This is, in fact, one of the older queries that I had not already moved to
my own archives, and another that I thought someone else would surely deal
with before I got around to it.
In terms of Mari Olsen's conception of present and aorist tenses, I'm not
sure that there's an iota of difference between the two formulations.
Certainly there's not an iota of difference between the two formulations of
the subject:
hOS EXEI WTA =3D hO EXWN WTA
=46urthermore, in your earlier post, you asked if there was any intended
difference in the use of OUS (sg.) in one formulation and WTA (pl.) in the
other. I doubt it seriously, unless perhaps this might be one of those who
took to heart and transferred to his ears the Jesus-saying, "If thine eye
(ear?) offend thee, pluck it out!" ;-)
In terms of the traditional understanding of the difference between present
and aorist, I think we would say that AKOUETW means: "he should be begin
listening and continue listening," while AKOUSATW means: "he should be sure
to hear," the emphasis in the latter case being upon successful completion,
in the former on engagement in the process.
=46rankly, however, I'm somewhat dubious that we have anything more here tha=
n
a variant in Revelation of a formula already used in the gospels and
presumably a usage of Jesus himself.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/