The Present Indicative in New Testament Exegesis: Battle

THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN

NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS

John A. Battle, Jr.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Theology in

Grace Theological Seminary

May, 1975

Please report any errors to Ted Hildebrand at: ted.hildebrandt@gordon.edu

Accepted by the Faculty of Grace Theological Seminary

in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree

Doctor of Theology

Grade A

Examining Committee

James L. Boyer

Homer A. Kent

Charles R. Smith

PREFACE

The study of the Greek New Testament is perhaps the most rewarding

and exhilarating task possible. But this study requires exegetical tools.

The syntax of Greek verb tenses stands at the center of accurate exegesis,

and this grammatical tool must be formed and sharpened by inductive study

of New Testament usage.

It has been this writer's happy task to seek to define more

closely the value of the Greek present indicative verb. He wishes to

thank all those who have assisted in this effort. First of all, thanks

are due to Dr. James L. Boyer, the chairman of the examining committee,

and to its other members, Dr. homer A. Kent, Jr., and Dr. Charles R. Smith,

for their patient and expert advice at several important points. Also,

thanks are due to Dr. John C. Whitcomb, Jr., who directs the Postgraduate

Division of Grace Theological Seminary, for his help and encouragement

throughout the entire program. In addition, this author wishes to express

his gratitude toward several of his colleagues in the faculty of Faith

Theological Seminary who have assisted with their advice, help, and per-

sonal libraries: Dr. A. Franklin Faucette, Dr. Stephen M. Reynolds, Dr.

Sang Chan Lee, and Dr. Richard C. Curry. But the one person who has

helped the most deserves special thanks, the author's wife, Tammie. In

addition to spending many, many hours in difficult work, she has always

been an inspiration and encouragement during this paper's preparation.

Of course, our chief gratitude must be directed to the One who inspired

the New Testament, and of whom it speaks.

It is this author's hope that this study of the present indicative

will shed more light on the New Testament. Julius R. Mantey has advised,

"I trust in your dissertation you will cite several examples in the New

Testament where the present tense functions remarkably well in exegesis,

so much so that its readers would be deprived of much insight if it were

not used" (personal letter, September 13, 1974). Indeed, if the reader

will more thoroughly appreciate the meaning of the New Testament, this

paper's purpose will be fulfilled.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES ix

PART I. INTRODUCTION

Chapter

I. THE PLACE OF TENSE IN GREEK

The Importance of Tense in Exegesis 1

Common Misunderstanding of Tense 4

Modern Translation Approach of Eugene A. Nida 7

Complexity of the Present Indicative 16

Aktionsart and Aspect 18

II. THE PLAN OF ATTACK 24

An Inductive Approach 24

Method of Procedure 26

Summary of the Study's Results 28

III. THE FREQUENCY OF THE PRESENT INDICATIVE 30

Total Occurrences 30

Present Indicative Frequency 35

Doubtful Cases 41

Morphological Note on Movable Nu 42

PART II. PRESENT INDICATIVE EXEGESIS

I. THE USAGE CATEGORIES 45

Traditional Usage Classifications 45

Proposed Classifications 49

II. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN PRESENT TIME 53

Progressive Present 53

The Verb "To Be" 56

Chapter Page

The Question of Aoristic Presents 58

Declarative Present 61

Customary Present 63

Abstract Present 68

Perfective Present 75

The Present in Kingdom Passages 81

Conclusion for Presents in Present Time 84

III. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN PAST TIME 85

Historical Present Frequency 85

Synoptic Comparison 90

The Zero Tense Controversy 107

Relevant New Testament Data 117

Exegesis of the Historical Present 130

Otter Past Time Usages 135

Conclusion 137

IV. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN FUTURE TIME 138

Futuristic Present Frequency 138

Futuristic Present Vocabulary 142

Futuristic Present Aspect 149

Futuristic Present Exegesis 151

Present for Immediate Future 154

Conclusion 157

V. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN RELATIVE TIME 159

Relative Present 159

Indirect Present 160

VI. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN CONDITIONAL SENTENCES 163

Present of the Protasis 163

Other Uses with Ei] 172

Present of the Apodosis 173

Conclusion 179

PART III. CONCLUSION

The Problem of the Present Indicative 181

Suggested Solution 183

The Limits of Syntax 184

APPENDIX A. PRESENT INDICATIVE VERB CLASSIFICATION 186

vii

Page

APPENDIX B. TIE MOVABLE NU IN MATTHEW 245

APPENDIX C. HISTORICAL PRESENT CONTEXT 246

APPENDIX D. PRESENT OF THE PROTASIS 252

BIBLIOGRAPHY 256

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Present Indicatives per Chapter 30

2. Present Indicatives per Book 34

3. Present Indicatives per 100 Words 35

4. Present Indicatives per 100 Verb Forms 39

5. Present Indicative Preference by Book 40

6. Present Indicative Preference by Author 40

7. Progressive Present Frequency 55

8. Declarative Presents 61

9. Customary Presents 67

10. Abstract Presents 74

11. Perfective Present 81

12. Historical Present Frequency 86

13. Synoptic Historical Presents 93

14. Synoptic Historical Present Figures 104

15. Historical Present Vocabulary 119

16. Historical Present Verb Types 122

16A. Verb Type Percentages 123

17. Historical Present Contexts 126

18. Historical Present Connections 127

19. Futuristic Present Frequency 138

20. Futuristic Present Vocabulary 142

21. Present for Relative Time 161

Table Page

22. Protasis Present Frequency 165

23. Apodosis Present Frequency 176

PART I. INTRODUCTION

I. THE PLACE OF TENSE IN GREEK

The verb is the center of the sentence. Verbs turn mere phrases

into clauses. They supply the heart, the force of the sentence. Accu-

rate exegesis must begin with the verb.

The two primary features of verb syntax are mood and tense. This

paper will deal exclusively with the indicative mood. Within that mood

Biblical Greek has at least six tenses: present, imperfect, future,

aorist, perfect, and pluperfect.¹ Each of these tenses carries with it

an exegetical background and flavor, implications and associations which

belong to that tense alone.² The exact force of these tenses is still

highly debated. One of them, the present tense, especially has become

the object of recent inquiry and discussion. This paper shall concen-

trate on that single tense, the present indicative.

The Importance of Tense in Exegesis

The Bible student has a special interest in Greek exegesis. The

New Testament in Greek is God's last direct revelation to His people,

inspired and inerrant. Each word reflects the meaning that God intended.

¹ For the few possible NT examples of the non-periphrastic future

perfect, see A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the

Light of Historical Research (hereinafter referred to as Grammar; Nashville:

Broadman Press, 1934), pp. 906-07.

² Ibid., p. 822: "In the beginning the verb-root was used with

personal suffixes. At first this was enough. Some verbs developed some

tenses, others other tenses, some few all the tenses."

Whatever meaning can be extracted from a passage's syntax will be true,

useful, and profitable (2 Tim. 3:16).

The exegesis of the tenses stands at the center of such study.

No element of the Greek language is of more importance to the student

of the New Testament than the matter of tense. . . . Though it is an

intricate nd difficult subject, no phase of Greek grammar offers a

fuller reward. The benefits are to be reaped only when one has invested

sufficient time and diligence to obtain an insight into the idiomatic

use of tense in the Greek language and an appreciation of the finer

distinctions in force.¹

This attitude springs from the conviction that the various authors selected

their tenses purposefully.

It is certainly unsafe, however, to proceed upon any supposition other

than that he New Testament writer used the tense which would convey

just the idea he wished to express. This is the rule, and all seeming

exceptions are to be regarded with doubt.²

While ample provision must be allowed for individual variations of style,

as this paper will demonstrate, it should be assumed that each author em-

ployed tenses in accordance with general usage and propriety.

Further, traditional grammarians have assumed that each tense had

its own distinct usage and force, and that one could not be switched with

another without changing the flavor or even the meaning of the passage.

One hundred years ago Alexander Buttmann defended the distinct meaning of

each tense:

In the use of the Tenses the N.T. writers are by no means deficient

in the requisite skill. Consequently the so-called Enallage Temporum

or Interchange of Tenses, which was applied by some of the older inter-

preters of Scripture often and indiscriminately, is to be opposed

¹ H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New

Testament (hereinafter referred to as Manual Grammar; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927). p. 177.

² Ibid.

on behalf of the N.T. language at the outset, and discarded on

principle.¹

A. T. Robertson, with characteristic care and caution and historical aware-

ness, likewise emphasizes the unique aura of each tense:

The point here is not whether the Greeks used an aorist where we

in English would use a perfect, but whether Greeks themselves drew no

distinction between an aorist and a perfect, a present and a future.

It is not possible to give a categorical answer to this question when

one recalls the slow development of the Greek tenses and the long his-

tory of the language. . . . It is a very crude way of speaking to say

that one tense is used "for" another in Greek. That would only be true

of ignorant men. In general one may say that in normal Greek when a

certain tense occurs, that tense was used rather than some other because

it best expressed the idea of the speaker or writer. Each tense,

therefore, has its specific idea. That idea is normal and can be

readily understood. Various modifications arise, due to the verb it-

self, the context, the imagination of the user of the tense. The result

is a complex one, for which the tense is not wholly responsible. The

tenses, therefore, are not loosely interchangeable. Each tense has a

separate history and presents a distinct idea. That is the starting-

point.²

Thus, from the traditional view at least, the study of Greek tenses should

bear rich fruit for Bible students.

The use of the Tenses is a most important subject for the exegesis of

the NT. The student cannot learn too soon that the tenses are used

with absolute accuracy by the NT writers, and he will soon realise

how much is lost in meaning by inexactness.³

On the other hand, if traditional grammarians have been mistaken, if in

certain situations certain tenses are indeed interchangeable, then should

not the exegete be aware of that fact? In fact, by making artificial and

arbitrary distinctions, would not the interpreter, teacher, or preacher

¹ Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, tr. by J. H. Thayer

(Andover: Warren F. Draper, Publisher, 1873), p. 195.

² Robertson, Grammar, pp. 829-30.

³ James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, Vol. I:

Prolegomena (3 d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908), p. 186.

be adding his own ideas to the Scripture and obscuring God's intended

meaning? Thus, in either case, the study of Greek tenses is vital for New

Testament exegesis.

Common Misunderstanding of Tense

Perhaps some of the present difficulties among interpreters can be

traced to earlier neglect of this subject by many Greek grammarians. A

typical example might be the classical scholar Philip Buttmann (not to be

confused with Alexander Buttmann quoted above). He exhibits a remarkably

carefree attitude toward the peculiarities of Greek tenses:

As the present, the imperfect, the perfect, the pluperfect, and the

future, agree in the main with the corresponding tenses of other lan-

guages, it is necessary only to speak briefly of the Aorist and the

3d Future of the Passive voice.¹

F. W. Farrar was convinced that similar delusions plagued the translators

of the venerable Authorized Version; he wrote that "the translators of our

English version have failed more frequently from their partial knowledge

of the force of the tenses than from any other cause."²

On the other side, many modern writers overstep the rules of syntax,

forcing every occurrence of a particular tense into a supposed semantic

rule. Many examples of such misuse of the present indicative will appear

¹ Philip Buttmann, Greek Grammar for the Use of Schools, tr. by

Edward Everett (2nd ed.; Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company, 1826),

p. 277.

² As quoted by Robertson, Grammar, p. 821. Robertson quoted from

the 1876 edition of Farrar's Greek Syntax, p. 123 (see p. lxviii). The

edition to which this writer had access, A Brief Greek Syntax and Hints on

Greek Accidence (New ed.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1868), does not

seem to contain the quotation in the relevant chapter, pp. 110-27. However,

Farrar does criticize various practices, as using the auxiliary verb "have"

for Greek aorist verbs (pp. 118-19), which criticism appears unjustified.

in this paper. And other moods and tenses receive similar arbitrary

classification in the commentaries, in spite of the warnings issued in

standard grammars.

The present imperative, for example, when used with mh<, often

means "stop doing such-and-such." Yet the pattern is by no means a rule.¹

One need not claim that Paul accused Timothy of neglecting his ministerial

gifts (1 Tim. 4:14)! And yet, surprisingly enough, even such a highly

respected grammarian as Nigel Turner, who wrote the third volume of

Moulton's Grammar himself appears to maintain that the rule is universal.²

The brilliant linguist Eugene A. Nida follows suit.³ One need only consult

the various standard commentaries at such a passage as John 20:17, "Jesus

says unto her, Do not touch me," to observe the confidence with which most

commentators construct the scene--Jesus trying to wrench his feet from the

woman's grasp. Comparatively few commentators⁴ even mention the alternative

possibility that Mary was about to touch the Lord.

Along similar lines, many writers misunderstand the impact of the

¹ Moulton, for example, carefully explains the qualifications and

exceptions involved, Prolegomena, pp. 125-26.

² Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (hereinafter

referred to as Insights; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1965), pp. 29-30. This

is not the only difference that separates the authors of Volumes I and III

of the famous grammar! See E. V. McKnight, "The New Testament and 'Biblical

Greek,'" The Journal of Bible and Religion, XXXIV:l (January, 1966), 36-42,

and Nigel Turner, "The Literary Character of New Testament Greek," New

Testament Studies, 20:2 (January, 1974), 107-14.

³ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964),

pp. 199-200; and God's Word in Man's Language (New York: Harper & Brothers,

Publishers, 1952), pp. 58-59.

⁴ As Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, in The New Inter-

national Commentary on the New Testament, ed. by F. F. Bruce (Grand Rapids:

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 840, n. 38, in spite of his

previous statement, p. 195, n. 65.

aorist tense. Frank Stagg in his instructive article "The Abused Aorist,"¹

faults such illustrious names as F. W. Beare, Wilhelm Bousset, R. H.

Charles, Joachim Jeremias, Robert Law, Leon Morris, J. A. Sanders,

Rudolf Schnackenburg, A. N. Wilder, Raymond E. Brown, and C. H. Dodd with

misusing the aorist tense. They apply it, he says, too readily to the

action itself as being punctiliar, rather than to the author's presenta-

tion or view of the action. The correct appreciation of the aorist as

mere "non-determined" is not new. Ernest DeWitt Burton employed it

during the previous century in the field of aorist prohibitions.² More

recently James L. Boyer has noted that the aorist expresses "simple occur-

rence," not "single occurrence," citing several examples of aorists that

describe durative action which is being conceived of as punctiliar.³

The aorist is the most colorless, the least distinctive of all the

tenses in Greek. It is the catch-all tense which was used whenever

there was no particular reason to emphasize duration or abiding result.⁴

Hence, to continue in his words, the interpretation of aorists should be

equally broad:

From the viewpoint of exegesis a safe rule, perhaps slightly exag-

gerated, might be: When you come to a present, or imperfect, or

perfect tense, dig into it and squeeze out of it its full signifi-

cance. But when you come to an aorist tense, translate it as

simply as possible and forget it.⁵

And yet respected scholars still "abuse the aorist." Nigel Turner has

¹ Stagg, in the Journal of Biblical Literature, 91:2 (June, 1972),

esp. 222-28.

² Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek

(hereinafter referred to as Moods and Tenses; 3rd ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T.

Clark, 1898), pp. 75-76.

³ Boyer, "Semantics in Biblical Interpretation," Grace Journal,

3:2 (Spring, 1962), 32.

⁴ Ibid. ⁵ Ibid.

applied his understanding of the aorist to the science of textual cri-

ticism. Admitting that external manuscript evidence favors the inclusion

of "daily" in Luke 9:23, he yet believes that intrinsic "grammatical

evidence" rules it out, since "the addition of 'daily,' which has excel-

lent manuscript authority, is impossible with the aorist imperative, for

it makes the command durative."¹ Note the use of that word "impossible."

Should not grammar be derived from the text, and not vice versa?

While misunderstanding may err on the side of a too stringent

interpretation, it may also err by overlooking subtle but important

shifts in tense. In a very helpful article Julius R. Mantey disputes

with Dr. Henry Cadbury of Harvard, who takes the periphrastic future

perfects in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18 to be equivalent to simple futures.

Mantey compares these passages to the simple perfects of John 20:23 and

demonstrates that the future perfect tense itself provides the key to

these difficult verses.² The apostles simply will be ratifying in their

official capacity what has already been decided and established in

heaven.

A false understanding of the Greek tenses can lead to arbitrary

and misleading exegesis. A correct understanding will throw light and

clarity upon God's true revelation.

Modern Translation Approach of Eugene A. Nida

Central to this study are the issues of translation and

¹ Turner, Insights, p. 31.

² Mantey, "Evidence that the Perfect Tense in John 20:23 and

Matthew 16:19 is Mistranslated," The Journal of the Evangelical Theological

Society, 16:3 (Summer, 1973), esp. 129, 136.

interpretation. No modern treatment of tense exegesis can ignore the

presuppositions of recent translation theory. The word "presuppositions"

was chosen purposefully, since many conclusions in this field stem from

admittedly theological premises. Eugene Albert Nida is the best possible

spokesman for the new approach. Born in 1914, he studied at the Univer-

sity of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern Califor-

nia, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1943.

An ordained Baptist minister, he was honored with D.D. degrees from Phila-

delphia's Eastern Baptist Seminary in 1956 and from Southern California

Baptist Seminary in 1959. Then in 1967 he obtained the earned Th.D.

degree from the University of Munster in West Germany. From 1937 to

1953 he was Professor of Linguistics for the Summer Institute of Lin-

guistics, the University of Oklahoma. Since 1943 he has been the

Secretary of Translations for the American Bible Society. Internation-

ally, he is the Coordinator of Research in Translations for the United

Bible Societies--a post from which he exerts enormous influence over

virtually every new published Bible translation throughout the world.

Also, he provides an excellent focus for discussion since he is a pro-

lific writer. In addition to being associate editor of Practical An-

thropology, he is the author of numerous scholarly articles and of at

least ten books dealing with Bible translation.¹

The Essence of the Theory

The following diagram appears in a recent article by Eugene

¹ Detals in this paragraph are taken from "Nida, Eugene Albert,"

Who's Who in America: 1972-1973 (37th ed.; 2 vols.; Chicago: Marquis

Who's Who, Inc., 1972), II, 2334.

Nida.1

S1 M1 R1

R2 S2 M2 R2

R3 S3

Source Language Receptor Language

The top horizontal arrow in the diagram represents the original writing

of a Scriptural portion. The square boxes indicate that the entire

process was carried out in the original language--e.g., Greek. S1

is the original "source" or author; M1 is the "message," or form of

the writing itself; and R1 is the original "receptor" of the message.

