From: Paul S Dixon (dixonps@juno.com)
Date: Tue Dec 11 2001 - 15:26:55 EST
On Fri, 7 Dec 2001 18:33:56 -0600 "Carl W. Conrad"
<cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
> It MAY be overstating the case, but there's a common
> misunderstanding about
> the perfect tense in Koine that we've touched upon occasionally in
> this
> forum (and I hope this will also answer Harry Jones' question):
> students of
> Koine are commonly taught about the perfect tense what is actually
> truer--or more fundamentally true--of classical Attic than of Koine:
> that
> the perfect tense bears BOTH of two senses, DEDOULWTAI = "he/she/it
> HAS
> BEEN enslaved" and "he/she/it now stands enslaved."
Are you saying the classical Attic perfect maintains the double notion of
the perfect, while the Koine perfect does not, at least generally
speaking? In other words, are you saying we should expect both the
completed action with continuing results to the present in the Attic, but
not so in the Koine?
What I learned in my Koine studies is that the perfect tense does
communicate both ideas, but that the stress is usually on one or the
other. Hence, my first thought is to look for where the stress might
lie, either on the completed past action, or on the existing results.
Are you saying you don't do the same in the Attic?
Of course, there are times in the Koine when the stress does seem to be
on the whole (both the point and the line, so to speak). The perfect in
Jn 6:69, PEPISTEUKAMEN, flashes to mind as a fairly common example,
particularly of PISTEUW.
<snip>
> So yes, I may have overstated the case, but certainly in
> this
> instance what is in view is not negation of a completed act but
> negation of
> a condition in which the believer stands, or rather negation of an
> assertion that the believer stands in a condition of servile
> obligation.
This is interesting. If the perfect here is viewed as it is in the
Attic, then the negation would be on the whole thing, that is, it is not
so that she was enslaved and remains enslaved. Why not leave it
undefined from the perfect tense itself, then seek to ascertain via other
means whether the stress in on the completed action, on the existing
results, or on each one? There is a logical/mathematical parallel to
this (though I am not arguing from such): not (A and B) implies one of
the three possibilites:
1. not A, B
2. A, not B
3. not A, and not B
I would tend to agree with you that the stress or nuance on the perfect
in 1 Cor 7:15 is on the negation of the continuing results (hence, either
2 or 3 above). But, this says nothing about the completed past action,
that is, it says nothing about whether she was or was not enslaved
sometime previously.
Paul Dixon
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