomerations in the article, ERRANT AORIST INTERPRETERS (Grace Theological Journal 2.2, Fall 1981). Someone uploaded that here: https://www.academia.edu/24380918/ERRANT_AORIST_INTERPRETERS So, what I am saying is not without credentialed academic precedent. Is it because of all the pilgrimages of teachers and students to modern-day Greece to learn δημοτική γλώσσα, not realizing that modern Greek evolved through centuries and centuries of European and Latin language influence? And, alas, the Reformation-era translators really didn't understand the problem that well either, from Erasmus onward. Let's face it: They were experts at Latin, novices at Greek. Or is it that keeping to the academic status quo is highest priority, harmonizing all the way back to Tyndale, so as not to rock the boat? Such a simple language, Koine Greek! So easy and straightforward it is to understand. Sure, it takes some getting used to, the different grammar and associated flow. But it is providentially elegant, specific, and unambiguous. That was by necessity anyway, as a result of Alexander's conquests. So, now they had the lingua franca to express the many timeless truths associated with the New Covenant, with a verb conjugation available to keep from turning everyone into a fatalistic Calvinist. But, alas, the English past tense, systematically and by rule applied to the aorist, does that. Just read Eph 1 and Rom 8:29-30 in your favorite English translation and see. Here's my favorite verse to ask of any student of Greek that I might happen to meet, who starts in on the aorist thing that they learned from their seminary professors: Col 1:23. Was the apostle Paul implying that the gospel had already been preached, at his time of writing, everywhere, including Japan, Australia, Alaska, South America, Hawaii? That's an aorist participle. As the rule you stated, reapplied to this, would have it, "Relative time means the aorist participle, κηρυχθεντος, indicates action occurring prior to the aorist ηκουσατε." So, when "was" the gospel preached the world over? The plain fact of the matter is that, because it is an aorist participle, it is not specifying time or completion but just the fact of the preaching of the gospel. The aorist participial phrase functions adjectivally, describing the gospel that they (without specifying time or completion) "hear." Therefore, it is the "preach-in-all-the-creation-the-under-the-heaven" gospel. Problem solved. Maybe untranslatable into formal English, but problem solved and easy to understand. And that's why we learn Greek. Not to translate into English yet again, but to understand what was said, so that we know the word of God. And there we have the resolution to a common Bible skeptic's question: Col 1:23 never stated that the gospel was preached everywhere the world over in the first century A.D. It never said that to begin with. Translations just made it look as though it did. For your examples of Mark 12:28 and Matt 2:16, in context, these are historical narratives, and that is the reason, the only reason, why each case is a sequence in the past, naturally rendered in English past tense, but not because of aorist participles and an aorist verb, which grammatically do not give any indication of past time or completion, either themselves or together. The original writers in this language described events in the past as though they were there observing them then in that past time. That's just frame of reference. We American English speakers actually sometimes do that informally, colloquially, in verbal speech ("So, I go down the street and meet this guy, and he looks at me funny and talks about this thing and that, so I tell him about Jesus..."), but not in formal English writing ("So, I went down the street, met this guy, and he looked at me in a funny way and talked about this thing and that, so I told him about Jesus..."). We use [implied aorist indicative] the sense of an implied aorist very commonly in American English. If I tell [implied aorist indicative] you right now, "I play [implied aorist indicative] the piano," that is the English simple present tense, yet you wouldn't assume [implied aorist subjunctive] that I am doing that right now, especially since, by necessity, my fingers are typing right now on a computer keyboard. Rather, it is the case that I claim [implied aorist indicative] to be [implied aorist infinitive] a piano player, without reference to time or completion of any of my piano-playing activity. As you see [implied aorist indicative] from the above, we use [implied aorist indicative] the English simple present tense to commonly express [implied aorist indicative] the same sense as the Greek aorist, yet few people give [implied aorist indicative] it a second thought. As a personal note, I have noticed that you rarely accept comments on your blog (you can edit this out if you post it, but I doubt you will post something this provocative, making the point moot). I imagine that now I have *reaally* done it, challenging a scholar of your standing and reputation by direct contradiction, and probably will earn a spot on your blacklist, if I haven't already. But, taking my example from Jesus and the apostles, the rogue fanatics they were, I cannot help it. In any case, we are all students of a greater Master, and I am always open to consideration of criticism and correction. I am certainly not a well-known celebrity or famous, but I am never anonymous, nor am I an internet troll. -- [email protected]