The second horizontal arrow represents a translation of the passage into

another language, the circles indicating the new language--e.g., English.

The translator, R2 S2, fulfills two functions, as the symbols indicate.

He must be first of all a receptor of the message in the original lan-

guage, and then he must become the source of the translated message,

M2, for the receptor, R2, who knows only the second language. The

bottom symbol, R3 S3 represents the critic of the translation--a

person who, even as the translator, must be familiar with both the

original language and that of the translation.

The modern theory can now symbolically be stated thusly:

( R1= R2 ) > (M1 = M2 )

¹ The diagram and the following explanation are found in Eugene

A. Nida, "Implications of Contemporary Linguistics for Biblical Scholar-

ship," Journal of Biblical Literature, 91:1 (March, 1972), 87-89.

Similar receptor response outweighs similar message form or content.

Nida indicates with dotted lines the traditional method of judging trans-

lations. The critic looks for literary equivalence between M1 and M2--

that is, between the two written texts. He expects literal translations

of vocabular and syntax. As much as possible the exact form of the

original is ought in the translation. Such a critic applauds what Nida

calls an "F-E" translation ("Formal-Equivalence" translation), as, for

example, the American Standard Version of 1901.¹

But Nida defends the new method, indicated by the curved arrows.

The critic should compare not the formal equivalence of the texts, but

rather the response produced in the two receptors. The modern reader

should have he same degree of understanding as he reads the translation

as the original Greek readers had in the first Christian centuries. The

modern critic, therefore, will prefer a more free translation, what Nida

calls a "D-E” translation ("Dynamic-Equivalence" translation), as, for

example, the Phillips translation.² The D-E translation is characterized

by numerous departures from traditional standards. Often words are not

translated literally, but are adapted to different cultural milieus.

Thus "snow" becomes "kapok down"³ and "blood" becomes "death."⁴ Gram-

matical syntax also often is changed radically; and verb tenses, of

course, need not be slavishly reproduced in a D-E translation.

¹ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, pp. 186, 192.

²Ibid., p. 160.

³ Ibid., p. 171.

⁴ As The New Testament: Today's English Version at Rom. 5:9, "by

his death" ( Gk. e]n t&? ai!mati), sponsored by the American Bible Society

(New York: Pocket Books, 1966).

Nida attributes the phenomenal rapidity of this change in trans-

lation theory from "literalness" to "content transfer" to five major

developments in recent years:

(1) the rapidly expanding field of structural linguistics, . . .

the liberation of translators from the philological presuppositions

of the preceding generation.

(2) the application of present-day methods in structural linguistics

to the special problems of Bible translation by members of the

Summer Institute of Linguistics, also known as the Wycliffe Bible

Translators.

(3) the program of the United Bible Societies, . . . conferences,

its journal The Bible Translator, helps for translators, and its

own research and field work.

(4) the publication since 1955 of Babel, under the auspices of

UNESCO, a quarterly linguistic journal of contemporary trends.

(5) machine translation . . . particularly in such places as the

Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow, Birkbeck College (Univer-

sity of London), and in the United States at the Massachusetts In-

stitute of Technology, Harvard University, IBM Research Center in

Tarrytown, New York, Georgetown University, and the University of

California at Berkeley.¹

There can be no doubt of Nida's favoring the new trend. His strongest

criticism is reserved for such literal translations as the English Re-

vised Version and the American Standard Version--citing a particularly

obscurely worded example, he upbraids the "pernicious effects of the

literal, awkward syntax," and continues, "The words may be English, but

the grammar is not; and the sense is quite lacking."²

Conflict with Traditional Theory

Deep crevices separate the two approaches. Nida is aware of these.

He mentions two conflicts in translation theory: "(1) literal vs. free

¹ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, p. 22.

² Ibid, pp. 20-21.

translating, and (2) emphasis on form vs. content";¹ and also three con-

flicts in theological approach: "(1) inspiration vs. philology, (2)

tradition vs. contemporary authority, and (3) theology vs. grammar."²

While one may object to the choice of terms, it is clear that Nida favors

the second alternative in each case. Both translators and receptors must

fall into one of the two categories. Nida asserts that superior trans-

lators will follow his method:

F-E translations tend to distort the message more than D-E transla-

tions, since those persons who produce D-E translations are in

general more adept in translating, and in order to produce D-E

renderings they must perceive more fully and satisfactorily the mean-

ing of the original text.³

Likewise, the more enlightened readers will appreciate the new theory:

The degree of sophistication of the receptors influences the extent

to which one can use functional equivalents. In this connection it

is important to note that so-called primitive peoples, whom we would

regard as entirely unsophisticated, are usually quite ready to accept

radical departures in the direction of functional rather than formal

equivalents. Similarly, highly educated people in the Western world

will gladly accept such far-reaching alterations. But partially edu-

cated persons, whether in folk or civilized societies, appear to have

difficulty with anything but the most literal renderings, for their

newly acquired respect for "book learning" seems to prejudice them

against real comprehension and in favor of literalistic obscurantism.

A little education can be a dangerous thing!⁴

And lest it be thought that obscurantism is dead, translators and pub-

lishers are warned to proceed with due strategy to overcome the resistance

of the newly literate.

The introductions of revisions is essentially a matter of education.

A church that has used a traditional text of the Scriptures for

several generations will obviously not find immediately acceptable

a radically different translation, reflecting contemporary insights

¹ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, p. 22.

² Ibid., p. 26. ³ Ibid., p. 192.

⁴ Ibid , p. 172.

into text, exegesis, and lexicon. Rather, it is necessary to prepare

a whole series of such revisions, with definite grades of adjustment

to the theoretical goal. Thus, over a period of some twenty to fifty

years the people may become better prepared to accept what is more

nearly accurate and meaningful.¹

But the heart of the matter is theological. At what point is

"inspiration" applicable, and what aspects of the original should the

translation thus seek to preserve? Nida candidly discusses the problem

in the following definitive paragraph:

One must recognize, however, that neo-orthodox theology has given

a new perspective to the doctrine of divine inspiration. For the

most part, it conceives of inspiration primarily in terms of the re-

sponse of the receptor, and places less emphasis on what happened to

the source at the time of writing. An oversimplified statement of

this new view is reflected in the often quoted expression, "The Scrip-

tures are inspired because they inspire me." Such a concept of

inspiration means, however, that attention is inevitably shifted from

the details of wording in the original to the means by which the same

message can be effectively communicated to present-day readers.

Those who espouse the traditional, orthodox view of inspiration quite

naturally focus attention on the presumed readings of the "autographs."

The result is that, directly or indirectly, they often tend to favor

quite close, literal renderings as the best way of preserving the

inspiration of the writer by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand,

those who hold the neo-orthodox view, or who have been influenced by

it, tend to be freer in their translating: as they see it, since the

original document inspired its readers because it spoke meaningfully

to them, only an equally meaningful translation can have this same

power to inspire present-day receptors.²

If the new method were found only among the neo-orthodox, the Bible

student could deal with it easily. Yet, Nida continues by noting the

adherence of many evangelicals as well to the new method:

It would be quite wrong, however, to assume that all those who

emphasize fully meaningful translations necessarily hold to a neo-

orthodox view of inspiration; for those who have combined orthodox

theology with deep evangelistic or missionary convictions have been

equally concerned with the need for making translations entirely

meaningfu1.³

¹ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating

² Ibid , p. 27. ³ Ibid.

No one would dispute the essence of Nida's claim. For example, the para-

phrased Living Bible has received immense publicity from evangelist Billy

Graham. The controversy among conservatives concerning such translation

theories will continue to rage until a correct understanding of the place

of syntax in inspiration and exegesis can be ascertained and defended.

May this study contribute to that end.

Some Criticisms of the Modern Theory

While a full analysis of this conflict deserves a separate treat-

ment, two shortcomings of the modern theory are relevant to this paper.

First, the orthodox doctrine of inspiration does indeed place the vital

point on the written autograph, not the original receptors. Nowhere does

the Bible claim that the R1 of Nida's notation understood the full

import of the revelation. Rather the message, M1, was inspired and

inerrant (cf. Isa. 6:9-10; 2 Pet. 3:16).

Second while almost all Scripture is lucid, each passage is a

rich mine from which other truth, not immediately apparent, can be

extracted. Using an analogy, an electronic musical synthesizer can pro-

duce a "pure" musical note, which would appear as a simple, perfect curve

on an oscilloscope. A fine violin, playing the same note, will produce

in addition a innumerable variety of overtones or harmonics, which would

cause the curve on the oscilloscope to appear jagged and irregular. The

Bible resembles the violin, not the synthesizer. All one has to do is

read the Scripture proofs listed in any discussion in any standard sys-

tematic theology text to see the point: many verses which are teaching

one main thought also contain subsidiary words, phrases, or clauses which,

when compared to other passages, may imply some doctrine or truth quite

unrelated to that main thought. These are the "harmonics" of the Scrip-

ture. In a "free" translation the main thought is often preserved, or

even emphasized. But in the process many of these "harmonics" are of

necessity lost. In addition, the new wording will often introduce new

subsidiary thoughts which are foreign to both the original message and

the original receptors. And it cannot be argued that the translator can

know what these points are and can thus preserve them in his free trans-

lation. Biblical exegesis is never complete, and no one knows what great

truths still lie hidden in the vocabulary and syntax of Scripture.

It also should be mentioned that the "orthodox" translator does

not seek "literalistic obscurantism." Rather, he desires to reproduce

the exact meaning of the passage, within the limits of translatability,

into modern speech. But he tries to preserve as much of the passage

intact as possible. He seeks to know the exact force of a present tense,

a dative pronoun, a particular vocabulary term. Each and every item of

the sentence is weighed and analyzed. And as far as is possible, each

part, along with the whole, is reproduced with its nearest equivalent in

the new language. He thus must master thoroughly the Biblical language,

and also the language of the translation. Perhaps, as Tyndale and Luther,

the translator will even enrich and expand the potential and force of

his own language, as he seeks to adapt it to the sublime thoughts of

Scripture.

Concerning the present indicative tense in particular, this

study was undertaken to see just what that tense does imply in the New

Testament. If the tense was used strictly, it should be translated

strictly. If it was used loosely, it should be translated loosely.

In either case, the resulting translation will be "orthodox."

Complexity of the Present Indicative

At first thought, the present indicative should be the easiest

of the tenses to understand. Normally, it is the first to be learned.¹

Yet, perhaps because of its very commonness, its usage patterns bewilder

the investigator who feels at home with consistent and dependable limi-

tations and rules. Some of its perplexing features are here noted under

several heads.

Linguistic Questions

The linguistic status of the present indicative in both classical

and koine Greek is now a live issue. Older traditional grammar claims

the indicative mood establishes the tenses as specifically defining time,

allowing several categories of special usage exceptions. Most modern

grammarians claim that the type of action, Aktionsart, or view of action,

"aspect," is more important even in the indicative. Some even believe

the present indicative to be a "zero" tense, after the analogy of early

Indo-European languages, which in many contexts is a simple substitute

for the prevailing tense of the passage.

Translation Questions

In the more practical sphere, Bible translators must grapple with

all the kinds of present indicatives, including perfective, historical,

and futuristic usages. Should the translator reproduce the present

tense, or should he use the appropriate past or future tense?

¹ E.g., J. Gresham Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners (New

York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), pp. 20-22.

Translations differ: some keep the present (as in Mark 10:1, KJV and ASV,

“cometh”); some change the tense to suit the context (RSV and NIV, "went,"

also NEB, "came"); the New American Standard Version compromises by

using a cumbersome punctuation system ("*went"). Which method best

conveys the meaning of the Greek text?

Literary Questions

The use of the historical present also figures largely in the

question of Synoptic origins. The descending percentage uses from Mark

to Matthew to Luke often are used as arguments to sustain the theory of

Markan priority. A careful comparison of present indicative usage in the

Synoptic Gospels should help to shed light on this question.

Exegetical Questions

The extremely frequent occurrence of the present indicative

results in its inclusion in many important historical, prophetical, and

doctrinal passages. At times the meaning of the passage itself depends

on the understanding of the verb's tense and mood usage. Some demand

a time interpretation (John 3:36, "He that believeth on the Son hath

everlasting life"; 8:58, "Before Abraham was, I am"); others must be

interpreted in terms of aspect (Hebrews 7:3, "abideth a priest continu-

ally"; 1 John 3:6, "whosoever abideth in him sinneth not"). In some

passages a possible futuristic use introduces various possible interpre-

tations (John 18:36, "My kingdom is not of this world").

Another exegetical question concerns the use of the present

indicative in various classes of conditional sentences. There are two

variables: the degree of certainty or uncertainty indicated by various

Biblical authors in these constructions, and the time element, if any,

impliedjn the condition.

Aktionsart and Aspect

When one thinks of "tense," he automatically relates the word

to time: past, present, or future. Yet in Greek, careful study reveals

that tense often performs a double function.

Every tense has generally speaking a double function to perform, at

least in the indicative: it expresses at once an action (continuance,

completion, continuance in completion), and a time-relation (present,

past, future), and the latter absolutely, i.e. with reference to the

stand-point of the speaker or narrator, not relatively, i.e. with

reference to something else which occurs in the speech or narrative.¹

This double function is most apparent in the indicative, but even in that

mood the time element is secondary.

The time of the action of the verb is often left to be inferred from

the content, and cannot always be certainly told from the form of

the verb. This is almost invariably the case with the moods other

than the indicative, and is sometimes the case in the Indicative mood

itself.²

The non-time feature of Greek tenses perplexed grammarians for

many years. Occasionally a scholar with above average insight would

fleetingly touch the nerve, as B. L. Gildersleeve, when he mused, "Moods

are temporal, tenses are modal.”³ Many older grammars neglect the

¹ Friedrich Blass, Grammar of New Testament Greek, tr. by Henry

St. John Thackeray (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1905),

p. 187.

² H. P. V. Nunn, A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek (5th ed.;

Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1938), p. 66.

³Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Problems in Greek Syntax (Baltimore:

The Johns Hopkins Press, 1903), D. 127; this book is a reprint of articles

from the American Journal of Philology, XXIII (1902), of which he was the

editor (p. 3)

subject altogether in discussions of the indicative.¹ Although the ori-

ginal edition of Goodwin omits the subject, the revision by Charles B.

Gulick remedies the deficiency. Gulick notes in his preface,

Goodwin was a master in his own field of moods and tenses, and his

exact knowledge combined with common sense produced a lucidity of

statement that could hardly be improved. . . . I have tried to empha-

size more distinctly the "character of the action."²

And in the appropriate section Gulick inserts his own understanding of

the dual nature of Greek verb tense:

The tenses may express two relations. They may designate the time

of an action . . . and also its character. . . The character of an

action appears in all the moods and in the infinitive and participle;

the relation of time appears always in the indicative, and to a cer-

tain extent in some dependent moods and in the participle.³

This new understanding of tense significance sprang from the inves-

tigations in Germany of semantic scholars at about the turn of the century.

It was James Hope Moulton who first popularized the terms "linear" and

"punctiliar" in English New Testament Greek studies in his first edition

of his Prolegomena in 1906.⁴ At this stage the German word Aktionsart

("kind of act-on") became a standard designation in English as well:

Our first subject under the Verb will be one which has not yet achieved

an entrance into the grammars. For the last few years the compara-

tive philologists--mostly in Germany--have been busily investigating

¹ William W. Goodwin, A Greek Grammar (Rev. ed.; Boston: Ginn &

Company, 1879), pp. 246-56; and George Benedict Winer, A Grammar of the

Idiom of the New Testament (hereinafter referred to as Idiom), rev. by

Gottlieb Lunemann, tr. from the 7th Ger. ed. by J. Henry Thayer (Rev. ed.;

Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1874), pp. 264-81.

² William Watson Goodwin, Greek Grammar, rev, by Charles Burton

Gulick (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1930), p. iv.

³ Ibid , p. 266.

⁴ C. F D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (hereinafter

referred to as Idiom Book; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953),

p. 5.

the problems of Aktionsart, or the "kind of action" denoted by dif-

ferent verbal formations.¹

The term now is thoroughly entrenched. "Tenses in Greek indicate the

kind of action, rather than the time of the action. Hence grammarians

in Germany coined this technical term, which has now become universally

accepted."²

Grammarians have discerned three major types of action in Greek.

The three essential kinds of action are thus momentary or punctiliar

when the action is regarded as a whole and may be represented by a

dot (•), linear or durative action which may be represented by a

continuous line (----), the continuance of perfected or completed

action which may be represented by this graph (*------).³

Eugene Nida, using the alternative term "aspect," to be defined later,

notes six possible categories in Indo-European languages.

Aspect, which defines the nature of the action, is a much more

frequently used grammatical category than tense. Even within the

Indo-European languages it was at one time more significant than at

present. As a description of the kind of action involved in the verb,

aspect serves to differentiate a number of contrasts, of which some

of the most common are: (1) complete vs. incomplete, (2) punctiliar

vs. continuous, (3) single (or simulfactive) vs. repetitive, (4)

increasing vs. decreasing, (5) beginning vs. ending, and (6) single

vs. habitual or customary.⁴

According to these grammarians, in the earliest stages of Greek

the stem of the verb indicated its Aktionsart, as it is called. Later

the verbal prefix and suffix further defined its time or nature.⁵

Certain durative roots could be made perfective, for example, by the

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 108.

²Turner, Insights, D. 24.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 823.

⁴ Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, p. 199.

⁵ Moule, Idiom Book, p. 6.

addition of prefixed prepositions.¹ Classical Greek also sought to

maintain Aktionsart distinctions within the future tense.² In any case,

time distinctions in verbs developed later.

It may be more of a surprise to be told that in our own family of

languages Tense is proved by scientific inquiry to be relatively a

late invention, so much so that the elementary distinction between

Past and Present had only been developed to a rudimentary extent

when the various branches of the family separated so that they ceased

to be mutually intelligible.³

Ideally, assuming three types of action and three sorts of time,

the language could have developed nine tenses. However, language being

a human creation, it hardly develops along theoretically, mechanically

precise lines.

