I recently posted at D33 regarding Koine Greek pronunciation. Check it out here.
Category: Greek Language/Linguistics
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I heard of a seminary professor somewhat recently who said (paraphrased) that verbal aspect was something interesting in the 1990s and early 2000s, but that trend (not sure if this was the word he used) has now kind of faded. This was heard through a secondary source, so it may not be entirely accurate. But if this is the thought among seminary professors, let alone Greek professors, this is sad. Sad because I think the majority of Greek teachers still haven’t wrestled with the implications of verbal aspect for exegesis and interpreting the Greek text. I don’t mean to come off as a snob or pretentious (maybe too late), but at the risk of offending lots of seasoned scholars whom I may have to interview with for a job sometime in the near future (because they obviously read this blog), this lack of engagement with verbal aspect is reflected in a lot of New Testament commentaries today, commentaries that expound the Greek text.
For those who might not be familiar with Greek verbal aspect, it is a way of viewing the Greek verbal system in terms of aspect rather than tense or Aktionsart (which is the German term meaning kind of action). Throughout a majority of church history, the Greek verbal system has been viewed in terms of tense–that is, that the tense-forms of Greek (aorist, present, perfect, etc) conveys primarily time of action. The English verbal system is predominantly a tense-based system (I run, I ran, I will run, etc). However, in the early 1900s, Greek scholars came to the conclusion that this way of looking at the Greek verb poses many problems; hence, they determined that Aktionsart is a better way to describe how the Greek verbal system functions. This paradigm is still predominantly taught in beginning Greek courses today, where the various tense-forms convey a kind or type of action. For example, we are taught that the aorist tense-form conveys complete, or (God forbid) punctiliar action; the present tense-form conveys continuous, durative action; the imperfect tense-form conveys continual action in past time; the perfect tense-form conveys completed action in past time; and so on and so forth.
However, this paradigm is not without its difficulties either. One example of this is seen in 1 Pet 2:17, where a string of four imperatives are given: πάντας τιμήσατε. τὴν ἀδελφίτητα ἀγαπᾶτε. τὸν θεὸν φοβεῖσθε. τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε (“Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king”). The interesting thing about this is that the first is in the aorist tense-form, while the second, third, and fourth commands are in the present tense-form. According to Aktionsart, this would mean that the first command is to be done once, while the rest are to be done continually. But that interpretation seems a bit odd, doesn’t it? (I will return to this in just a moment.) So, honor everyone only once, and continue to love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the king? While the second, third, and fourth interpretations seem unobjectionable, the first does. Honor everyone once?
In the perspective of verbal aspect, however, the tense-forms convey a particular aspect of the verb, it is the way the verb is conceived of by the writer and how he wants to convey the action being portrayed. It has nothing to do with how the action actually occurs; it is the way in which the writer portrays the action. Some scholars, like Buist Fanning and Constantine Campbell, talk about viewpoint, internal or external, and identify two aspects: perfective (external viewpoint) and imperfective (internal viewpoint). Others, like Stanley Porter and Rodney Decker, talk about three aspects: perfective (reflecting action as complete), imperfective (reflecting action in progress), and stative (reflecting action as a complex state of affairs). The perfective aspect is conveyed by the aorist tense-form; the imperfective aspect by the present and imperfect tense-forms; and the stative by the perfect and pluperfect tense-forms. A main difference between Aktionsart and verbal aspect, at least relative to this discussion, is that Aktionsart states that the kind of action is how it actually took place; verbal aspect states that the action is simply portrayed by the writer in this way without comment as to how it actually took place.
Going back to the example of 1 Pet 2:17, according to verbal aspect, this would mean that the first imperative is a general command, and the subsequent imperatives are more specific. It is not how the action is to be completed, but rather how the writer portrays this action in this discourse. So the command to “honor everyone” is general; the following “love the brotherhood,” “fear God,” and “honor the king” are specific ways in which the more general command is to be completed.
