Re: Hair-splitting (was Tense of TETAGMENOI in Acts 13:48)

From: dixonps@juno.com
Date: Tue Jul 06 1999 - 17:20:08 EDT


On Tue, 6 Jul 1999 14:44:21 -0400 "Carl W. Conrad"
<cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> writes:

>>>To return to Acts 13:48 AKOUONTA DE TA EQNH ECAIRON KAI EDOXAZON TON
>>>LOGON TOU KURIOU KAI EPISTEUSAN hOSOI HSAN TETAGMENOI EIS ZWHN
AIWNION.
>>>My own diomatic version of this would be, "And as the Gentiles heard,
they
>>>went on to rejoice and to glorify the word of the Lord and those who
were
>>>destined for everlasting life came to believe." I'm translating HSAN
>>>TETAGMENOI as "were destined"; if it were ETACQHSAN, I'd be more
>>>inclined to translate it "had been destined." I think the aorist
emphasizes
>>>the completion of the act, whereas I think the pluperfect emphasizes
the
>>>status obtaining for those who believed.
>>
>>I like your translation very much. The intensive force of the perfect
is
>>carried, but a possible ambiguity is avoided by rendering the aorist
>>ingressively.
>
>Yes; moreover, I think that this understanding of the way aorist and
>pluperfect work in Koine (I can't really prove it, but I believe it)
helps
>explain the rarity of both the perfect and the pluperfect in Koine.
>The aorist has effectively assumed their functions in narrative and they

>are used, when they are used, more fundamentally to emphasize that
>existing result.

Would you suspect then that the ratio of perfects/aorists in Classical
Greek
is higher than in the Koine? Would this also suggest the ratio of
consummative
aorists/constative aorists is greater in the Koine? My feel for the
aorists in the
Greek NT is that the vast majority are constative and relatively few are
ingressive
or consummative. Is it even less so in the Classics?

Paul Dixon

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