Here’s an excerpt from a section of my first year Greek notes that I’ve just revised. I’m taking a slightly different approach to the translation than tradition has followed. I’m basing this on aspectual considerations (cf. Porter and Campbell). What do you think?
The substantive difference between the present and imperfect forms is remoteness. The imperfect is a more remote form than the present. The imperfect may be logically, temporally, physically, focally, etc. remote compared with the present form. The imperfect often has a discourse function in narrative: it supplies background information, records dialogue, etc.
Here’s an illustration from a short passage in Mark. The main “storyline” verbs are marked in bold type (these sketch the basic events of the story) and the background details (the imperfect forms) are in italics.
Verbal Forms in Mark 2:1–4
When he had come back to Capernaum several days later,
it was heard
that he was at home.
Many were gathered together,
so that there was no longer room, even near the door;
He was speaking the word to them.
They came,
bringing to him a paralytic,
carried by four men.
Being unable to get to him because of the crowd,
they removed the roof
where he was
and when they had dug an opening,
they let down the pallet
on which the paralytic was lying.
Can you see how the imperfects are working here? The first tells us what Jesus was doing when the paralytic arrived: he was teaching. This isn’t the main point of the story, but it helps you understand the setting—it’s background information. The second imperfect fills in some more background information. The reader might assume the paralytic was still on the pallet, so it isn’t necessary to say so, but Mark tucks it in with the more remote imperfect form for clarity.
When this discourse function of backgrounding is recognized, it is not necessary to insist on the traditional translation, “I was loosing” (for ἐλυον). Doing so avoids two potential problems.
First, in English it is often more natural to translate with a simple “I loosed.” This is the same as the default aorist translation. Doing so precludes guessing the tense-form from the translation, but that is always precarious business anyway!
Second, it avoids confusing the semantics of verbal aspect with considerations that are more properly connected with Aktionsart. Too often it is assumed that an imperfect tense-form intends to describe an action that is extended in time. Although that is sometimes true, that may not be the point a Greek writer is making by selecting the remote imperfective aspect. It is true that imperfective aspect views a situation as a process, but by itself that says nothing about the actual nature of the situation. If instead we focus on the function of the tense-form, then we can ask, how is that said most naturally in English. If a writer intends a focus on the inceptive or ongoing nature of an action, then lexis or context are necessary adjuncts to communicate this.
As two examples of texts that I would not translate with -ing forms:
Mark 2:24, οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἔλεγον αὐτῷ· ἴδε τί ποιοῦσιν τοῖς σάββασιν ὃ οὐκ ἔξεστιν;
The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful?”
Mark 3:11, τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἀκάθαρτα…, προσέπιπτον αὐτῷ καὶ ἔκραζον … ὅτι σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
The unclean spirits…, fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”
Other texts may well use the -ing translation as most natural in English. E.g.,
Mark 1:21, εἰσπορεύονται εἰς Καφαρναούμ· καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν εἰσελθὼν (having entered) εἰς τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐδίδασκεν.
They went to Capernaum, then on the Sabbath, having entered the synagogue, he was preaching.
Dr. Decker,
Your approach makes sense to me, as a pastor who regularly reads Greek, but who is not a specialist.
Care to comment, in a similar vein, on the imperfect “elegen” at the beginning of Luke 23:34? Or its force, similarly, in Luke 23:42?
The former I’ve taken it in the past as iterative, with the connotation that Jesus mercy is so deep that he prays for his enemies not just once, but repeatedly.
Then again, in a quick BibleWorks review tonight of the uses of the same word elsewhere in Luke (a total of 19 times in Luke), sometimes that imperfect looks iterative, sometimes inceptive, and sometimes neither.
In the case of Luke 23:34, I don’t see how immediate context can give a definite answer. Your thoughts?
Thanks very much.
I’m not as certain about usage in Luke since I’ve not done much work there (I’m a Markan guy), but two comments. The first ref. you list (Lk 23:34) is most likely not original; the external evidence argues that strongly. Perhaps the usage of the impft here reinforces that; it doesn’t seem quite right–but perhaps I’m judging on Markan style again. Nor does the content of the statement fit the overall pattern of Jesus’ speaking from the cross, despite the obvious attractiveness of what he says (we want him to say this!). But I’m not a text critic either, so I’ll pass by that one without further comment.
As for 23:42, a possible factor re. the use of the impft. is the *contrast* with the use of the aor (multiple times) by the 2d thief. He speaks several specific statements of the sort that one would not likely repeat. *Perhaps* that allows us to consider the posibility that the words of the 1st thief were repeated, or that they are a summary of a string of invective he heaped on Jesus. That would make sense, but I’d hesitate to place much exegetical weight on such things apart from more indication in the context.
That, I think, is part of our battle; we want to make the text more specific than it is. We end up in what I call grammatical maximalism, placing too much weight on individual grammatical nuances. If something is not obvious from the context or explicit statements, I’m reticent to find a “golden nugget” in the use of a specific grammatical form by itself.