A completer system of Tenses would include the nine produced by

expressing continuous, momentary, and completed action in past,

present, and future time. English can express all these, and more,

but Greek is defective.⁴

Unfortunately, terms and titles often fail to indicate precisely

the concept involved. Such is the case with the term Aktionsart. When

one hears "kind of action," he easily falls into a trap. The next logical

deduction is that the verbal tense can define the sort of action which

occurs in reality. Nigel Turner, as shown earlier, tends to follow this

lead. This theoretical basis appears clearly in this statement:

Examining carefully the kind of action . . . grammarians have analysed

it as either Durative (lasting) or iterative (repeating) in all moods

of the present tense. The Aktionsart of the present must be clearly

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, pp. 111-13.

² Blass, Grammar, pp. 36-37.

³Robertson, Grammar, D. 108.

⁴ James Hope Moulton, An Introduction to the Study of New Testa-

ment Greek (hereinafter referred to as New Testament Greek; 4th ed.;

London: The Epworth Press, 1914), p. 191.

distinguished from that of the aorist, which is not durative or

iterative) and expresses no more than one specific instance of the

action of the verb, involving usually a single moment of time.¹

Even when distinguishing Aktionsart from the corrected term, "aspect,"

he mixes his definition:

Essentially the tense in Greek expresses the kind of action, not

time, which the speaker has in view and the state of the subject, or

as the Germans say, the Aspekt. In short, the tense-stems indicate

the point of view from which the action or state is regarded.²

While properly noting the "point of view from which the action or state

is regarded," he defines "aspect" as "the state of the subject," which

definition clouds the issue. A clearer definition of the two terms is

this: "The original function of the so-called tense stems of the verb in

Indo-European languages was not that of levels of time (present, past,

future) but that of Aktionsarten (kinds of action) or aspects (points of

view)."³ Note there the contrasting emphases in the terms Aktionsart and

¹ Turner, Insights, p. 29.

² Nigel Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, Vol. III: Syntax

(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963), p. 59.

³ F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament

and Other Early Christian Literature (hereinafter referred to as BDF), tr.

and rev. from the 9th-10th Ger. ed. by Robert W. Funk (Chicago: Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 116. Here is a good opportunity to com-

pare two English editions of Blass's Grammar: Thayer's translation of

Blass, and Funk's translation of Blass-Debrunner. The former is very

readable and lucid, and provides an invaluable help to understanding the

latter work, with its large mass of detail and extreme abbreviation, which

render it hardly discernable to most Greek students. In Thackeray's

"Preface to the English Edition," written in 1905, he compares Blass's

grammar to that of Winer: "The books to which the author expresses his

obligations are the grammars of Winer and Buttmann, Jos. Viteau, and Bur-

ton. The first-named of these works having grown to such voluminous

proportions, the present grammar, written in a smaller compass, may,

the author hopes, find a place beside it for such persons as maintain

the opinion me<ga bibli<on me<ga kako<n." Indeed, there has been an ironic

turn of events. Imagine how dismayed Thackeray would be, were he to

discover that Blass's latest edition has far surpassed even the me<geqoj

of Winer!

"aspect." Aktionsart draws one's attention to the event itself; "aspect"

more properly emphasizes the vantage point of the author.

This label (Aktionsart) has since become well known among New Testa-

ment grammarians, but it is possible that its significance is less

well understood. In common with most English-speaking classical

scholars, I prefer to use another label, "aspect," for what is refer-

red to is not the kind of action, but the way in which the writer

or speaker regards the action in its context--as a whole act, as a

process, or as a state.¹

To avoid the confusion inherent in the term Aktionsart, many Greek scholars

now prefer the term "aspect" as designating the chief meaning of the ten-

ses. For example, Maximilian Zerwick consistently prefers "aspect" to

the term "tense" in his grammar, and does not use the term Aktionsart.²

The new term provides an accurate insight into the syntactical data.

The aorist tense can describe durative action; the present can describe

punctiliar action; both tenses can describe perfected action. As W. D.

Chamberlain has put it, "Remember that the same act may be looked at

from any of these three viewpoints."³

The aspect of the present indicative will be seen to be complex,

since the aspect is influenced also by the verbal root and by the his-

torical evolution of present tense usage. However, a correct understand-

ing of the concept of aspect itself will enable one to profit most greatly

in any inductive study of the data.

¹ K. L. McKay, "Syntax in Exegesis," Tyndale Bulletin, 23 (1972),

44.

² Zerwick, Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples (hereinafter re-

ferred to as Biblical Greek), tr. from the 4th Lat. ed. by Joseph P. Smith

(Rome: Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1963), e.g., pp. 77-78.

³ William Douglas Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek

New Testament (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941), p. 67.

II. THE PLAN OF ATTACK

An Inductive Approach

The most valuable data for the study of any Greek point of syntax

in the New Testament is found in the Biblical text itself. Especially

when the occurrences are frequent, the knowledge of New Testament usage

provides the best guide--whether in lexicography or in syntax.

The opposite method seeks absolute grammatical rules first, and

then seeks to impose these rules on every Biblical example. An outstand-

ing example of the extremes to which this method can lead was cited

earlier¹--Nigel Turner's attempt to impose an inferior reading on the

text because of supposed "grammatical evidence."

The method of this paper is inductive. The primary material shall

be the New Testament examples.² With over five thousand occurrences of

the present indicative in the New Testament, the material is more than

ample to form valid conclusions. And these conclusions, in turn, should

provide the most relevant guidelines to the exegesis of the present

¹ See above, p. 7.

² The superiority of the inductive method in grammatical research

does not necessarily imply the superiority of that method in teaching a

new language to beginners. For an interesting conflict of viewpoints,

compare Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Hellas and Hesperia, or the Vitality

of Greek Studies in America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1909), pp.

29-30, who offers an amusing yet stringent criticism of inductive teaching

methods, with William Sanford LaSor, Handbook of New Testament Greek: An

Inductive Approach Based on the Greek Text of Acts (2 vols.; Grand

Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1973), I, vii-ix. LaSor's

text, in fact, outlines a one year Greek course for beginners, using the

inductive approach.

24
25

indicative.

The best preparation for proper Biblical exegesis, particularly in

matters of semantics, the meaning of words, including both lexical

and grammatical study, is the widest possible experience with and

constant practice in the use of the original languages. One dare not

look up a word in the analytical lexicon, discover it is a verb in

the aorist tense, turn to the aorist tense section of Dana and Mantey,

then say, "The original Greek says so and so."¹

Previous investigations have failed to treat the New Testament

verb exhaustively. Normally, each writer will list a particular usage

category and will offer three to six examples for each. Comparing the

grammars, one notices that the examples are nearly always the same, lead-

ing one to suspect that they merely have been handed down and received

from one generation to the next without independent investigation. For

example, Zerwick's discussion of concessive clauses² cites, with one ad-

dition, a long list of illustrative references--which are identical, even

in their order, with an earlier list compiled by Burton.³ In addition,

the failure to be exhaustive often has resulted in an unbalanced cate-

gorization. For example, the so-called "conative present" is catalogued

in nearly every grammar as a major category. Yet an inductive search

reveals fewer than five New Testament examples, each of which would fall

more logically into another category with nearly fifty examples. An-

other drawback of previous investigations has been the retention of the

older categories, even after the developments in the field of verbal

aspect. Statements like this one by Chamberlain--"Those futuristic

presents are usually aoristic"--appear with regularity, but without

¹ Boyer, "Semantics in Biblical Interpretation," p. 33.

² Zerwick, Biblical Greek, p. 102.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 112-13.

proof.¹ Also, recent studies in comparative linguistics, including the

"zero tense" hypothesis, have raised serious questions regarding the in-

terpretation and force of the present tense when used for non-present

time; and these questions have yet to be faced by Biblical scholars.

Finally, an exhaustive, inductive study brings to light many thoughts and

suggestive examples which lead to the formation of newer, more relevant

categories.

Method of Procedure

Since every inductive study must begin with a full collection of

data, the first step was to locate and record every present indicative

verb in the New Testament. This was no small task. The search began with

a careful reading of the Greek New Testament, underlining every occurrence

of a present indicative verb form. Each of these was written on a sepa-

rate file card with the reference. The text used was the United Bible

Societies' Greek New Testament, second edition.² In order to check the

list for omissions, it was compared with Nathan E. Han's A Parsing Guide

to the Greek New Testament (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1971).

This work lists and parses most of the verb forms verse by verse through-

out the New Testament. While Han's list is based on the twenty-fifth

edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek text (p. vii), it still provides an

effective check, since the two texts normally are quite similar. However,

Han's list is not complete. It omits repeated verb forms which have been

listed already within the previous several verses, and it omits many

¹ Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament,

p. 71.

² Ed. by Kurt Aland, Matthew Black, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metz-

ger, and Allen Wikgren (2nd ed.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1968).

first person singular forms. In addition, it contains several omissions

and numerous errors.¹ Hence it has been necessary to correct the original

data from time to time--adding overlooked examples, and deleting misread

ones. The final result is listed in Appendix A. It is believed this

list is complete. If anyone should find a missed example, the author

would appreciate the information.

The second step was perhaps the most demanding of all. The over

five thousand verb cards were repeatedly analyzed and distributed among

various exegetical or syntactical categories. These categories often

shifted as the study progressed, with resulting mergers, divisions, ex-

pansions, and multiplications. Some verbs, like people, just seem to

dislike fitting in with the others, no matter how the arrangements are

made. Finally, however, the basic lines began to form and solidify, re-

sulting in the categories presented in Part II.

The third step involved a detailed study of each category. The

lines of study were determined by the nature of the category, the exege-

tically significant issues involved, and the variety of the Biblical

examples. In each case there is at least an effort to state a conclusion

regarding any controversy concerning the particular category (e.g., the

aspect of "punctiliar presents," the zero tense concept for historical or

¹ E.g. proseu<xesqe in Mt. 5:44 and 6:9 is parsed as an indicative,

as is mh> gi<nesqe in 6:16; Mt. 16:8 and Mk. 8:17 dialogi<zesqe is listed as

imperfect; the three dative participles penqou?si, klai<ousin, and peripa-

tou?sin in Mk. 16:10, 12, are parsed as indicatives, whereas the indicative

pra<ssousi in Acts 17:17 is parsed as a dative participle. These mistakes

are typical of many others--e.g., the verb "ye sin against Christ" in 1 Cor.

8:12 is parsed as either indicative or imperative! Yet a work of this much

detail, especially in its first edition, must necessarily contain many

typographical and editorial errors which will undoubtedly be corrected

subsequently. In spite of these, it represents a major accomplishment,

and a welcome balm to Greek students everywhere.

futuristic presents, or the precise force of simple conditional presents).

The final step was to compare the results of the study with tra-

ditional and contemporary literature about the Greek present indicative.

The wide divergencies in this literature make it impossible to analyze

it as a block. Rather, it appears that various authors seem to explain

the data better at various points, and are less adequate elsewhere. As

a result; the literature must be considered in the discussion of each

category rather than as a unit at the end. Likewise, various Bible verses

or passages will be discussed in the chapter dealing with the appropriate

category.

Summary of the Study's Results

It is the conclusion of this author that most previous definitions

of the exact nature and force of the present indicative are inadequate.

The tense can describe action in any time--past, present, or future; and

it can describe action of any kind--durative, punctiliar, or perfective.

In short, time and Aktionsart are both inadequate concepts to define the

present tense.

Concerning the modern zero-tense claim, it is concluded that the

concept is valid for certain roots and certain authors. But it is be-

lieved that in portions of Mark's and John's writings the historical pre-

sent is a vivid, narrative form, and that in Revelation many futuristic

presents are likewise vivid.

Concerning the tense's use in conditions, it is concluded that

a present indicative protasis implies nothing as to the truth of the

protasis; but, rather, that it establishes the subject as a question

of fact.

Finally, concerning the aspect of the present indicative, it is

conclusions that the tense has--except in zero usages--a legitimate aspect.

It normally signifies a durative and/or present time aspect. The aspect

is not related to the type of action, but to the force and attention

with which the author perceives and relates it.

III. THE FREQUENCY OF THE PRESENT INDICATIVE

Total Occurrences

The present indicative occurs with consistently high regularity.

As A. T. Robertson has put it, "The present indicative, from the nature

of the case, is the most frequent in actual usage and hence shows the

greatest diversity of development."¹ This author counted over five

thousand present indicatives in the New Testament. The count includes

the verb oi#da, which has "come to be used as a practical durative pre-

sent,"² in spite of its perfect form.³ The following table shows the

number of present indicatives counted in each chapter of the New Testa-

ment.

TABLE 1

PRESENT INDICATIVES PER CHAPTER

chapter occurrences chapter occurrences

Matthew 1 2 Matthew 15 34

2 8 16 26

3 17 17 21

4 11 18 26

5 40 19 27

6 42 20 28

7 21 21 30

8 22 22 31

9 33 23 44

10 21 24 27

11 32 25 12

12 43 26 63

13 59 27 29

14 13 28 6

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 350. ² Ibid., p. 881.

³ In the same category is e@oiken in James 1:6, 23.

30
31

TABLE 1--Continued

chapter occurrences chapter occurrences

Matthew total 768 John 3 57

4 69

Mark 1 20 5 65

2 40 6 67

3 28 7 66

4 49 8 101

5 28 9 59

6 23 10 71

7 39 11 45

8 38 12 38

9 43 13 62

10 44 14 56

11 31 15 31

12 36 16 48

13 18 17 21

14 61 18 41

15 24 19 32

16 7 20 36

total 529 21 54

total 1,083

Luke

1 8

2 6 Acts 1 5

3 10 2 19

4 12 3 11

5 24 4 10

6 41 5 7

7 46 6 2

8 32 7 16

9 31 8 14

10 23 9 16

11 54 10 27

12 61 11 --

13 30 12 6

14 24 13 16

15 22 14 4

16 29 15 10

17 16 16 11

18 27 17 21

19 22 18 5

20 32 19 19

21 10 20 15

22 37 21 22

23 20 22 16

24 19 23 21

total 636 24 13

John 25 19

1 50 26 30

2 14 27 11

TABLE 1--Continued

chapter occurrences chapter occurrences

Acts 28 7 2 Corinthians 10 13

total 379 11 40

Romans 12 27

1 20 13 18

2 28 total 216

3 22

4 12 Galatians 1 13

5 9 2 15

6 15 3 25

7 34 4 30

8 43 5 22

9 19 6 10

10 21 total 115

11 18

12 7 Ephesians 1 5

13 10 2 9

14 30 3 8

15 12 4 11

16 14 5 22

total 314 6 9

total 64

1 Corinthians 1 16

2 12 Philippians 1 17

3 30 2 12

4 24 3 13

5 6 4 16

6 31 total 58

7 49

8 17 Colossians 1 17

9 40 2 14

10 38 3 8

11 39 4 9

12 39 total 48

13 23

14 45 1 Thessalonians 1 3

15 56 2 11

16 13 3 9

total 478 4 14

5 13

2 Corinthians 1 20 total 50

2 10

3 16 2 Thessalonians 1 7

4 14 2 8

5 20 3 14

6 9 total 29

7 11

8 10 1 Timothy 1 11

9 8 2 7

TABLE 1—Continued

chapter occurrences chapter occurrences

1 Timothy 3 10 2 Peter 1 10

4 8 2 9

5 14 3 15

6 13 total 34

total 63

1 John 1 20

2 Timothy 1 12 2 55

2 15 3 42

3 3 4 45

4 6 5 46

total 36 total 208

Titus 1 9 2 John 12

2 1

3 5 3 John 19

total 15

Jude 13

Philemon 11

Revelation 1 13

Hebrews 1 7 2 46

2 12 3 35

3 7 4 6

4 7 5 6

5 9 6 5

6 6 7 6

7 20 8 1

8 10 9 11

9 14 10 4

10 20 11 15

11 15 12 6

12 14 13 12

13 14 14 12

total 155 15 1

16 7

James 1 18 17 22

2 25 18 7

3 22 19 14

4 32 20 5

5 9 21 13

total 106 22 14

total 261

1 Peter 1 8

2 9

3 6

4 10

5 7

total 40

Before summarizing these results, it might be profitable to note

a single instance of style variation within a single book. Notice that

chapters 2-3 of Revelation each contain many more present indicatives

than any of the other chapters of the book. Of course, these chapters.

the Letters to the Seven Churches, comprise a different literary genre

from the others. Yet both portions come from John's pen. This example

should warn the investigator to refrain from construing differences in

present indicative frequency as evidence for divergent authorship.

The findings of Table 1 are summarized below:

TABLE 2

PRESENT INDICATIVES PER BOOK

book occurrences book occurrences

Matthew 768 1 Timothy 63

Mark 529 2 Timothy 36

Luke 636 Titus 15

John 1,083 Philemon 11

Acts 379 Hebrews 155

Romans 314 James 106

1 Corinthians 478 1 Peter 40

2 Corinthians 216 2 Peter 34

Galatians 115 1 John 208

Ephesians 64 2 John 12

Philippians 58 3 John 19

Colossians 48 Jude 13

1 Thessalonians 50 Revelation 261

2 Thessalonians 29 total NT 5,740

With the number of occurrences in hand, one can see that he is working

with a great deal of data. He also begins to feel that the tense is used

differently by the different authors. Both these conclusions are true.

But more data is needed. Total occurrence is not enough; there needs to

be a frequency evaluation for each book and author.

Present Indicative Frequency

Due to the detailed research of Robert Morgenthaler,¹ it is pos-

sible to compare the findings recorded above with other relevant statisti-

cal data, and to determine the frequency of the present indicative in each

New Testament book and author. Morgenthaler's Greek text is Nestle's

twenty-first edition;² but due to the large numbers involved and the basic

similarity of that edition to the text used in this study, his figures

are close enough for the purposes of this study.

Frequency per 100 Words

Morgenthaler lists a total of 137,490 words in the Greek New

Testament.³ The number of words in each book is listed below, along with

the number of present indicative verbs, and the resulting percentage:

the number of present indicative verbs per one hundred words, to the

nearest hundredth of a percent.

TABLE 3

PRESENT INDICATIVES PER 100 WORDS

book words P.I. verbs P.I. verbs/100 words

Matthew 18,305 768 4.20

Mark 11,242 529 4.71

Luke 19,428 636 3.27

John 15,416 1,083 7.03

Acts 18,382 379 2.06

Romans 7,105 314 4.42

1 Corinthians 6,811 478 7.02

2 Corinthians 4,469 216 4.83

Galatians 2,229 115 5.16

Ephesians 2,418 64 2.65

Philippians 1,629 58 3.56

¹ Statistik des Neutestumentlichen Wortschatzes (hereinafter re-

ferred to as Statistik; Frankfurt am Main: Gotthelf-Verlag Zurich, 1958).

