Re: Tense in non-indicative moods

From: Kenneth Litwak (kenneth@sybase.com)
Date: Sun Dec 03 1995 - 23:57:44 EST


Rod, it's not that I have problems with Porter challenging the status quo,
a practice I think is quite healthy, as one can gather from my postings.
Rather, I'm having trouble grasping what it is Porter is saying, and he seems
to be taking a reductionist postion that anyh tense will do and any mood
will do because there aren't any significant distinctions between them.
That may well be a flaw in my understanding of what he is saying, but
I'm fairly clear on the point about the non-indicative moods. He definitely
seems to evacuate the imperative of nay distinction between the
present and aorist, as he does the subjunctive. That's not just
oging against the status quo, it makes virtiually every work on have on
my shelves, from Machen to BDF for grammars, to all the NIGNT or
Cambridge Greek commentaries to even the Hermeneia or Anchor Bible comm.s
I have essentially grammatical doggeral as far as interpreting the
Greek syntax goes. Since Porter is telling me the4 old way of lookin at
things is incorrect, and I don't see him putting a idstinction inn its
place that I can grasp well enough to apply, I've got nothing.
Any tense/mood can mean annyting.

Ken Litwak
GTU
Bezerkely, CA



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