Lars, could you please post this for me to b-greek? Thank you.
Dear Mr. Williams:
There is one reference you may consider in A.T.Robertson's "A Grammar of the
Greek New Testament - In the Light of Historical Research" on pp. 882, 883
regarding the aorist use of the imperfect EIMI, or HN. Robertson offers John 1:
1 as a possible example. This is under the subheading "Doubtful Imperfects,"
sometimes called "aoristic" imperfects. He says regarding the difficulty of
always distinguishing the aorist from the imperfect:
"The only justification for the term is that, as already shown in the
discussion of the aorist, it is not possible always to tell whether some forms
are aorist ind. or imper. ind. The same root was used in both forms, as only
one form existed and it is hard to tell which tense the form is. A certain
amount of obscurity and overlap existed from the beginning. We see this
difficulty in HN, EFHN, ELEGON, etc, particularly in verbs of saying,
commanding, etc. . . . Hence we need not insist that HN (Jo. 1:1) is strictly
durative always (imperfect). It may be sometimes actually aorist also."
Yours Truly,
Mitchell
Centennial Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses
Greenwood Village, CO