² Ibid. p. 9. ³ Ibid., p. 164.

TABLE 3--Continued

book words P.I. verbs P.I. verbs/100 words

Colossians 1,575 48 3.05

1 Thessalonians 1,475 50 3.39

2 Thessalonians 821 29 3.53

1 Timothy 1,588 63 3.97

2 Timothy 1,236 36 2.91

Titus 658 15 2.28

Philemon 33.3 11 3.28

Hebrews 4,951 155 3.13

James 1,749 106 6.06

1 Peter 1,678 40 2.38

2 Peter 1,098 34 3.10

1 John 2,137 208 9.73

2 John 245 12 4.90

3 John 219 19 8.68

Jude 457 13 2.84

Revelation 9,834 261 2.65

___________________________________________________

total NT 137,490 5,740 4.17

One notes several interesting phenomena. John's books have the

highest usage, far above the New Testament average of 4.17 present indi-

catives per 100 words. His Gospel and epistles are very high; yet his

Revelation is quite low, with only 2.65 present indicatives per 100 words;

only four books have a lower rating. The nature of the Apocalypse's

content accounts for the difference, as will be seen later.¹ Also it is

of interest that Paul's epistles tend to fall into natural groups:

Eschatological-- 1 Thessalonians 3.39

2 Thessalonians 3.53

Soteriological-- Romans 4.42

1 Corinthians 7.02

2 Corinthians 4.83

Galatians 5.16

Christological-- Ephesians 2.65

¹ However, the "letter" genre of Rev. 2-3, mentioned earlier, has

a percentage more in line with John's other books. Independent count of

the Nestle-Aland text, 25th ed., shows 1146 words for Rev. 2-3. With 81

present indicatives in the two chapters, the resulting percentage is 7.07

present indicatives per, 100 words, a typical figure for John.

Philippians 3.56

Colossians 3.05

Philemon 3.28

Pastoral-- 1 Timothy 3.97

2 Timothy 2.91

Titus 2.28

Obviously, the lines are not absolute, but in general there is a pattern.

From the highest percentages downward this order appears: Soteriological

Epistles Eschatological Epistles, Christological Epistles (with Philip-

pians reaching up and Ephesians down), then the Pastoral Epistles (over-

lapping the Christological Epistles).

While this frequency list is highly instructive, another frequency

base would be even more helpful. Next shall be shown the frequency of

the present indicative as compared with other tenses and moods, including

infinitives d participles. This information will give a better idea of

each author's style and tense preference.

Frequency per 100 Verb Forms

In order to compute the number of present indicatives per 100

verbs, it was necessary first to determine the total number of verb forms

in each book. The author was unable to locate this information already

published; so it was necessary to add up the occurrences listed under

every verb in a New Testament concordance. The concordance of Jacob Bru-

baker Smith¹ would be suited admirably for the project, since each entry

charts the number of occurrences in each book, but his concordance is

based on the Textus Receptus rather than on a later critical text.² The

¹ J. B. D Smith, ed., Greek-English Concordance to the New Testament

(Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1955).

² Ibid., p. v.

closest work to J. B. Smith's based on a critical text, was found in the

vocabulary list of Robert Morgenthaler.¹ Using Nestle's twenty-first

edition, Morgenthaler charts every vocabulary word in the New Testament,

showing how many times it occurs in each book. The one drawback is that

Morgenthaler combines John's epistles into a single entry. Hence, for

John's epistles this author obtained the information from Moulton and

Geden's Greek concordance.²

In order to ascertain the number of verbs in each book it was

necessary to pick out the verbs from the other vocabulary words, to write

them down ,with the number of occurrences in each book, and to add up the

totals. Morgenthaler's list contains 1,846 verbs. Many occur only one

time in the New Testament; the others range all the way up to the most

common one, ei#nai, which is found in the New Testament 2,450 times.³

In all, the New Testament contains 27,714 verb forms. Table 4 lists the

number of verbs in each book, and the number of present indicatives per

100 verb forms. Notice that this table, while generally agreeing with

the previous one, gives a much more accurate assessment of each book's

preference for the present indicative. For example, Table 3 showed that

the Gospel of John and 1 Corinthians have nearly identical P.I./100 words

frequency. Yet Table 4 shows that Paul in 1 Corinthians actually is much

¹ Morgenthaler, Statistik, pp. 67-157.

² W. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden, eds., A Concordance to the Greek

New Testament According to the Texts of Westcott and Hort, Tischendorf

and the English Revisers (2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1899).

³ Morgenthaler, Statistik, p. 91. The task of recording these

words and statistics was a strenuous one, involving nearly 48,000 entries

in a difficult chart format. This author wishes to thank his wife,

Tammie, for cheerfully doing this work with exemplary care and precision.

TABLE 4

PRESENT INDICATIVES PER 100 VERB FORMS

book P.I. verbs verb forms P.I. verbs/100 verbs

Matthew 768 3,948 19.45

Mark 529 2,612 20.25

Luke 636 4,388 14.49

John 1,083 3,535 30.64

Acts 379 3,874 9.78

Romans 314 1,159 27.09

1 Corinthians 478 1,288 37.11

2 Corinthians 216 758 28.50

Galatians 115 407 28.26

Ephesians 64 325 19.69

Philippians 58 254 22.83

Colossians 48 234 20.51

1 Thessalonians 50 243 20.58

2 Thessalonians 29 122 23.77

1 Timothy 63 299 21.07

2 Timothy 36 224 16.07

Titus 15 112 13.39

Philemon 11 44 25.00

Hebrews 155 916 16.92

James 106 347 30.55

1 Peter 40 275 14.55

2 Peter 34 194 17.53

1 John 208 436 47.71

2 John 12 48 25.00

3 John 19 51 37.25

Jude 13 84 15.48

Revelation 261 1,537 16.98

_________________________________________________________

total NT 5,740 27,714 20.71

more fond of the tense than John is in his Gospel. The reason for this

variation is that Paul in 1 Corinthians uses all verb forms less frequently

than John, thus having a lower P.I./word rating; but when he does use a

verb form, he favors the present indicative, thus raising the P.I./verb

rating. These findings can be summarized by listing the books in descen-

ding order of preference for the present indicative. This follows in

Table 5, along with the rounded off percentage of present indicative usage,

as opposed to other moods and tenses.

TABLE 5

PRESENT INDICATIVE PREFERENCE BY BOOK

rank book P.I. usage rank book P.I. usage

1 1 John 48% 15 Colossians 21%

2 3 John 37% 16 Mark 20%

3 1 Corinthians 37% 17 Ephesians 20%

4 John 31% 18 Matthew 19%

5 James 31% 19 2 Peter 18%

6 2 Corinthians 28% 20 Revelation 17%

7 Galatians 28% 21 Hebrews 17%

8 Romans 27% 22 2 Timothy 16%

9 2 John 25% 23 Jude 15%

10 Philemon 25% 24 1 Peter 15%

11 2 Thessalonians 24% 25 Luke 14%

12 Philippians 23% 26 Titus 13%

13 1 Timothy 21% 27 Acts 10%

14 1 Thessalonians 21% ________________

NT average 21%

Finally, with the above information in hand, one can ascertain

each Biblical author's style and preference for the present indicative.

These findings are tabulated below; the authors are arranged in the order

of the amount of their material in the New Testament.

TABLE 6

PRESENT INDICATIVE PREFERENCE BY AUTHOR

author words verbs P.I. verbs %--P.I. verbs/100 verbs

Luke 37,810 8,262 1,015 12%

Paul (incl. 37,300 6,385 1,652 26%

Hebrews)

Paul (excl. 32,349 5,469 1,497 27%

Hebrews

John 27,851 5,607 1,583 28%

Matthew 18,305 3,948 768 19%

Mark 11,242 2,612 529 20%

Hebrews (if 4,951 916 155 17%

non-Pauline)

Peter 2,776 469 74 16%

James 1,749 347 106 31%

Jude 457 84 13 15%

__________________________________________________

total NT 137,490 27,714 5,740 21%

Therefore, the authors with above average present indicative

usage, in descending order, are James, John, and Paul, while those below

average are Mark, Matthew, Hebrews (if non-Pauline), Peter, Jude, and

Luke.

Doubtful Cases

In a few forms the present indicative is identical to either a

subjunctive or an imperative. Normally the context clearly indicates

which parsing is intended. However, occasionally both are possible with-

in the context. In these cases the examples are included in this paper's

discussion, bit they are here listed:

Mt. 11:3, prosdokw?men, ind. or subj. (Burton notes that "all deliber-

ative questions use either the Subjunctive or the Future Indi-

cative," Moods and Tenses, p. 77.)

Mt. 24:43, ginw<skete, ind. or impv.

Mt. 26:45, kaqeu?dete and a]napau<esqe, ind. or impv., decided by punc-

tuation

Lk. 7:19, 20, prosdokw?men, see Mt. 11:3 above

Lk. 12:39, ginw<skete, ind. or impv.

Jn. 12:19, qewpei?te, ind. or impv.

Jn. 14:1a, pisteu<ete, ind. or impv.

Jn. 15:27, marturei?te, ind. or impv.

Acts 25:24, qewpei?te, ind. or impv.

1 Cor. 1:26, ble<pete, ind. or impv.

1 Cor. 6:4, kaqi<zete, ind. or impv., depends on punctuation

Eph. 5:5, i@ste, ind. or impv.

1 Th. 2:9, mnhmoneu<ete, ind. or impv.

1 Pet. 1:6, a]gallia?sqe, ind. or impv.

1 Jn. 2:27, me<nete, ind. or impv.

With the inclusion of this list, the raw data for this study is

complete. Part II will show the division of these occurrences into their

respective categories and will develop the evidence for the conclusions

of this study delineated in Part III.

Morphological Note on Movable Nu

Students in first year Greek learn the following rule:

When the -ousi of the third person plural of the verb comes either

before a vowel or at the end of a sentence, a n, called movable n,

is added to it. Thus ble<pousin a]posto<louj. Sometimes the movable

n is added even before a word that begins with a consonant. Thus

either lu<ousi dou<louj or lu<ousin dou<louj is correct.¹

Of course, the movable Nu also appears in the present indicative on the

third person, singular and plural, of non-thematic verbs. The impression

given in Machen's textbook is that seldom--"sometimes . . . even"--the

movable Nu is used when the "rule" does not require it. However, it ap-

pears that the "rule" cited applies more to Byzantine and modern Greek

than to classical or koine Greek. The movable Nu

is so universal in the forms which admit it at all, that it is only

necessary to take note of omissions. Modern use, by which n is in-

serted before vowels only, is known to be wrong even for classical

writers, and in Hellenistic it is altogether to be set aside.²

Actually, in Hellenistic Greek, it often runs counter to the rule:

Its particular place . . . is the pause, i.e. the end of a sentence or

clause. Moreover, from the v BC on the tendency to employ n to avoid

hiatus, and therefore to comply with the modern rule which stems from

the Byzantine period, betrays itself in an increasing degree. It is

very popular in the Hellenistic language, but e.g. in the papyri of

the Ptolemaic period it is omitted often before vowels and appears

still more often before consonants. . . . The standard MSS of the NT

almost always employ it, whether a consonant or vowel follows, or the

word stands at the end of a sentence.³

Interest in this subject began when it was noticed that in the New Testament

examples of the present indicative, the movable Nu was nearly always present.

¹ Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners, p. 27.

² James Hope Moulton and Wilbert Francis Howard, A Grammar of New

Testament Greek, Vol. II: Accidence and Word-Formation (Edinburgh: T. & T.

Clark, 1929), p. 113.

³ BDF, p. 12.

In fact, a careful search revealed that in only ten instances was the

final Iota left final:

Mt. 18:10, ble<pousi Acts 17:7, pra<ssousi

Mk. 2:4, xalw?si Acts 18:10, e]sti<

Lk. 16:29, @Exousi Acts 19:38, e@xousi

Jn. 5:23, timw?si Acts 26:4, i@sasi

Jn. 10:14, ginw<skousi Rev. 9:4, e@xousi

In each of these places the word is followed by a consonant, thus up-

holding the rule; but in one of them, Acts 17:7, the form is followed

immediately by a comma, which, while allowed by Machen's wording, contra-

dicts that of BDF, "Its particular place . . . is the pause, i.e. the end

of a sentence or clause."¹ However, these references do support this

further statement in BDF:

It is omitted here and there (never, however, before a vowel and in

pause) following e and with e]sti<, somewhat more often after the -si

of the 3rd pl., most frequently by comparison after the -au of the

dat. plur.²

In order to see how often the movable Nu could have been omitted,

according to the rule, compared to the number of times it was omitted,

this author selected at random the book of Matthew. Every potential case

of a present indicative with the movable Nu was located. Then those ex-

amples were eliminated which were followed by a vowel or which were fol-

lowed by any mark of punctuation in the UBS text. All of these occur-

rences, as expected, had the movable Nu. The remaining list, therefore,

consisted solely of examples in which the verb was followed by a consonant

and was not in pause--in other words, cases in which the movable Nu was

not necessary. In only one case was the Nu missing (Mt. 18:10), but in

¹BDF, p. 12. It should be noted that the Nestle text, used by

BDF, inserts the Nu in Acts 17:7.

² Ibid.

sixty-six cases it was still present. These cases are identified in Ap-

pendix B. As stated by Moulton-Howard, "The irrational addition of -n

may be set beside its irrational omission."¹ Hence, an easier rule to

remember, and more accurate, is this one: "The rule of the koine was to

use the n movable irrespective of what followed."²

¹ Moulton and Howard, Accidence and Word-Formation, p. 113.

² Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 24.

PART II. PRESENT INDICATIVE EXEGESIS

I. THE USAGE CATEGORIES

Before the present indicative can be treated as a whole, it must

be considered in its various exegetical usages separately. This chapter

shall define the categories to be explored in this paper.

Traditional Usage Classifications

Earlier grammarians were aware of the broad use of the present

indicative found in the New Testament. W. H. Simcox, for example, wrestling

with this problem, sought the solution in "foreign influence" and in "the

special requirements of the Scriptural order of thought."¹ Subsequently,

A. T. Robertson noted simply,

All three kinds of action are found in the present (punctiliar,

durative, perfect). All three kinds of time are also found in the

present ind. (historical present = past, futuristic present = future,

the common use for present time), ²

thus adding to the time variations already noted by Simcox the aspect

variations as well.

The difficulty and complexity of this subject becomes evident as

one examines the various schemes which have been proposed for classifying

the uses of the present indicative. No two systems are the same. How-

ever, in spite of the numerous differences, a few categories are so out-

standing or unique that they appear in virtually every list:

¹ William Henry Simcox, The Language of the New Testament (4th ed.;

London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1906), pp. 98, 101,

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 869.

45
46

a) Progressive present, action going on at the same time as the

speaking or writing

b) Conative present, attempted action not carried out

c) Gnomic present, general truth

d) Iterative present, repeated or customary action

e) Aoristic present, punctiliar action in present time

f) Historical present, past action

g) Futuristic present, future action

h) Perfective present, past action, with either the action itself or

its effects continuing into present time

In spite of this general consensus grammarians have never fully agreed.

In fact, none of the grammars consulted in this study had even the nine

categories listed above.

The classical grammarian H. W. Smyth omits the aoristic category,

and adds two others. He adds another perfective category for continuing

action, and he adds the annalistic present, a present which "registers

historical facts or notes incidents," in addition to the historical pres-

ent.¹

Another classical scholar, B. L. Gildersleeve, uses categories

similar to these used later by Smyth.² He calls the progressive present

the specific present, and the gnomic present the universal present. He

includes the classical annalistic present under the head of historical

present. But he leaves out the iterative as well as the aoristic cate-

gories.

¹ Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar (New York: American Book

Company, 1916 , pp. 276-78.

² Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve and Charles William Emil Miller, Syntax

of Classical Greek from Homer to Demosthenes (hereinafter referred to as

Syntax; 2 vols.; New York: American Book Company, 1900, 1911), I, 81-88.

Among scholars of Biblical Greek the variation is even greater.

R. T. France, for example, lists only five categories, omitting the gnomic,

iterative, and perfective categories.¹ And in his discussion of the aoris-

tic present he shows some confusion.²

C. F. D. Moule's analysis conforms fairly well to the list above,

except there is no category for the perfective present whose effects con-

tinue into the present. Instead, another category of "present in reported

speech" is introduced.³

The older grammarian S. G. Green notes only four categories, omit-

ting these categories: conative (his is the only grammar seen to omit this

category), gnomic (unless it be included under "habitual or usual act"),

aoristic, and perfective. The last omitted category is, however, brought

forward in th discussion of the "certain futurity" category.⁴

Burton comes closest to the "average" list, with all those listed

and two additional, the periphrastic present (present of ei#nai plus a

present participle) and the present in indirect discourse. In addition,

he divides the perfective present into its two natural parts.⁵

A. T. Robertson's scheme is a little harder to follow and compare,

since he analyzes his Aktionsart categories rather than the tenses as

such. Under “aoristic present” he includes the specific or constative

¹France, "The Exegesis of Greek Tenses in the New Testament,"

Notes on Translation, 46 (December, 1972), pp. 4-5.

² Ibid., cf. pp. 6-7. ³ Moule, Idiom Book, pp. 7-8.

⁴ Samuel G. Green, Handbook to the Grammar of the Greek Testament

(Rev. ed.; New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1912), pp. 297-98.

⁵ Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 7-16.

present (as “I say” in the Gospels) along with the gnomic, historical,

and futuristic categories.¹ Under "durative action" he includes the ob-

viously progressive examples ("descriptive present"), past continuing ac-

tion ("progrssive present"), and iterative and conative Presents. He

allows some historical and futuristic presents, and adds "deliberative"

and "periphrastic" presents.² Finally, under "perfected action" he

includes "presents as perfects."³

Blass gives many examples of each category he lists. However, he

does not include the gnomic, iterative, or perfective categories. He

does add the "relative present," which is similar to the present in indi-

rect discourse, only is limited to verbs of perception and knowledge.⁴

One of the few grammars to attach any priority to the categories

is that of Dana and Mantey. Listed under "regular uses of the present"

are the "progressive" and iterative categories. "Progressive" presents

are divided into what has earlier been listed as progressive and perfective

presents. An Dana and Mantey see two types of iterative presents, repe-

titive ("iterative") and habitual ("customary"). Under "special uses of

the present" are listed the aoristic, futuristic, historical, conative

("tendential" , and gnomic ("static") categories.⁵

The only writer this author discovered who tried to actually count

the number of usages in each exegetical category was G. Mussies,⁶ His

¹ Robetson, Grammar, pp. 864-70. ²Ibid., pp. 970-82.