While I cannot go into much more depth regarding verbal aspect (I recommend as an introduction Porter’s Idioms of the Greek New Testament as a beginner’s guide; and I might need to follow this one up with another post), one can see the potential fruit that can be reaped for purposes of exegesis. There are far less difficulties associated with verbal aspect than Aktionsart, and I believe more accurately reflects the Greek verbal system. If interpreters of the New Testament are truly interested in learning the intended meaning of Scripture, they cannot ignore this crucial area of Greek grammar.
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I’m beginning a new series of posts geared towards seminary students and preachers in using their Greek New Testament in preparing sermons. I’m assuming here that knowing the original languages is important to proper sermon preparation. But it seems to me that many pastors seem to have “lost” their original languages since leaving seminary, or use their Greek to a minimal degree (such as limiting them to “word studies”; I’ll devote a full post to this later in this series). However, there is definitely much more to gain from reading and interpreting the Greek of the New Testament than simply “decoding” words or phrases. My objective is hopefully to stir up some potential readers who are engaged in preaching and teaching to use their Greek in a much more fruitful way than they have been doing already. Sometimes, pastors don’t know where to start–or rather, pick up from where they left off ten years ago. So I hope to encourage some of them to dust off their UBS or Nestle-Aland Greek editions (imperfect as they may be), or maybe even log onto http://www.codexsinaiticus.org, and gain insight from the Greek text in their sermon preparation. What I won’t do here is to write on how to preach, or how to build a sermon, or any other homiletic instruction. I simply offer advice on how to properly utilize the Greek of the New Testament when the preparer is doing the early part of exegesis on the passage they will be preaching on.
My first advice is broad–probably not immediately helpful, but certainly will be in the long run: know how the Koine Greek language functions. Greek is not English. I know that sounds basic and obvious, but many pastors seem to treat Greek like an “encoded” English, and if they do refer to Greek, it is simply to translate it into English or say that the Greek word really means such and such (it’s usually relegated to words). My advice is to know Greek the way one would know any other language. The only thing about it being a dead language is that no one speaks it anymore; but it was at one point a language that people spoke, wrote, and read. We have 27 books (as well as a bunch of documentary papyri, most of which still haven’t been translated), which is actually a lot for us to know how a language functions. So how do we know Greek? Read it. Read it a lot. I know most pastors may not have that sort of time, but I’d say start with whatever passage is targeted (it may be around 5-10 verses), and know that passage for that week. Five to ten verses in a given week after a year will have been 250-500 verses. That’s a lot of verses. Take your Tuesday and just focus on the Greek (develop your outline or whatever on Wednesday, but leave Tuesday to know the Greek). For the time being, forget about deciding what kind of genitive is being used (sometimes, these are not helpful categories), and just read and know the Greek. Note the word order, the presence or absence of articles, tense-forms (I’ll talk about this in my next post), whatever else. Use Logos or BibleWorks or whatever other computer software in the beginning to help you get over the hump (or if you don’t have one, your church should buy it for you!). One of my Greek professors in seminary advised us against using it, but I think it can be helpful, especially at the beginning. Whatever it takes, understand how Greek works. You will notice things that commentaries don’t typically mention (this also will be discussed in a later post, the role of commentaries in sermon prep).
For those who have been out of the game (the translating game, that is) for a number of years, it might be painful at first. It would be like going to the gym after 5 years of skipping out; but if one wants to get fit, one has to start somewhere. It might seem like a waste of time to be struggling over the Greek, but the preacher knows deep inside it is necessary and fruitful. So go ahead, “cheat” if you have to. But I think the fundamental task is not to look up a Greek word in a lexicon (anyone can do that! Plus, if you’re going to TDNT, that’s not really the best thing to do…; more on this in a future post). The fundamental task is for you to know Greek. And that just means (having considered you’ve taken at least 2 years of Greek) going back and reading it over and over. The main thing that separates preachers from parishioners is not that they are more spiritual or holier or more sanctified (although upstanding character is certainly important); the main thing is that they are better equipped to study and teach the Bible, which necessarily entails knowing the original languages.
So in conclusion… (I’m purposely using a bad homiletic device here), know Greek by reading Greek. The more you read, the more you know. Next up, I’ll post on this whole thing about verbal aspect and why it’s so profitable for interpreting the Greek text.
DISCOURSE 