From: Hultberg, Alan (alan_hultberg@peter.biola.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 11 1998 - 11:58:22 EST
_______________________________________________________________________________
>From: wross on Fri, Dec 11, 1998 3:17 AM
>Subject: RE: 2 Peter 1:20
>To: Biblical Greek
>
>{Bill}
>>* shouldn't GINETAI be translated "is becoming", as opposed to "has come"?
>
>{Alan}
>GINETAI is apparently used here in a gnomic (or atemporal--I think Porter
>and the aspecters would say) sense here. So not "prophecy is (now presently)
>becoming..." but "prophecy (regularly) comes about (at whatever it does come
>about)..." (To others [Carl?]: I wouldn't take GINOMAI here as a copula;
>would you and why?)
>
>{Bill}
>Well, certainly "was" should be ruled out, no? The reference is definitely
>not referring to the prophets of old doing the becoming or occurring in any
>way. It is something contemporary that the prophecy (or rather, every
>prophecy) is (not) doing. Every prophecy of Scripture is not becoming its
>own de-knotter.
>
I wouldn't read the Greek in those terms.
1) The gnomic (maybe Porter's term was "timeless"?) idea is well-served by the
general statement, "No prophecy [i.e., whether in the past, present or future]
ever comes about by these means..."
2) The Greek present *tense* need not refer to present *time*, depending on
the context. If Peter is refering to the production of the OT prophetic
scriptures, then it is valid to translate the gnomic GINETAI into English as
"[No prophecy] *came* about ..." That is, the present tense of GINETAI
certainly does _not_ preclude such a reference in itself. If Peter is
refering to present interpretation of the prophetic scriptures, then GINETAI
could be translated as a present tense in English. The point being, context,
not the tense of GINOMAI, will resolve the dilemma
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