³ Ibid. pp. 881, 903. ⁴ BDF, pp. 167-69.

⁵ Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, pp. 182-86.

⁶ Mussies, The Morphology of Koine Greek as Used in the Apocalypse

of Saint John (hereinafter referred to as Apocalypse; Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1971), p. 333.

categories are sufficiently different from the average that they deserve

a separate listing, along with an example and the number of occurrences

in Revelation:

1) General present, Rev. 10:3, 6 times

2) Direct address to the reader, Rev. 16:15, 11 times

3) Explanatory remarks in visions, Rev. 17:18, 42 times (including

13 which should also be listed under #4, but are not counted

there)

4) Reported speech, mainly Rev. 2-3, 121 times

5) Historical present, Rev. 19:12, 43 times

6) Future present, Rev. 14:9, 39 times

While this author would dispute the assignment of several examples to these

categories, the list does demonstrate three things: the unusual grammatical

character of the Apocalypse, the approximate weight of the major categories,

and the difficulty of defining exegetically significant categories.

Proposed Classifications

The exegetical categories arrived at by this author are here out-

lined, with an example of each usage, and the symbol used for each cate-

gory (as in Appendix A).

I. Present indicative in present time

A. Progressive present (10), describes action or state of being

going on during the time of speaking or writing.

Mt. 9:4, "Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?"

B. Declarative present (11), introduces a statement of the

speaker or writer.

Lk. 7:28, “I say to you, . . .”

C. Customary present (12), describes habitual, customary, or

repeated action.

1. General customary present (121), describes customary

action without reference to its repetition for any

individual.

1 Cor. 1:22, "The Jews seek a sign."

2. Singular iterative present (122), describes action re-

peated by one individual.

Jn. 14:10, "The Father abiding in me does his works."

3. Plural iterative present (123), describes action repeated

by each member of a plural subject.

Lk. 5:33, "The disciples of John fast often."

4. Non-iterative customary present (124), describes customary

action which occurs only once to any individual.

Mt. 11:5, "The blind receive sight."

5. Parabolic customary present (125), describes the expected

action of a typical person in a parable.

Mt. 13:44, "From joy he goes and sells all he has."

D. Abstract present (13), describes truth or fact which is theo-

retical or abstract, and therefore always valid.

1. Explanatory present (131), explains relevant facts and

information to help the reader.

Lk. 2:4, "the city of David, which is called Bethlehem."

2. Factual present (132), describes a natural, theological,

or theoretical truth.

Jn. 15:5, "Without me you are not able to do anything."

3. Impersonal present (133), expresses what is right, proper,

advantageous, or necessary.

2 Cor. 5:10, "It is necessary for all of us to appear."

4. Interpretive present (134), explains the theological sig-

nificance of an item in the text.

Mt. 13:38, "The field is the world."

5. Comparative present (135), compares the similarities of

two items.

Mk. 4:26, "The kingdom of God is as a man."

E. Perfective present (14), describes a present state resulting

from past action.

1. General perfective present (141), describes perfected

action with a simple present tense.

Jn. 11:28, "The teacher has come."

2. Present in periphrastic perfect (142), provides the helping

verb for a perfect participle.

Col. 2:10, "You are completed in him."

3. Present in citation periphrastic perfect (143), provides

the helping verb in the phrase "it is written."

Jn. 6:31, "even as it is written."

4. Citation present (144), describes the actions or previous

Scriptural writers or characters.

Rom. 10:5, "Moses writes concerning the righteousness

which is of the law."

II. Present indicative in past time

A. Historical present (21), describes simple past action in a

narrative.

Mk. 7:28, "She answered and says."

B. Present for immediate past (22), describes action immediately

completed.

Jn. 13:22, "being uncertain concerning whom he says."

C. Imperfective present (23), describes past action continuing into

the present.

Lk. 13:7, "For three years I come seeking fruit."

III. Present indicative in future time

A. Futuristic present (31), describes future action.

Jn. 20:17, "I ascend to my Father."

B. Present for immediate future (32), describes action just about

to happen.

Lk. 19:8, "Lord, I give to the poor."

IV. Present indicative in relative time

A. Relative present (41), describes action which is present to

the verbal context of the clause, but not necessarily to the

speaker or writer.

1 Cor. 7:36, "That which he wishes let him do."

B. Indirect present (42), describes action presented in indirect

discourse, thought, or perception.

Lk. 18:37, "They declared to him that Jesus the Nazarene is

coming."

V. Present indicative in conditional sentences

A. Present of the protasis (51), describes the condition necessary

to produce the apodosis.

Ja. 4:11, "if you judge the law."

B. Concessive present (52), describes the condition in spite of

which the apodosis will take place.

Heb. 6:9, "though we speak thus."

C. Substantive present (53), describes the content of desired

information.

Lk. 6:7, "They were watching . . . if he heals on the Sabbath."

VI. Modal use of the present indicative (60), employs the word as

a subjunctive or an imperative.¹

¹ In a few places the present indicative seems to take on the

meaning of another mood. It appears to be used as a subjunctive in de-

liberative questions with prosdokw?men (Mt. 11:3; Lk. 7:19, 20), a form

which can be either indicative or subjunctive; likewise, a subjunctive

sense seems best for gi<netai, in Rom. 11:6 and ginw<skomen in 1 Jn. 5:20.

In two places the present indicative resembles the imperative mood: Lk.

2:29, a]polu<eij; and 2 Tim. 1:15, oi#daj. These few cases evidently should

be treated as with the other mood and do not fall into the purview of

this study.

II. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN PRESENT TENSE

By far the largest number of usages lie within this category.

Except for the perfect tense and specialized uses of the aorist, the pres-

ent tense monopolizes expressions of present time. But within this gen-

eral category are numerous subtypes. Each of these shall be examined in

this chapter.

Progressive Present

This constantly used designation finds various interpretations

among grammarians. Burton tends to make the category nearly universal.

The most constant characteristic of the Present Indicative is that

it denote action in progress. It probably had originally no reference

to present time. But since, in the historical periods of the language,

action in progress in past time is expressed by the Imperfect, and the

Future is used both as a progressive and as an aoristic tense for fu-

ture time, it results that the Present Indicative is chiefly used to

express action in progress in present time. Hence in deciding upon

the significance of any given instance of the Present Indicative in

the New Testament as well as in Classical Greek, the interpreter may

consider that there is, at least in the majority of words, a certain

presumption in favor of the Progressive Present rather than any of

the other uses mentioned below.¹

This author concluded that nearly 40% of the New Testament's present in-

dicatives are progressive presents. Robertson tends to lean more toward

an "aoristic" present--i.e., no aspect distinction--as the basic idea of

the tense, with the progressive feature being added later.

The original present was probably therefore aoristic, or at least some

roots were used either as punctiliar or linear, and the distinctively

durative notions grew up around specially formed stems and so were

applied to the form with most verbs, though never with all. ²

¹Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 7-8.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 865.

However, he admits that it is the largest category in the New Testament.¹

He calls it "descriptive present," and reserves "progressive present" for

presents that carry on past action (e.g., 1 John 2:9),² which cases will

be treated later in this chapter.

In this study the term "progressive present" describes any present

which describes an action or state of being which is present to the speaker

or writer, and which does not fall into another, more specialized category.

Some examples often given for this category, as Matthew 25:8 ("our lamps

are going out") or 8:25 ("Lord, save, we perish"), are included rather

in the "immediate future" category for reasons which will be argued in

that discussion.³

The title "progressive present" is indeed vague. But the alter-

natives are misleading. Thus "simple present" might be assumed to be

aoristic; "general present" might be confused with "present of general

truth," the "gnomic" category.

Translating the progressive present often leads to the English

periphrastic present--"he is drinking milk"--to avoid confusing it with

the English general present of customary action--"he drinks milk."⁴

Sometimes the Greek stresses the progressive idea by combining the present

indicative of ei#nai with a present participle--the "periphrastic present."

In these cases, the participle takes on the nature of a predicate adjective:

The Greek has no special form for the progressive present of English,

nor for the progressive tenses generally. In the periphrasis with the

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 879.

² Ibid.

³Cf. Robertson, Grammar, p. 879; Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 8.

⁴ Moule, Idiom Book, p. 7; cf. Robertson, Grammar, p. 879.

present participle, the participle is generally equivalent to a

characteristic adjective or substantive, with which it is often cou-

pled.¹

The progressive present is the largest single category of present

indicative verbs, being used frequently by all authors. The following

table notes its frequency in each book, as compared with other uses of

the present indicative.

TABLE 7

PROGRESSIVE PRESENT FREQUENCY

book prog. pres. P.I. verbs %--prog. pres.

Matthew 210 768 27%

Mark 136 529 26%

Luke 201 636 32%

John 404 1,083 37%

Acts 204 379 54%

Romans 124 314 39%

1 Corinthians 174 478 36%

2 Corinthians 122 216 56%

Galatians 55 115 48%

Ephesians 38 64 59%

Philippians 42 58 72%

Colossians 33 48 69%

1 Thessalonians 29 50 58%

2 Thessalonians 12 29 41%

1 Timothy 19 63 30%

2 Timothy 19 36 53%

Titus 5 15 33%

Philemon 5 11 45%

Hebrews 50 155 32%

James 28 106 26%

1 Peter 17 40 42%

2 Peter 16 34 47%

1 John 120 208 58%

2 John 3 12 25%

3 John 11 19 58%

Jude 4 13 31%

Revelation 84 261 32%

__________________________________________________________

total NT 2,165 5,740 38%

It is noticeable that the highest frequencies are found in Paul's Prison

¹ Gildersleeve, Syntax, I, 81.

Epistles, Acts, and scattered epistles of Paul and John. In these books

more than half of the present indicatives are simple progressive presents.

Yet one should beware of generalizations, as, for example, the difference

between Second and Third John might prove.

The Verb "To Be"

The most common verb, ei#nai, is also one of the most complex.

Its aspect is basically durative.¹ In this sense it is contrasted with

gi<nesqai, which denotes "temporal existence which has a beginning and

ending."² It especially is durative as a present tense helping verb in

a periphrastic construction.³

General agreement prevails concerning the verb's linking capa-

bilities:

a) x equals y,

b) x is described by y, or

c) x is located at y,⁴

as well as its primary syntactical usage:

Ei#nai is mainly a structure signaling word in Greek. As such, it is

nearly lexically empty, in distinction from all other verbs in Greek.

On the basis of this study, one may formulate the following generali-

zations with respect to ei#nai: ei#nai, belongs to a restricted class

of verbs, consisting of one member; ei#nai is primarily a syntactic

rather than a lexical item in the vocabulary stock of Greek: ei#nai,

determines one sentence type that plays a fundamental role in the

structure of Greek.⁵

¹Charles H. Kahn, "The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Concept of Be-

ing," Foundations of Language, 2 (1966), 254-55.

² Lane C. McGaughy, Toward a Descriptive Analysis of "Einai as a

Linking Verb in New Testament Greek (hereinafter referred to as "Einai),

Dissertation Series, No. 6, The Society of Biblical Literature (Missoula,

Montana: University of Montana, 1972), D. 135.

³ Ibid., p. 7. ⁴ Ibid. ⁵ Ibid., pp. 150-51.

Where disagreement arises is in understanding its lexical status when used

absolutely, as in the famous statement, "I am." Some writers vehemently

deny any "existential meaning" for ei#nai, and assume a predicate comple-

ment should be supplied.¹ Kahn even goes so far as to assert that the

Greeks' understanding of the verb ei#nai led to certain distinguishing

points in Greek philosophy.²

On the other side, however, the verb seems to have "existential"

force in the statement "I am." In John 8:58, for example, "It stands in

unmistakable contrast to pri>n ]Abraa>m gene<sqai. This is the only passage

in the NT where we have the contrast between ei#nai and gene<sqai. The

verse ascribes to Jesus consciousness of eternity or supra-temporality."³

A crucial passage is John 8:24-29. In verse 24 Jesus says, "If you be-

lieve not that I am, you shall die in your sins," and similarly in verse

28, "then shall you know that I am." This expression is tied closely

to the description of Jehovah in the Old Testament.⁴ In this understand-

ing Abbott is joined by Ethelbert Stauffer, who notes the special Messi-

anic use of e]gw< ei]mi in Mark and John.⁵ Some writers see the possibility

¹ McGaughy, @Einai, pp. 119-25; Kahn, "The Greek Verb 'To Be' and

the Concept of Being," pp. 250-54.

² Ibid., p. 260.

³ Friedrich Bachsel, "ei]mi<," Theological Dictionary of the New

Testament, Vol. II, ed. by Gerhard Kittel, trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W.

Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964), p. 399.

⁴ Edwin A. Abbott, Johannine Gramar (London: Adam and Charles

Black, 1906), pp. 183-86, notes Isa. 43:10-13; 46:4; 48:12; Dt. 32:39;

also the parallel phrases "from the beginning," "working," and "speaking"

in John 6:68-69 and Isa. 43:10; 52:6.

⁵ "e]gw<," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. II, ed.

by Gerhard Kittel, trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids:

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964), pp. 352-54.

of the simple translation "I am he" or "it is I" in many instances, as

B. F. Westcott at John 6:20.¹ But "I am he" is clearly rendered by e]gw<

ei]mi< au]to<j, as in Luke 24:39.² Rather, e]gw< ei]mi, in the Gospels often

has the added significance of "I am the Savior," "I am the Son of God."³

The phrase "seems to call upon the Pharisees to believe that the Son of

man is not only the Deliverer but also one with the Father in the unity

of the Godhead."⁴

The Question of Aoristic Presents

Most grammars have a major category of admittedly few examples

for "punctiliar presents."

In those few cases where a punctiliar act taking place at the moment

of speaking is to be denoted, the present is usually used since the

punctiliar aorist stems form no present. ⁵

¹ Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.

Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1881), p. 98. Westcott lists the following

verses under his explanation: Mk. 13:6; Lk. 21:8; Jn. 4:26; 8:24, 28, 58;

(9:4); 13:19; 18:5, 6, 8. However, Abbott is wrong to assume that Westcott

favors the same translation in each passage, as an examination of each in

Westcott's commentary will prove (Johannine Grammar, p. 183).

² Abbott, Johannine Grammar, p. 182.

³ Cf. Mk. 13:6 and Lk. 21:8 with Mt. 24:5, which adds, o[ Xristo<j.

⁴ Abbott, Johannine Grammar, p. 187; an interesting issue of similar

import is the possible Messianic claim in Christ's answers to the Sanhedrin

and Pilate: "Are you the Son of God?" Jesus says, "You have said." For

a convincing defence of the claim, see D. R. Catchpole, "The Answer of Je-

sus to Caiaphas (Matt. xxvi. 64)," New Testament Studies, 17:2 (January,

1971), 213-26. On pp. 217 and 226 Catchpole summarizes the statement's

force: "In Matt. 26:25 su> ei#paj contains an affirmation modified only by

a preference for not stating the matter expressis verbis. . . . In each

case considerations of the literary background of su> ei#paj or u[mei?j

le<gete converge with the position of the phrases at the turning point of

the hearing to recommend the following meaning: affirmative in content,

and reluctant or circumlocutory in formulation."

⁵ BDF, p. 167.

However, the argument is lacking, since the aorist indeed can describe

events in present time, as examples of the so-called "dramatic aorist"

show.¹ On the other hand, some claim the present tense cannot be aoristic,

it "cannot denote the completion of an act."² Burton comes into some dif-

ficulty by defining the present indicative as "action in progress" and

then having to allow for a large exception category.

The Present Indicative is sometimes used of an action or event coinci-

dent in time with the act of speaking, and conceived of as a simple

event. Most frequently the action denoted by the verb is identical

with the act of speaking itself, or takes place in that act. . . .

This usage is a distinct departure from the prevailing use of the

Present tense to denote action in progress. There being in the Indi-

cative no tense which represents an event as a simple fact without at

the same time assigning it either to the past or the future, the Pre-

sent is used for those instances, in which an action of present time

is conceived of without reference to its progress.³

Robertson is quick to point out this inconsistency:

A greater difficulty is due to the absence of distinction in the tense

between punctiliar and linear action. This defect is chiefly found

in the indicative. . . . There is nothing left to do but to divide

the so-called Pres. Ind. into Aoristic Present and Durative Present

(or Punctiliar Present and Linear Present). The one Greek form covers

both ideas in the ind. The present was only gradually developed as a

distinct tense. . . The present is formed on punctiliar as well as

linear roots. It is not wise therefore to define the pres. ind. as

denoting "action in progress" like the imperf. as Burton does, for

he has to take it back on p. 9 in the discussion of the "Aoristic

Present," which he calls a "distinct departure from the prevailing use

of the present tense to denote action in progress." In sooth, it is

no "departure" at all. The idiom is as old as the tense itself and is

due to the failure in the development of separate tenses for punctiliar

and linear action in the ind. of present time. ⁴

Due to the combined durative-punctiliar history of the present indicative,

¹Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 198.

² Goodwin-Gulick, Greek Grammar, p. 268: this statement was not made

in Goodwin's own edition, cf. A Greek Grammar, p. 246.

³Burton, Moods and Tenses, D. 9.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 864.

it appears that the tense cannot be limited to either category.

It must not be thought, however, that the durative meaning monopolises

the present stem. In the prehistoric period only certain conjugations

had linear action; and though later analogic processes mostly levelled

the primitive diversity, there are still some survivals of importance.¹

The only limitation would come through the nature of the action itself.

If the action takes any time at all, it could be classed as progressive.

On this basis, K. L. McKay has denied a punctiliar present:

Some grammarians write as if the present may be used to express a

punctiliar action in present time ("aoristic present"), but can it?

If a real action is really in present time it is almost inevitably

in process. In the rare cases where an aoristic sense in present

time is appropriate--mainly in the colloquial language of comedy--

the aorist is used.²

But in view of the many examples of presents with "undefined" action, it

seems best to define the aoristic present as Robertson does: "The aoristic

present = undefined action in the present, as aoristic past (ind.) = un-

defined action in the past."³ In the New Testament, it "may be interpre-

ted either as durative or as aoristic, depending on the context."⁴

In this study the common examples of aoristic presents have been

switched to other--it is hoped, better--categories. Thus Robertson's

example of Luke 7:8, "I say go, and he goes," is listed under customary

present; and his "common ei]mi<" is under progressive presents.⁵ The only

special category derived from these "aoristic presents" shall be the

declarative category discussed next.

