Jason Hare wrote:Well and good, and I would agree with your discussion (not something I wasn't already aware of). So, explain how this general picture applies to the specific parallel accounts that I mentioned above. That's what the question is about.
I had hoped that would already be self evident...
Okay. What I'm saying is this.
The kind of statement here in Barry's post, which essentially concludes the same thing you did, Jason, if your own post a few back is wrong:
Barry Hofstetter wrote:Any implications about the continuing or non-continuing nature of the action would have to be supplied from context.
The aspectual distinction does not disappear. Aspectual implications are
always always always present. But it's also wrong because its the
wrong aspectual implication. The Greek imperfective, whether indicative, imperative, participle, infinitive, etc,
does not denote ongoing situations. It expresses
incomplete situations. But its always there, even in substantival participles. What in the world is the point in having a choice between two forms if you can't use them?
Any substantive present participle is likely either going to be habitual or gnomic. Any substantive aorist participle is going to be constative or gnomic. And all of those are going to be translated the same way into English. That doesn't mean there's not a difference.
All contrastive grammatical categories involve one of three options in their usage:
More Examples wrote:1) There only one possible option and the alternative is ungrammatical.
a. This bottle contains two pints of milk (grammatical).
b. *This bottle is containing two pints of milk (ungrammatical).
2) There are multiple options, but each conveys a notably different proposition (my examples 1-4 in my previous post are of this type).
a. Sally sleeps in the room next door (grammatical, marks the propositions as being habitual, but makes no claim about whether Sally is sleeping right now).
b. Sally is sleeping in the room next door (grammatical, marks the proposition as a current, ongoing situation regardless of whether she regularly sleeps there).
3) There are multiple options, but each the propositional content remains unchanged.
a. I had a chat with him the other day (grammatical, x happened in the past).
b. I was having a chat with him the other day (grammatical, same propositional content--x happened in the past--but with a subtle difference in conceptualization).
Substantival participles always involve the third type of contrastive relationship. But its still there. It is
not supplied by the context. But because it marks no significant change to the proposition the difference is far more difficult to see by the non-native speaker.
So, let's look at your examples...
Mt 13:18-23 wrote:Ὑμεῖς οὖν ἀκούσατε τὴν παραβολὴν τοῦ σπείραντος. παντὸς ἀκούοντος τὸν λόγον τῆς βασιλείας καὶ μὴ συνιέντος ἔρχεται ὁ πονηρὸς καὶ ἁρπάζει τὸ ἐσπαρμένον ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν σπαρείς. ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων καὶ εὐθὺς μετὰ χαρᾶς λαμβάνων αὐτόν, οὐκ ἔχει δὲ ῥίζαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἀλλὰ πρόσκαιρός ἐστιν, γενομένης δὲ θλίψεως ἢ διωγμοῦ διὰ τὸν λόγον εὐθὺς σκανδαλίζεται. ὁ δὲ εἰς τὰς ἀκάνθας σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων, καὶ ἡ μέριμνα τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ ἡ ἀπάτη τοῦ πλούτου συμπνίγει τὸν λόγον καὶ ἄκαρπος γίνεται. ὁ δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν καλὴν γῆν σπαρείς, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων καὶ συνιείς, ὃς δὴ καρποφορεῖ καὶ ποιεῖ ὃ μὲν ἑκατόν, ὃ δὲ ἑξήκοντα, ὃ δὲ τριάκοντα.
Here Matthew present Jesus as making atemporal, true for all time, gnomic statements:
Anyone who hears...
Anyway who hears...
Lk 8:11-15 wrote:Ἔστιν δὲ αὕτη ἡ παραβολή· Ὁ σπόρος ἐστὶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ. οἱ δὲ παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν εἰσιν οἱ ἀκούσαντες, εἶτα ἔρχεται ὁ διάβολος καὶ αἴρει τὸν λόγον ἀπὸ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, ἵνα μὴ πιστεύσαντες σωθῶσιν. οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς πέτρας οἳ ὅταν ἀκούσωσιν μετὰ χαρᾶς δέχονται τὸν λόγον, καὶ οὗτοι ῥίζαν οὐκ ἔχουσιν, οἳ πρὸς καιρὸν πιστεύουσιν καὶ ἐν καιρῷ πειρασμοῦ ἀφίστανται. τὸ δὲ εἰς τὰς ἀκάνθας πεσόν, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἀκούσαντες, καὶ ὑπὸ μεριμνῶν καὶ πλούτου καὶ ἡδονῶν τοῦ βίου πορευόμενοι συμπνίγονται καὶ οὐ τελεσφοροῦσιν. τὸ δὲ ἐν τῇ καλῇ γῇ, οὗτοί εἰσιν οἵτινες ἐν καρδίᾳ καλῇ καὶ ἀγαθῇ ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον κατέχουσιν καὶ καρποφοροῦσιν ἐν ὑπομονῇ.
Here, Luke present Jesus as making simple declarations/constative statements. This is particularly clear in how Luke has Jesus presenting the explanation, "There is the parable."
The change from present to aorist does not change the propositional content of any of the participles. It's a small, subtle distinction. We have a tendency to always conclude that if a difference in form doesn't noticeably change the proposition (as in my example 2a-b above), then there much not be a distinction. It is 100% clear that even when there's no propositional change in two English examples, there is still a subtle difference in the presentation of the event that varies on the basis of aspect (my examples 3a-b). Why should it not be the same for Greek.
Here in Matthew and Luke, there is a difference between substantival present and aorist participles, but:
(1) It is a quite subtle difference.
(2) It is untranslatable in to English because the same English form is used for both means.