No; the pluperfect is used to indicate completion or a state achieved at a
point PRIOR to some point in the past. Now in John 19:33, where we read
hWS EIDON HDH AUTON TEQNHKOTA,
I think we might translate it into an English pluperfect ("When they saw
that he had already died") although I'd prefer to translate it as an
English simple past ("When they saw that he was already dead")--because I
believe what we have here is a simple stative usage. In Mark 15:44 we have
something a bit different: an indirect question where the rule requires the
subordinate clause to be in the same tense as the direct citation:
PILATOS EQAUMASEN EI HDH TEQNHKEN
This COULD be translated into English as "Pilate wondered if he had already
died"--as an English pluperfect, but again, in my opinion, the verb is
really stative and, when converted into normal English, would be "Pilate
wondered whether he was already dead."
So, in my opinion the HDH in both instances is used adverbially with the
stative force of the perfect participle and perfect indicative
respectively. Rod Decker might want to comment on this, however, because
this goes to the heart and soul of his dissertation, particularly the use
of HDH with a verb form in Mark.
These passages nicely illustrate, I think it's worth adding, the imperative
of understanding the mechanics of both the original and the target language
when translating--because each has a different strategy for expressing a
particular kind of notion.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
--- b-greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek To post a message to the list, mailto:b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, mailto:subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu To unsubscribe, mailto:unsubscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu?subject=[grammateus@sunsite.unc.edu]