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 119.

² McKay, "Syntax in Exegesis," p. 49.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 865. ⁴ Mussies, Apocalypse, p. 276.

⁵ Robertson, Grammar, p. 865.

Declarative Present

The largest single category normally listed under "aoristic pres-

ents" is "le<gw in the Gospels."¹ This category was considered sufficiently

large and distinctive to be included as a separate category. Other ex-

amples belong with it, as "says the Lord" in Old Testament quotations,

and the frequent "I exhort," "I command" and "I make known" statements

throughout the New Testament, especially in the epistles. At first the

category was entitled "presents of self-expression." But the strongly

assertive quality of the examples made the title "declarative present"

more appropriate. The following table delineates this category in the

major New Testament sections.

TABLE 8

DECLARATIVE PRESENTS

type Mt. Mk. Lk. Jn. Acts Epistles Rev, total

1 3 2 8 5 11 66 2 97

2 - - - - - 33 - 33

3 27 3 36 3 1 4 1 75

4 - 2 5 - - - - 7

5 27 12 6 - - - - 45

6 - 1 - - - - - 1

7 - - - 20 - - - 20

8 - - - 5 - - - 5

9 - - - - 4 8 16 28
____________________________________________________

total 57 20 55 33 16 111 19 311

Key: 1--miscellaneous: "I exhort, command, ask, adjure, etc,"

2--"I say" introducing the speech

3--"I say to you (pl.)"

4--"I say to you (sing.)"

5--"truly I say to you (pl.)"

6--"truly I say to you (sg.)"

7--'truly truly I say to you (pl.)"

8--"truly truly I say to you (sg.)"

9--"says the Lord (or the Spirit)"

¹ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 9; Robertson, Grammar, p. 866;

Moule, Idiom Book, p. 7.

As expected, books with more homiletic material rate higher than histori-

cal or prophetical books. However, authorship style here has an important

bearing. Paul often "beseeches," "commands," and "exhorts." Jesus, on

the other hand, as reported by all four Evangelists, merely "says." Yet

the form of "I say" varies from book to book: Mark prefers "truly I say

to you"; Luke prefers to omit "truly"; Matthew balances the two forms.

John, who only three times has "I say to you," never writes "truly I say

to you." Instead, twenty-five times John has the formula "truly truly I

say to you," a form found nowhere else in the New Testament.

In almost all these instances the declarative verb is followed by

the content of the speech.¹ The declarative verb can therefore be under-

stood as either durative, emphasizing the process of making the speech, or

aoristic, emphasizing the content of the speech as a unit. The latter

seems the most likely. The introduction probably is intended to add force

to what is said. This understanding is that of the United Bible Societies'

translating rule #19: "Introductory expressions such as 'verily, verily,'

must be related to the content of what is said, not to the fact of saying."²

But one must be careful to distinguish Aktionsart and aspect in these verbs.

The speech itself is not punctiliar, but it is merely viewed as aoristic,

with no reference to its linear or punctiliar nature, but concentrating

on the matter only.

¹ Sometimes "says the Lord" comes within or after the speech. Bruce

M. Metzger notes, "Paul occasionally adds within or at the end of the quo-

tation the words le<gei ku<rioj," "The Formulas Introducing Quotations of

Scripture in the New Testament and in the Mishnah" (hereinafter referred

to as "Formulas"), Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and

Christian, Vol. VIII of New Testament Tools and Studies, ed. by Bruce M.

Metzger (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968),p. 55.

² Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, p. 182.

Customary Present

This category, as many others, covers a wide territory and finds

various definitions in the grammars. Robertson calls it "iterative" or

"customary," and charts it as a series of punctiliar dots (• • • •).¹

Dana and Mantey find a subdivision, calling "iterative" those presents

which recur at successive intervals, and "customary," those which denote

habitual action.² Thus "I brush my teeth" would be customary, while

"I still get cavities" would be iterative. On the whole, however, this

method seems artificial and is difficult to carry out when assigning

categories—What does one do with "I sin"?

Other grammarians lump several categories together. Burton has no

separate category for repeated action, except what might be implied in

"General or Gnomic Present."³ H. M. Smyth, on the other hand, divides the

category into "customary," i.e., repeated by one person, and "factual,"

for "general truth."⁴

It appears that the most cogent subdivision is that offered by

Moulton, who uses the terms "frequentative" and "iterative." Using the

word a]poqn^<skw, he notes,

We find the present stem used as an iterative in 1 Cor. 15:31, and as

frequentative in Heb. 7:8; 10:28; 1 Cor. 15:22; Rev. 14:13: the latter

describes action which recurs from time to time with different indi-

viduals, as the iterative describes action repeated by the same agent.⁵

This division seems the best, and more objective than that suggested by

Dana and Mantey. Eventually, this author divided customary presents into

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 880. ² Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p.

184.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 8-9. ⁴ Smyth, Greek Grammar, p. 276.

⁵Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 114. In this sense he, as opposed to Bur-

ton, includes aa]fi<omen in Luke 11:4 as frequentative, since the same indi-

viduals "habitually forgive," p. 119.

five groups. Each of these will be noted in turn.

General Customary Present

This is the largest section, and includes repeated, customary, or

habitual action, whether the subject is singular or plural. None of these

examples fits certainly in any of the following four categories.

Usually the subject is plural, and the action described may or may

not be repeated by any particular individual. This category does not

stress the repetitive nature of the act for any particular individual;

rather, it stresses the repetitive nature of the act itself. In the case

of a singular subject, this category stresses not so much the repetitive

nature of the act, as it emphasizes its dependability in any particular

case; thus John 10:27-28, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and

they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life." The plural verbs

(hear, follow) are customary--whether each sheep hears and follows once

or more than once is not the question in view. Also the singular verbs

(know, give) are customary, since each individual instance is more in view

than the mere repetition required for Christ to know and give life to

all the sheep throughout history.

An interesting example of this usage is a]pe<xousin in Matthew

6:2, 5, 16, "they have their reward." Adolf Deissmann has compared this

usage to the common use of a]pe<xw on papyri and ostraca business and tax

receipts: "I have received payment in full--nothing more is due."¹ Jesus

was speaking of the Pharisees as a class, not necessarily of individuals.

As Moulton has put it, "The hypocrites have as it were their money down,

¹ Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, tr. by Lionel R. M.

Strachan (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1927), pp. 110-12.

as soon as their trumpet has sounded."¹

Singular Iterative Present

This category includes cases where a singular verb represents re-

peated action for that one subject. For example, John the Baptist says

in Matthew 3:11, "I baptize with water." The action is not progressive,

but rather repetitive or habitual. Many times Jesus says, "The things

which I say unto you." Yet the verb refers primarily to His repeated

speeches made throughout His ministry, not primarily to the speech He is

making at the time. Paul uses this category in Romans 7, where he des-

cribes his constant struggles with his sinful nature. It is wrong to sup-

pose that he is describing his earlier life.²

Plural Iterative Present

Often the present verb is plural and the action is customary.

But, in addition, it is clear from the context and important in the

statement, that each individual in the plural subject repeatedly does the

action. Thus the disciples of John ask, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast

often, but thy disciples fast not?" (Mt. 9:14). The point of the question

is not that fasting as such is at issue, but repeated fasting is the norm.

Often the subject is "we," as with Paul's frequent "we preach Christ,"

"we boast on you," or "we give thanks often for you."

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 247.

² Charles Horne, Salvation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p.

113; cf. Boyce W. Blackwelder, Light from the Greek New Testament (Ander-

son, Indiana: The Warner Press, n.d.), p. 67.

Non-Iterative Customary Present

This title may sound incongruous or self contradictory. Yet there

are several New Testament examples which need such a category. In these

cases the action occurs only once to each particular individual, but the

action is considered repetitive as it occurs with many different indivi-

duals at different times. There is a close relationship between this

category and the factual or gnomic present. The dividing line is a matter

of emphasis, and thus of personal judgment. This category stresses the

repetitive--and thus inevitable--nature of the action. The gnomic present

instead emphasizes the physical, logical or legal basis of the action.

Thus Matthew 7:19, "Every tree that brings not forth good fruit

is hewn down, and cast into the fire," is non-iterative, since it obvi-

ously can happen only once to each tree; yet it is customary, since it hap-

pens to many trees over the years. When Jesus declared in Matthew 11:5

that "the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are

cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the

gospel preached to them," He was referring to the sun of the single heal-

ings of each person as repetitive, since many people were being healed.

Perhaps the finest example is Paul's in 1 Corinthians 15:22, "In Adam all

die." Each person dies once; yet Paul uses the present tense because

the action constantly repeats itself with different individuals.¹

¹ James Oliver Buswell is a bit unclear when he says, "The present

tense of the verb justifies the implication of a continuous process. All

men are subject to death," A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion

(2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), I, 289; the

word "continuous" is better replaced by "continuously repeated"; the

action itself is not durative.

Parabolic Customary Present

Often as He related a parable, Jesus would describe a hypotheti-

cal situation, and would describe the actions of the character which

would be expected in that situation. For example, the man in Matthew

13:44, having found the treasure-field, "goes and sells all that he has,

and buys that field." This action is not iterative, but it is customary

for a person in his circumstances. Similarly, the plants in shallow

ground "have no root" (Mk. 4:17) because there is no soil. Since these

examples occur in parables and hypothetical situations, they are divided

from the general customary presents.

Having seen all the types of customary presents, it is now possible

to delineate the occurrences of each type in the New Testament books.

TABLE 9

CUSTOMARY PRESENTS

book 1 2 3 4 5 total

Matthew 99 31 14 13 17 174

Mark 21 15 10 - 21 67

Luke 73 27 13 12 25 150

John 55 47 8 5 2 117

Acts 10 14 4 - - 28

Romans 25 36 8 - - 69

1 Corinthians 82 15 15 3 - 115

2 Corinthians 33 4 2 - - 39

Galatians 10 2 - - - 12

Ephesians 4 - - - - 4

Philippians 4 1 - - - 5

Colossians 2 - 1 - - 3

1 Thessalonians 5 - 2 - - 7

2 Thessalonians 5 - 1 - - 6

1 Timothy 12 2 - - - 14

2 Timothy 6 1 - - - 7

Titus 3 - - - - 3

Philemon - 1 - - - 1

Hebrews 33 3 - 1 - 37

James 40 - - - - 40

TABLE 9--Continued

book 1 2 3 4 5 total

I Peter 9 - - - - 9

2 Peter 8 - - - - 8

1 John 24 1 2 - - 27

2 John - - - - - -

3 John - 7 - - - 7

Jude 8 - - - - 8

Revelation 18 - 1 - - 19

___________________________________________

total NT 589 207 81 34 65 976

Key: 1--general customary presents

2--singular iterative presents

3--plural iterative presents

4--non-iterative customary presents

5--parabolic customary presents

Abstract Present

Often the present indicative indicates a general truth or a time-

less statement or idiom. Unlike the previous category of customary or

repeated presents, this category is necessarily durative. Yet the action

itself need not be durative, only the truthfulness or validity of the

statement within the context of the speaker or writer. Thus Jesus can

say, "The seed is the word of God," and the context is established--the

parable of the sower. In another parable the seed may represent something

else entirely. There are five major types of abstract presents, and they

are examined below.

Explanatory Present

Often the Biblical writer will step aside to interpret or explain

some item in his account to the reading audience. The very second occur-

rence of the present indicative in the New Testament falls into this

group, " . . . which is interpreted, With us is God" (Mt. 1:23). Matthew

uses this device only four times (above, and in 27:33, 46, 62), and Luke

only twice (2:4; 8:26). But it is frequent in Mark (12 times: 3:17; 5:41;

7:2, 4, 11, 34; 12:18, 42; 15:16, 22, 34, 42), and John (10 times: 1:38,

41, 42; 4:9; 5:2; 9:7; 19:17, 40; 20:16; 21:24), and Acts (9 times: 1:12,

19; 4:36; 8:26; 9:36; 13:8; 16:12; 23:8, 8). It is found only once in

the epistles (Heb. 9:2) and three times in Revelation (2:24; 21:17;

22:20). It is possible to include some citations under other categories

as well; for example, the verbs in Acts 23:8, "The Sadducees say that

there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees

confess both," could be classified as customary presents as well as ex-

planatory presents. Yet here it seems that the confidential tone of Acts

calls for classing those verbs as primarily explanatory.

Factual Present

This category, often called the "gnomic" present, has a fairly

high number of occurrences. Unfortunately, the line separating this cate-

gory and several others is not always clear, and the confusion is evident

in the grammars. While all recognize a sort of "gnomic" present,¹ the

definitions and examples for the category are far from uniform. The dif-

ficulty arises from the nature of the category. If every statement of the

Bible is true, is it not a fact, and is it not, therefore, factual?

Furthermore, many progressive presents as well as customary presents lend

themselves to this grouping.²

Perhaps one helping factor is the durative nature of these verbs'

aspect. K. L. McKay goes so far as to distinguish gnomic presents from

¹ Dana and Mantey call it "static" present, Manual Grammar, p. 186.

² Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 8-9.

gnomic aorists on the basis of aspect alone:

The difference between the present and the aorist in these timeless

contexts is the normal aspectual difference between process and com-

plete action, and we need not apologize for it.¹

While this estimation appears a bit sweeping, it seems reasonable to re-

strict this category to more or less "timeless" expressions of fact. The

aspect of these verbs could be either durative or "non-determined."

Robertson thinks that gnomic presents are aoristic, and defines the gnomic

present as "the aorist present that is timeless in reality, true for all

time."² Of course, "aoristic" here means "non-determined" aspect, not

"punctiliar" in reality. Likewise, the timeless idea influences Dana

and Mantey, who define their "static" present as "practically the present

of duration applied to a verb of being."³

The examples chosen for this category are those which appear too

uniform or durative to be included under the customary presents. The

statement is a matter of fact, theoretical or actual. Thus, Matthew 5:14,

"A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid" is a theoretical statement;

there need be no historical example of such a city. On the other hand,

Matthew 5:37, "whatsoever is more than these is of evil," is a theoretical

statement which has many sad examples in reality. Matthew 6:22, "The light

of the body is the eye," expresses a general truth of relative nature;

that is, it is valid within the present created human race. Finally,

1 John 4:8, "God is love," declares a truth which is universally valid

for all time.

¹ McKay, "Syntax in Exegesis," p. 49. ² Robertson, Grammar, p. 866.

³ Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 186.

Impersonal Present

The little expressions "it is necessary," "it is lawful," "it is

good," "it is proper," "it is better," and a few others pop up throughout

the New Testament. They trace their descent to the ancient Greek language.

"In the present tense the idiom is on purely Greek lines, not Semitic.

. . . So the impersonal verbs (and e@xw) stand to themselves in support

from ancient Greek and the koinh<."¹ The identity of these has been

disputed by some, as Nigel Turner, who maintains that the verbs quoted

above are not impersonal if followed by "an infinitive as subject."²

For truly impersonal verbs, Turner finds their origin at least partially

in the desire to avoid God's name when He is the implied subject)

In this study the idiomatic phrases o! e]stin and tou?t’ e@stin are

not normally included as impersonal presents (as in Robertson, Grammar,

p. 881), but are classed under such categories as explanatory or interpre-

tive presents. One particular example stands out as highly problematical.

It is a]pe<xei, in Mark 14:41, translated, "It is enough." That particular

usage is included as impersonal, since the verb allows that meaning in

contemporary koine Greek. Deissmann reproduces an ostracon from Thebes,

dated 32-33 A.D., with identical usage in the first singular.⁴

What does the present tense of the impersonal verbs signify? Ex-

amining the examples, one concludes that the present tense normally stresses

the present time application of the statement. "It is necessary (dei?)"

applies to the present; "it was necessary (e@dei)" applies to the past.

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 881. ² Turner, Syntax, pp. 291-92.

³ Ibid., p. 291.

⁴ Deismnann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 111-12; photograph,

p. 111; cf. Robertson's comments, Grammar, p. 866.

Yet, even here, usage is more subtle. Thus, Jesus says, "These things it

was necessary (e@dei) to do" (Mt. 23:23), and yet it is still necessary:

here the imperfect may be used because it was more important that they do

something else also. Most of the impersonal verbs are found in the

present tense, indicating that the time is indeed abstract, the aspect

"non-determined."

Interpretive Present

These verbs seek to explain the meaning of events, sayings, or

parables from the theological perspective. They differ from explanatory

presents, which explain more technical matters of language or custom.

Thus e]stin in Matthew 3:3 is interpretive, "This is that which was spoken

through Isaiah," and in 7:12, "This is the law and the prophets." Mat-

thew 11:14 provides an important interpretive use as well: "and if you

wish to receive (it), he is Elijah who is about to come." Often this

present is used in the explanation of parables--e.g., "The one sowing

the good seed is the son of man" (Mt. 13:37). This author included the

crucial passage Matthew 26:26 in this category: "Take, eat, this is my

body." The identity of the bread with Christ's body springs from theo-

logical truth and symbolism, not physical equality (Jn. 6:63). Sometimes

the wording of the passage causes another verb to be used besides e]sti<n,

as Mark 4:14, "The sower sows the word."

Often in the book of John Jesus or the author explains a term or

fact introduced into the narrative, as "the witness of John" in 1:19,

"the judgment" in 3:19, "the work of God" in 6:29, "the bread of God" in

6:33, "the will of my Father" in 6:40, and many other examples. Also in-

cluded are the famous "I am" passages in John, already discussed in this

chapter.

The interpretive present is frequent in epistolary literature

(e.g., Rom. 5:14), especially in Paul's more "theological" longer epistles;

and in Hebrews, with that book's continual interpretation of Old Testament

symbolism and prophecy. An example in Hebrews is at 10:20, "the veil,

that is, his flesh." The verse has caused difficulty for some. Hebrews

often uses the form tou?t ] e@stin (2:14; 7:5; 9:11; 11:16; 13:15; and here

at 10:20). N. H. Young has shown that word order is not a factor in de-

termining the antecedent in these cases.¹ Yet the natural interpretation

is to tie "veil" to "flesh," and the structure of the passage bears it

out.² The usage occurs with greatest frequency (23 times) in Revelation,

interpreting the apocalyptic visions (1:20a, b; 4:5; 5:6, 8; 11:4; 13:10,

18a, b; 14:12; 16:14; 17:9a, b, 11b, c, 12, 15, 18; 19:8; 20:2, 12, 14;

21:8). In fact, the abundance of these interpretive presents should en-

courage the student toward a literal, futuristic interpretation of Reve-

lation, since John goes out of his way to avoid a mystical understanding

by frequently employing interpretive presents.

