Re: Matthew 23.2: EKAQISAN
Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:16:49 -0600
At 10:28 AM -0600 10/29/97, Mark Goodacre wrote:
>Matt. 23.2: EPI THS MWSEWS KAQEDRAS *EKAQISAN* hOI GRAMMATEIJ KAI hOI
>PARISAIOI
>
>How is the aorist being used here? This question has recently arisen
>on the Crosstalk list and I thought I would seek b-greek wisdom on
>it. Apparently Davies and Allison say that this is a 'Semitic
>stative perfect' -- i.e. it cannot be talking about a completed
>action in the past because of the context, 'Therefore do and keep all
>that they say to you . . .'
>
>Or is there another way of taking this? Some of the older
>commentaries, I note (W. C. Allen, Allan McNeile) take it as 'They
>used to sit on the seat of Moses . . .' But this does seem difficult
>in context.
Interesting; quite apart from the Semitic usage, it does strike me as an
instance of what has been said about the perfect tense in Hellenistic Greek
evanescing because it is increasingly subsumed in the aorist, so that the
aorist becomes a bearer of what was once more naturally expressed in the
perfect. Looked at that way, it becomes: "have taken their seat on the seat
of Moses."
I too will be interested to hear what others think.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
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