From: Paul F. Evans (evans@wilmington.net)
Date: Mon Nov 23 1998 - 07:47:35 EST
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<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>List,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Help me out here. I am really afraid to ask this
question for fear of striking up a re-ignition of the great aspect discussion of
'96! However, I am interested in an opinion.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>In taking basic first year Greek I was told that the aorist
was a punctilliar (spelled correctly?) tense signifying past action completed in
the past. However, after many years of NT study (I should know more), I
have come across many grammars that bill the aorist as the generic tense which
says nothing particular about the action it describes. The theory seems to
be that if the writer wished to say something special about the action of a verb
he would choose a tense other than the aorist. Obviously I have discovered
that the aorist is only a past tense in the indicative or imperative moods.
</FONT><FONT size=2>If the aorist is a a punctilliar tense, describing
past completed action, it would be little different from the prefect, because
obviously done is done and the results would persist.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>My question is whether the aorist is a sort of generic tense
which describes nothing special about the action of the verb, and whether it is
true that a writer would choose another tense when he wanted to specify
something specific in that sense.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>If this is a dumb question forgive me! Only, I
come across a significant body of literature that makes much about the use of
the aorist for its theology and others who discount such (I am interested only
in discussing the nature of the aorist here).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Paul & Loala Evans</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Wilmington First Pentecostal Holiness
Church</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>E-mail: <A
href="mailto:evans@wilmington.net">evans@wilmington.net</A><BR>Web-page: <A
href="http://wilmingtonfirst.churches.wilmington.org/">http://wilmingtonfirst.churches.wilmington.org/></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>