Comparative Present

In a few places the interpretive present is modified or softened

by stating the interpretation as a "similarity,"--"is similar to"--much as

a simile is distinguished from a metaphor by the addition of "like" or

"as." Also, this category of verbs ushers the reader from the reality to

the figure, while the interpretive present brings him back from the figure

¹ Young, "tou?t ] e@stin th?j sarko>j au]tou? (Heb. x. 20): Apposition,

Dependent or Explicative?" New Testament Studies, 20:1 (October, 1973), 101.

² Ibid., pp. 102-04; cf. Homer A. Kent, Jr., The Epistle to the

Hebrews; a Commentary (Winona Lake, Indiana: B.M.H Books, 1972), pp. 198-99.

to the reality.

Usage for this category in the New Testament is limited primarily

to the Synoptic Gospels (Mt. 11:16; 13:31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52; 20:1; Mk.

4:26; Lk. 6:47, 48, 49; 7:31, 32; 13:18, 19, 21). The only other exam-

ples in this category are the two occurrences of eouxcy in the book of

James (1:6, 23).

This last group brings to an end the category of abstract pres-

ents. The occurrences of each type in the books of the New Testament are

here listed.

TABLE 10

ABSTRACT PRESENTS

book 1 2 3 4 5 total

Matthew 4 54 21 22 8 109

Mark 12 33 23 6 1 75

Luke 2 35 30 9 8 84

John 10 66 15 22 - 113

Acts 9 4 21 5 - 39

Romans - 25 4 8 - 37

1 Corinthians - 69 15 5 - 89

2 Corinthians - 4 4 - - 8

Galatians - 9 - 7 - 16

Ephesians - 4 5 2 - 11

Philippians - - 1 - - 1

Colossians - 1 3 3 - 7

1 Thessalonians - - 1 - - 1

2 Thessalonians - - 1 - - 1

1 Timothy - 8 5 - - 13

2 Timothy - - 2 - - 2

Titus - 1 5 - - 6

Philemon - - - 1 - 1

Hebrews 1 8 3 7 - 19

James - 18 1 - 2 21

I Peter - 1 - 1 - 2

2 Peter - 1 2 - - 3

1 John 1 38 - 3 - 41

2 John - 3 - 3 - 6

3 John - 1 - - - 1

Revelation 3 1 7 23 - 34

_________________________________________________

total NT 41 384 169 127 19 740

TABLE 10--Continued

Key: 1--explanatory present

2--factual present

3--impersonal present

4--interpretive present

5--comparative present

While these verbs may be considered timeless, the present tense is appro-

priate since the truth is applicable to present time--whether to the

speaker at the time of speaking, or the the author at the time of writing.

The aspect, therefore, is aoristic, in the sense of the "undetermined"

view of the action's duration.

Perfective Present

The perfect aspect describes a present, continuing effect produced

by a past event. Many times in the New Testament a present indicative is

used in contexts where the perfective meaning is obvious. The unqualified

denial of this fact by G. Mussies appears forced: "The present indicative

does not express any view except the non-perfective view, and as such it

is unmarked as opposed to the perfect indicative."¹ The perfective present

is indeed found in the New Testament, and can be divided into the follow-

ing four heads.

General Perfective Present

Often the stem of the verb itself is made perfective by the ad-

dition of a prepositional prefix, as a]poqn^<skw and only gradually does

¹ Mussies, Apocalypse, p. 275. If it be thought that the wording

of this sentence is unclear, perhaps J. Neville Birdsall rightly attributes

Mussies's awkward writing style to the fact that he, a German, himself

wrote his book in English; review in the Evangelical Quarterly, XLV:1

(January-March, 1973), esp. p. 49.

it resume its durative nature.¹ Such is also the case with pa<reimi,

which can mean "I have come," as well as "I am present."² In other cases

the roots themselves evidently had a perfective meaning, as h@kw or a]kou<w.³

A. T. Robertson notes that in these cases the "root has the sense of

state, not of linear action. This is an old use of these roots."⁴ When

the stems themselves are perfective, as h@kw or pa<reimi (often), it is

important to remember that "this is not a Present for the Perfect of the

same verb, but a Present equivalent to the Perfect of another verb."⁵

On the other hand, is there any contrast between a perfect verb and a

present used as a perfect? Burton and others tend to make no distinction.⁶

But it seems better to see with Dana and Mantey a greater stress on the

present state in the perfective present than in the simple perfect tense.

To say that this use is "present for perfect" is not accurately rep-

resenting the case. It does approach quite closely the significance

of the perfect, but stresses the continuance of results through

present time in a way which the perfect would not do, for the perfect

stresses existence of results but not their continuance.⁷

New Testament examples of perfective presents are not lacking.

John asks Jesus, "Do you come to me?" (Mt. 3:14); Jesus had already come

and was there as a result. Jesus consoles the paralytic, "Your sins are

forgiven" (Mt. 9:2), for Jesus had seen his faith already shown. This

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 114.

² William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, eds., A Greek-English

Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 629.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, D. 10; BDF, p. 168; Chamberlain, An

Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 71.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 881. ⁵ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 10.

⁶ Ibid. ⁷ Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 182.

last example is often listed under the category "aoristic present," but

truly it better is perfective--God had already forgiven his sins, which

forgiveness Jesus declared with authority (cf. v. 6). An undebatable

example is found in Luke 1:34, where Mary protests to the angel, "How will

this be, since I know not a man?" Her previous chastity resulted in her

present virginity. Often in court scenes this usage comes forth. Pilate

declares, "I find no fault in him" (Jn. 19:4), speaking of the results of

the previous interrogation. Some controversy surrounds Acts 26:31, "This

man has done nothing worthy of death or bonds." Winer believes the present

is customary, his conduct in general.¹ However, it seems better to class

pra<ssei there as perfective, since Paul's previous conduct was at issue,

not his conduct, for example, while being held two years in Caesarea.

To strengthen this claim, note the strongly parallel wording in Luke 23:15,

"Nothing worthy of death has been done by him." Here the form is e]sti>n

pepragme<non, the periphrastic perfect. If this be the case, then Acts

26:31 parallels the force of Acts 25:11: "if I am guilty," a conditional

present which is also perfective,² and also "if I have done (pe<praxa<)

anything worthy of death," a normal perfect tense verb.

Present in Periphrastic Perfect

A periphrastic construction combines the present indicative of

the helping verb--normally ei]mi<³--with a participle, to form a synthesis.

The helping verb does influence to a degree the aspect of the resulting

¹ Winer, Idiom, p. 267; also BDF, p. 168.

² Ibid., for both Winer and BDF.

³ But e@xw appears in Mk. 8:17.

tense--making it more linear. "The periphrastic use of ei#nai must be

clearly distinguished from its equative function."¹ Normally the con-

struction is the present indicative of ei#nai with either the present

participle, forming the periphrastic present, discussed earlier, or the

perfect participle, forming the periphrastic perfect, which McGaughy holds

to be a simple equivalent to the perfect tense.² The other possibility,

the periphrastic aorist, using the imperfect form h#n with the aorist

participle (blhqei<j), is "quite exceptional," being limited in the New

Testament to Luke 23:19.³

A good example of the aspectual contribution of the Present indi-

cative to the periphrastic perfect is in Ephesians 2:5, 8. Kenneth S.

Wuest observes,

Not content with the details offered by the perfect tense, Paul uses

a periphrastic construction consisting of a participle in the perfect

tense and the verb of being in the present tense. The perfect tense

speaks of the existence of finished results in present time, whereas

Paul wanted to express persistence of finished results through present

time. So he borrows the durative aspect of the present tense verb to

give persistence to the existing results. . . . The security of the

believer could not have been expressed in stronger terms.⁴

Present in Citation Periphrastic Perfect

This category is merely a subdivision of the previous one. It

consists of periphrastic perfects applied to Scripture citation--i.e.,

the form ei]stin gegramme<non, "it is written." The form is found only six

times, and always in John's Gospel (2:17; 6:31, 45; 10:34; 12:14; 20:30).

¹ L. C. McGaughy, @Einai, p. 82.

² Ibid., p. 81. 3 Burton, Moods and Tenses, D. 11.

⁴ Wuest, "The Eloquence of Greek Tenses and Moods," Bibliotheca

Sacra, 117:46 (April, 1960), 135.

The first five refer to Old Testament Scripture; the last reference re-

fers to his own book, "which things are not written in this book." He

then employs the normal New Testament perfect form, "but these things are

written (ge<graptai) that you might believe." Since this periphrastic

form is a special Johannine idiom, it appears best to understand its

aspect as perfective, the equivalent of the perfect indicative, and not

as especially durative. This form thus constitutes an idiomatic exception

to the conclusion of the previous section.

Citation Present

Often when one quotes from a written source, he thinks of the

author as speaking still, in his writings. Thus in English, as well as

other languages, the citation present is actually a perfective present--

e.g., "Shakespeare extols the quality of mercy." The saying is past,

yet the saying continues as an echo.

Some writers have sought to identify various Biblical citation

formulas with the intended interpretation of the citation. Thomas

Hartwell Horne has shown the fallacy of this method in practice.¹ However,

the form of citation presents does show the high regard of the New Testa-

ment writers for the Old Testament Scriptures. For the subject of the

verbs "he says," "it says," and so forth, is often "God" or "the Holy

Spirit," as well as "the Scripture."²For an extremely important discussion

¹ Horne, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of

the Holy Scriptures (8th ed.; 5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,

1839), II, 336-46.

² Turner, Syntax, p. 293; Turner notes the textual variant supplying

h[ grafh< in Rom. 10:8 in MSS D and G; see the Nestle-Aland text.

of the theological importance of citation presents, see Benjamin Breckin-

ridge Warfield, "'It Says:’ ‘Scripture Says’ ‘God Says'"; he shows how

these formulas confirm the orthodox doctrine of verbal inspiration.¹

Bruce M. Metzger notes that there needs to be an investigation comparing

the New Testament citation formulas with those of the Mishnah, to show the

difference between the Christian and the Orthodox Jewish attitudes toward

the Old Testament in the first century A.D.² While Metzger in his article

does not discuss the significance of the present tense in citation for-

mulas, he does observe that "the New Testament writers allow themselves

more freedom in attributing personality to the Scriptures than do the

Tannaim."³

Sometimes the human author is regarded as still speaking, as in

Matthew 22:43, "How does David call his Lord?" Jesus considered David as

still speaking, even though he was dead and buried (Acts 2:29). Other

times the Scripture itself speaks (Jn. 19:37), or God in Scripture (Acts

13:35; Gal. 3:16). This form of citation present is especially frequent

in the books of Romans and Hebrews, both of which make extensive theolo-

gical use of the Old Testament.

The occurrences of the perfective present are enumerated in the

following table.

¹ Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. by

Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing

Company, 1948), pp. 299-348; the chapter originally appeared in The Pres-

byterian and Reformed Review, X (1899), 472-510.

² Metzger, "Formulas," pp. 52-53.

³ Ibid., p. 55; this is especially true of Hebrews; see the appendix

in Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (2nd ed.: Grand Rapids:

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1892), pp. 474-76.

TABLE 11

PERFECTIVE PRESENT

book 1 2 3 4 total

Matthew 5 2 - 1 8

Mark 3 1 - 1 5

Luke 8 5 - 3 16

John 13 2 6 1 22

Acts 8 4 - 6 18

Romans 1 1 - 24 26

1 Corinthians 2 3 - 4 9

2 Corinthians - 1 - 1 2

Galatians 1 - - 2 3

Ephesians 1 2 - 2 5

Philippians 2 - - - 2

Colossians - 1 - - 1

1 Thessalonians 2 - - - 2

2 Thessalonians 1 - - - 1

1 Timothy 1 - - 1 2

2 Timothy 1 - - - 1

Hebrews 9 4 - 14 27

James 1 - - 2 3

2 Peter - 1 - - 1

1 John 1 1 - - 2

Jude 1 - - - 1

__________________________________________

total NT 61 28 6 62 157

Key: 1--general perfective present

2--present in periphrastic perfect

3--present in citation periphrastic perfect

4--citation present

The Present in Kingdom Passages

Twenty three times the present indicative describes some truth

specifically about the Kingdom of God. These usages do not constitute

a category for this study, but will be scattered among the other cate-

gories. However in view of their exegetical importance, they are here

mentioned together.

This author believes the theocratic Kingdom of the Bible to be

still in the future, to be ushered in by Christ after His personal, physical

return to the earth. In many cases when the Kingdom is mentioned in the

Gospels, therefore, the usage is taken as futuristic, especially when

grammatical factors in the context suggest a futuristic usage. However,

in some of these instances, the presents could also be factual--describing

what the Kingdom is like without stating the time of its manifestation.

Included as futuristic presents are the following references:

a. Mt. 5:3, e]stin; parallel beatitudes are future

b. Mt. 5:10, e]stin; see "a"

c. Mt. 11:11, e]stin: they will be greater in the future; note future

in Lk. 13:30

d. Mt. 18:1, e]sti>n; see "c"

e. Mt. 1 :4 e]stin; see "c"

f. Lk. 6:20, e]sti>n: see "a"

g. Lk. 7:28b, e]stin; see "c"

h. Lk. 17:20a, e]rxetai; po<te shows Pharisees expected a future

kingdom

One additional reference qualifies as expressing immediate future, even

though it is listed under the interrogative substantive category:

i. Acts 1:6, a]pokaqista<neij: immediate future implied by "at this

time"; future implied by "to Israel"

Even though the kingdom is future in its manifestation, it is

present in it representatives and in many of its blessings for believers.

The Church and the Kingdom are different. Yet the Church experiences spiri-

tual blessings promised in the New Covenant.¹ Even before Christ's death

and resurrection, the Kingdom was present in Himself and in His appointed

delegates; and after Pentecost the Kingdom was present in the Church

¹ Kent, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary, pp. 158-60.

through the Holy Spirit in many of its spiritual manifestations.¹ This

idea does not contradict the truth that Jesus and the apostles taught an

earthly futuristic Kingdom of both physical and spiritual aspects, in line

with literal Old Testament prophecy.² All these remarks lead to the

following two usages of the present indicative as progressive presents:

j. Lk. 17:21, e]stin; i]dou< calls attention to the present time; "as

to the personal presence of its King, the Kingdom was actually

'in the midst' of men."³

k. Lk. 22:29, diati<qemai; for both the disciples and Jesus, the con-

ferring takes place before the realization

One case is relative:

1. Lk. 21:31, e]]stin; "when you see" sets the time

Occasionally the present indicative is customary, describing "how

things happen" concerning the Kingdom:

m. Mt. 21:31, proa<gousin; speaks of new birth

n. Lk. 17:20b, e@rxetai; Pharisees do not recognize the King⁴

o. Lk. 18:24, ei]sporeu<ontai; compare with "m"

Closely related to the customary presents are the factual presents. Each

of these states a truth about the Kingdom, its source, character, or its

¹ George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future (Grand Rapids:

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), pp. 271-73.

² Ibid., pp. 319-20.

³ Alva J. McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom, An Inductive Study

of the Kingdom of God (Chicago: Moody Press, 1959), p. 272.

⁴ This passage has been variously interpreted. Arndt and Gingrich

make it progressive: "the Kingdom of God is not coming with observation

i.e., in such a way its rise can be observed," Greek-English Lexicon, p.

628. Premillennialists can understand it either as in this paper, or by

meta> parathrh<sewj as prophetic date-setting. This author prefers the

former, since the reference in Jesus' answer seems to be to the Pharisees'

blindness.

subjects. The category is like the comparative present in the Kingdom

Parables.

p. Mt. 19:14, e]sti>n: describes the nature of its subjects

q. Mk. 10:14, e]sti>n: see "p"

r. Lk. 18:16, e]sti>n: see "p"

s. Jn. 18:36a, e@stin; describes its source

t. Rom. 18:36b, e@stin: see "s"¹

u. Rom. 14:17, e]stin: describes its character

v. 1 Cor. 15:50, du<natai; describes the necessary nature of its

rulers

w. Eph. 5:5, e@xei; see "v"

These few passages provide rich material for fascinating discussion,

and for further specialized research in other tenses and moods.

Conclusion for Presents in Present Time

So far the study has consisted of present indicative usage which

directly bears on present time. The major categories--progressive present,

declarative present, customary present, abstract present, and perfective

present--contribute various aspectual emphases. Even in present time the

present indicative expresses both durative and aoristic points of view. In

order to work out a general conclusion, it is necessary to push the tense

to its time-limits, past and future, and to its modal limit in conditional

sentences. This plan provides the basis for the rest of Part II.

¹ The "but now" indicates a future reversal when the Kingdom shall

be more worldly in its influence, if not in its source; cf. George N. H.

Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom of our Lord Jesus, the Christ (3 vols.;

1884; reprinted; Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1972), II, 32-33.

III. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN PAST TIME

Since Greek was a living language, it took on character and flavor

by use, which still confuses the grammarian desiring "the rule of law" in

language. The use of the present tense for past time, while it sounds

incongruous, is actually common to all language. This chapter shall deal

with three types of present indicatives: the historical present, the

present for immediate past, and the imperfective present. The largest and

most debated category is that of historical presents, and it will require

the bulk of this chapter. The other two categories will be discussed at

the end.

Historical Present Frequency

The historical present is simply a present indicative in past nar-

ration, where one would expect a "past" tense, such as an imperfect or

an aorist. The first one in the New Testament is fai<netai in Matthew

2:13, "And after they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appears

to Joseph in a dream."

Since the historical present is limited to narration, it is rare

in epistles, being encountered only in Hebrews. It is found chiefly in

the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation (ch. 4-22). The individual occurrences

of all the historical presents in the New Testament are listed in Appendix

C. The following table shows the frequency of the historical present in

each book in which it occurs. In addition to these there is a possible

historical present in Hebrews 11:15 (mnhmoneu<ousin); but since it is

conditional, it is included in that list. This table is more accurate

85
86

TABLE 12

HISTORICAL PRESENT FREQUENCY

book hist. pres. verb forms hist. pres./100 verb forms

Matthew 94 3,948 2.38

Mark 150 2,612 5.74

Luke 13 4,388 0.30

John 163 3,535 4.61

Acts 14 3,374 0.36

Revelation 54 1,537 3.51

and helpful for comparing frequencies than earlier attempts. John C.

Hawkins, not knowing the total number of verbs in each book, had to

estimate frequency by figuring the average number of historical presents

on each page of the Westcott and Hort printed Greek text.¹ Hawkins thus

estimates: "it appears that Mark uses it more freely than John":² now an

exact comparison is possible: 5.74 to 4.61, a difference of just under

25%.

Obviously, the frequency of the historical present varies con-

siderably from book to book throughout the New Testament. This fact fits

with the general usage of historical presents in all language. "It is a

well-known idiom in all periods of Greek, particularly in popular, non-

literary usage."³ Various strata of writing styles reflect various usage

patterns:

It was indeed a permanent element in prose narrative, whether colloquial

or literary; but it seems to have run much the same course in English,

where the historic present is not normally used in educated conversation

or in literature as a narrative form. It carries a special effect of

¹ Hawkins, Horae Synopticae (2nd e.; Grand Rapids: Baker Book

House, 1909), p. 143.

² Ibid.

³ France, "The Exegesis of Greek Tenses in the New Testament," p. 5.

its own, which may be a favourite mannerism of a particular author,

but entirely avoided by others.¹

The historical present is so universal that Paul Kiparsky can cite a

usage even from a Hittite inscription: "He went to his grandfather and

speaks to him.²

It is interesting to note how other Greek writings use the histori-

cal present. It is not found at all in Homer.³ However, it is frequent

in other classical writers.⁴ This variation in classical authors invites

speculation. Gildersleeve suggested that the tone of content influences

the use or disuse of the historical present.

This use of the present belongs to the original stock of our family

of languages. It antedates the differentiation into imperf. and

aorist. Being a familiar form, it is set down as a mark of simplicity

(a]fe<leia) of style. By reason, therefore, both of its liveliness

and its familiar tone it is foreign to the leisurely and dignified

unfolding of the epos, and is not found in Homer, whereas it is very

common in the rhetorical Vergil, as it is very common in the Attic

orators. Nor is it used to any extent, if at all, in the statuesque

Pindaric ode, whereas it is frequent in the Attic drama, which seems

to have introduced it to higher literature.⁵

The usage finds a home among the neo-classicists as well. Nigel

Turner quotes the statistics produced by K. Eriksson (Das Praesens His-

toricum in der nachclassischen griechischen Historiographie, Diss. of

Lund, 1943, pp. 39, 76, 83) showing widespread use of the historical

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 121.

² Tense and Mood in Indo-European Syntax" (hereinafter referred

to as "Tense and Mood"), Foundations of Language, 4(1968), 32.

³ Goodwin-Gulick, Greek Grammar, p. 268.

⁴ Several examples in classical literature are cited by Winer,

Idiom, p. 267. H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar, rev, by Gordon M. Messing

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 277, offers an example

of the similar "annalistic present."

⁵ Gildersleeve, Syntax, I, 86.

present in the Archeology of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Arrian's Anabasis,

and Xenophon's Anabasis.¹ He also notes a few samplings from Josephus,

showing a high ratio of historical presents per page.² This author spot

checked a page of Josephus selected at random. One page of Greek contains

several aorists and many imperfects, and in addition, three historical

presents: paragi<netai, eu]ri<skei, and a]polu<ei.³

The historical present occurs often in the LXX. Winer's statement,

"as to the Sept., in which this usage is extremely rare,"⁴ is misleading.

Parts of the LXX, especially the books of Kings, have many historical

presents. Thackeray's classic work notes that even within the books of

Kings, vocabulary and style vary sharply. He uses the following notations:⁵

earlier portions: K.a (= 1 K.)

K. bb (= 2 K. 1:1 - 11:1)

K.gg (= 3 K. 2:12 - 21:43)

later portions: K.bg (= 2 K. 11:2 - 3 K. 2:11)

K. gd (= 3 K. 22:1 - 4 K. end)

K.bd = K.bg + K.gd

He then states that K.bd shows an "almost complete absence of the histori-

cal present," while the other sections show varying amounts (145 in K.a,

28 in K. bb, 47 in K.gg).⁶ He notes the resulting contrasts within

¹ Turner, Syntax, p. 61. 2 Ibid.

³ Josephus, The Jewish War, 1:301, in The Jewish War, Books I-III

With a translation by H. St J. Thackeray, Loeb Classical Library (London:

William Heinemann, Ltd., 1927), p. 140.

⁴ Winer, Idiom, p. 267.

⁵ Henry St. John Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek

according to the Septuagint (hereinafter referred to as Septuagint; Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), p. 10.

⁶ Ibid.

the LXX:

The historic present tends to be used with verbs of a certain class;

apart from le<gei, etc. it is specifically used of verbs of seeing in

the Pentateuch, of verbs of motion (coming and going) in the later

historical books: its absence from K. bd, distinguishes the later from

the earlier portions of the Kingdom books.¹

Hawkins enlarges on Thackeray's list, and offers the following occurrences

in LXX books:2

Genesis, 9 2 Esdras, 8

Exodus, 24 --Ezra, 3

Numbers, 7 --Nehemiah, 5

Joshua, 1 Job, 25

Judges, 2 Esther, 2

Ruth, 1 Tobit, 10

1 Kingdoms, 151 Daniel, 1

2 Kingdoms, 32 Bel and the Dragon, 1

3 Kingdoms, 47 1 Maccabees, 2

4 Kingdoms, 2 2 Maccabees, 1

1 Chronicles, 2 3 Maccabees, 3

1 Esdras, 3 4 Maccabees, 3

total LXX, 337

Having tabulated the total, he observes that the historical present is

still more rare in the LXX, even in narrative portions, than in Mark's

Gospel.³ Moulton has suggested that the difference is due, at least in

part, to the lack of le<gei, in LXX narration.⁴

As would be expected, the historical present is most common in

popular speech. This fact is borne out by its very common use in the

papyri,⁵ and even in modern Greek.⁶

¹ Thackeray, Septuagint, p. 24.

² Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, p. 213.

³ Ibid., p. 214.

⁴ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 121.

⁵ Ibid. Moulton includes examples.

⁶ BDF, p. 167.

Synoptic Comparisons

One of the most interesting fields of Bible study is the subtle

and intricate nuances of the three Synoptic Gospels. The so-called "Synop-

tic Problem" has intrigued scholars for centuries, and has produced a pro-

found as well as elaborate literature. Entering into this picture is the

historical present. Those who defend the Markan priority claim the higher

frequency of the historical present in that book as evidence that the

other authors "corrected" his usage by supplying past tenses.¹ While this

study cannot cover the point completely, a few comments are in order.

General Data

First, it is evident from Table 12 that Mark does use the historical

present much more frequently than Matthew and Luke. But the distance be-

tween Matthew and Luke far exceeds that between Matthew and Mark. Hence,

the remark, "Matthew and Luke do not favor the historic present,"² tends

to be misleading.

The Case of Luke 24:12

It has been assumed by many that Luke corrected Mark's grammar,

deleting "Mark's historical presents except in 3:49."³ Hence, the appear-

ance of any historical present in Luke is immediately suspect. One

celebrated case is Luke 24:12, "Peter having arisen ran unto the tomb,

¹ For example, Ned B. Stonehouse, Origins of the Synoptic Gospels,

Some Basic Questions (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Com-

pany, 1963), pp. 61-62.

² Charles H. Talbert and Edgar V. McKnight, "Can the Griesback

Hypothesis Be Falsified?" (hereinafter referred to as "Griesback"),

Journal of Biblical Literature, 91:3 (September, 1972), 350.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 367.

and having stooped down sees the linen cloths alone; and he departed

wondering to himself what had happened." The UBS text includes the verse,

but with a "D" rating.¹ This rating appears strange in view of the verse's

overwhelming textual support, including Aleph, A, B, and the Byzantine

text, along with the Bodmer Papyrus, p⁷⁵. Against the verse stands the

western D alone.² Three reasons have been advanced against the verse:

the parallel wording in John 20, indicating (to some) an interpolation;

the textual "Western Non-Interpolations" in Luke;³ and the presence in

the verse of a historical present. Metzger reports that a "sharp difference"

prevailed in the Committee as they debated these verses:

During the discussions a sharp difference of opinion emerged. Accor-

ding to the view of a minority of the Committee, apart from other ar-

guments there is discernible in these passages a Christological-

theological motivation that accounts for their having been added,

while there is no clear reason that accounts for their having been

omitted. Accordingly, if the passages are retained in the text at

all, it was held that they should be enclosed within square brackets.

On the other hand, the majority of the Committee, having evaluated

the weight of the evidence differently, regarded the longer readings

as part of the original text.⁴

And the Committee also refected theological borrowing from John as an

explanation for Luke 24:12.

A majority of the Committee regarded the passage as a natural ante-

cedent to ver. 24, and was inclined to explain the similarity with

the verses in John as due to the likelihood that both evangelists

had drawn upon a common tradition.⁵

Recently two scholars have attempted to disqualify the verse.

¹ The Greek New Testament, pp. 314-15. ² Ibid.

³ The nine so-called Western Non-Interpolations are Mt. 27:49;

Lk. 22:19b-20: 24:3, 6, 12, 36, 40, 51, 52; Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual

Commentary on the Greek New Testament (hereinafter referred to as Textual

Commentary; New York: United Bible Societies, 1971), D. 192.

⁴ Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. 193. ⁵ Ibid., p. 184..

K. P. G. Curtis considers the "linguistic evidence" as "most weighty" for

excluding the verse. He does not mention such niceties as textual evidence.¹

Raymond E. Brown is more cautious, but he also considers "the Western text

as original not because of better transmission but through correct emen-

dation."² Both these critics are answered on their own ground by John

Muddiman, who notes that the verse now "has at last been put up for re-

habilitation.³ Muddiman asserts that, if Luke had a redactor, he would

no doubt have "corrected" the historical present in 24:12, just as he

supposedly had corrected the others taken from Mark.⁴ He continues with

this bit of wisdom:

The uncorrected historic present . . . is a good illustration of

the frequent inconclusiveness of the stylistic criterion in textual

criticism. Unless we resort to emendation, we must admit that the

Third Gospel contains at least two "scandalous" historic presents.

Our author, then, is not infallible, but if he slipped twice, why not

a third time, considering human rather than mathematical probability.⁵

F. Neiynck, following up Muddiman's article, adds the obvious fact that

John could very well have referred to Luke when writing John 20,⁶ adding

significant details, or perhaps relating a separate but similar event.

Furthermore, he sees as a possible "'source' of the uncorrected historic

present" in Luke 24:12, the historical present qewrou?sin, which is found

¹ Curtis, “Luke xxiv. 12 and John xx. 3-10," Journal of Theological

Studies, XXII (1971), esp. 515.

² Brown, The Gospel According to John (xiii-xxi), in The Anchor

Bible, ed. by William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (Garden

City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 967-69, 1000-01.

³ Muddiman, "A Note on Reading Luke XXIV. 12," Ephemerides Theolo-

gicae Lovanienses, XLVIII:3-4 (December, 1972), 542.

⁴ Ibid., p. 544. ⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Neiynck, "The Uncorrected Historic Present in Lk. xxiv. 12,"

Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, XLV11.1:3-4 (December, 1972), 553.

in Mark 16:4.¹

Thus it appears that Luke really did use historical presents.²

Once again, grammar must proceed from the text, not the reverse.

Specific Data

In order to compare accurately the three Synoptics' use of the

historical present, one must examine the individual examples for each of

the Gospels. The occurrences are here tabulated, along with the parallel

usages (if any) in the other Synoptic Gospels. This table is a compila-

tion of several charts in Hawkins's Horae Synopticae (pp. 144-49), along

with the results of this author's research. The parallelism followed is

that worked out by Burton and Goodspeed.³ The forms marked with an asterisk

(*) are historical presents.

TABLE 13

SYNOPTIC HISTORICAL PRESENTS

Matthew Mark Luke

*2:13 fai<netai - -

*2:18 ei]si<n - -

*2:19 fai<netai - -

*3:1 paragi<netai 1:4 e]ge<neto 3:2 (e]ge<neto)

¹ Neiynck, "The Uncorrected Historic Present in Lk. xxiv. 12,"

p. 551.

² Thus Abbott is wrong to say that John is the only Evangelist to

use ble<pei as a historical present, Johannine Grammar, p. 350.

³ Ernest DeWitt Burton and Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, A Harmony of

the Synoptic Gospels in Greek (2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1947).

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

*3:13 paragi<netai 1:9 h@lqen -

*3:15 a]fi<hsin - -

4:1 a]nh<xqh *1:12 e]kba<llei 4:1 h@geto

*4:5 paralamba<nei - 4:9 h@gagen

*4:5 i@sthsin - 4:9 e@sthsen

*4:6 le<gei - 4:9 ei#pen

*4:8 paralamba<nei - 4:5 a]nagagw<n

*4:8 dei<knusin - 4:5 e@deicen

*4:9 le<gei - 4:6 ei#pen

*4:10 le<gei - 4:8 ei#pen

*4:11 a]fi<hsin - 4:13 a]pe<sth

*4:19 le<gei 1:17 ei#pen 5:10 ei#pen

- *1:21 ei]sporeu<ontai 4:31 kath?lqen

- *1:30 le<gousin 4:38 h]rw<thsan

- *1:37 le<gousin -

- *1:38 le<gei 4:43 ei#pen

8:2 i]dou<. . . proselqw<n *1:40 e@rxetai 5:12 e]ge<neto. . . kai> i]dou<

8:3 le<gwn *1:41 le<gei 5:13 le<gwn

*8:4 le<gei *1:44 le<gei 5:14 parh<ggeilen

*8:7 le<gei - -

- - *7:40 fhsi<n

*8:20 le<gei - 9:58 ei#pen

*8:22 le<gei - 9:60 ei#pen

*8:26 le<gei - -

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark. Luke

9:2 i]dou< *2:3 e@xretai 5:18 kai> i]dou< . . .

proselqw<n fe<rontej fe<rontej

- *2:4 xalw?si 5:19 kaqh?kan

9:2 ei#pen *2:5 le<gei 5:20 ei#pen

9:4 ei#pen *2:8 le<gei 5:22 ei#pen

*9:6 le<gei *2:10 le<gei 5:24 ei#pen

*9:9 le<gei *2:14 le<gei 5:27 ei#pen

9:10 e]ge<neto *2:15 gi<netai -

9:12 ei#pen *2:17 le<gei 5:31 ei#pen

*9:14 le<gontej *2:18 e@rxomai -

9:14 le<gontej *2:18 le<gousin 5:33 ei#pan

12:3 ei#pen *2:25 le<gei 6:3 ei#pen

- *3:3 le<gei 6:3 ei#pen

12:11 ei#pen *3:4 le<gei 6:9 ei#pen

*12:13 le<gei *3:5 le<gei 6:10 ei#pen

- *3:13 a]nabai<nei 6:12 e]ge<neto . . . e]celqei?n

- *3:13 proskalei?tai 6:13 prosefw<nhsen

- *3:20 e@rxetai -

- *3:20 sune<rxetai -

12:46 i]dou< *3:31 e@rxontai 8:19 parege<neto

(12:47 ei#pen) *3:32 le<gousin 8:20 a]phgge<lh

12:48 ei#pen *3:33 le<gei -

12:49 ei#pen *3:34 le<gei 8:21 ei#pen

13:2 sunhxqh<san *4:1 suna<getai 8:4 sunio<ntoj

- *4:13 le<gei -

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

8:18 e]ke<leusen *4:35 le<gei 8:22 ei#pen

- *4:36 paralamba<nousin -

8:24 e]ge<neto *4:37 gi<netai 8:23 kate<bh

8:25 h@geiran *4:38 e]gei<rousin 8:24 dih<geiran

8:25 le<gontej *4:38 le<gousin 8:24 le<gontej

8:29 le<gontej *5:7 le<gei 8:28 ei#pen

- *5:9 le<gei 8:30 ei#pen

8:34 e]ch?lqen *5:15 e@rxontai 8:35 h#lqan

- *5:15 e@rxontai 8:35 h#lqan

- *5:19 le<gei 8:38 le<gwn

9:18 i]dou< . . . proselqw<n *5:22 e@rxetai 8:41 i]dou> h#lqen

9:18 proseku<nei *5:22 pi<ptei 8:41 pesw<n

- *5:23 parakalei? 8:41 pesw<n

- *5:35 e@rxontai *8:49 e@rxetai

- *5:36 le<gei 8:50 a]pekri<qh

9:23 e]lqw<n *5:38 e@rxontai 8:51 e]lqw<n

9:23 e@legen *5:39 le<gei 8:52 ei#pen

9:23 i]dw<n *5:38 qewrei? -

- *5:40 paralamba<nei 8:51 ou]k a]fh?ken. . . ei] mh<

9:25 ei]selqw<n *5:40 ei]sporeu<etai -

- *5:41 le<gei 8:54 e]fw<nhsen

*9:28 le<gei - -

*9:28 le<gousin - -

*9.37 le<gei - -

*13:28 le<gousin - -

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

*13:29 fasin - -

*13:51 le<gousin - -

13:54 e]lqw<n *6:1 e@rxetai -

- *6:1 a]klouqou?sin -

10:1 proskalesqa<menoj *6:7 proskalei?tai 9:1 sunkalesa<menoj

*14:8 fasi<n 6:25 ^]th<sato. . . le<gousa -

- *6:30 suna<gontai 9:10 u[postre<yantej

- *6:31 le<gei -

- *6:37 le<gousin 9:13 ei#pan

- *6:38 le<gei -

*14:17 le<gousin *6:38 le<gousin -

14:25 h#lqen *6:48 e@rxetai -

14:27 e]la<lhsen *6:50 le<gei -

*14:31 le<gei - -

*15:1 prose<rxontai *7:1 suna<gontai -

15:1 le<gontej *7:5 e]perwtw?sin -

*15:12 le<gousin - -

15:16 ei#pen *7:18 le<gei -

15:27 ei#pen *7:28 le<gei -

15:30 prosh?lqon *7:32 fe<rousin -

- *7:32 parakalou?sin -

- *7:34 le<gei -

15:32 ei#pen *8:1 le<gei -

*15:33 le<gousin 8:4 a]pekri<qhsan -

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

*15:34 le<gei 8:5 h]rw<ta -

15:35 paraggei<laj *8:6 paragge<llei -

16:2 ei#pen *8:12 le<gei -

16:8 ei#pen *8:17 le<gei -

- *8:19 le<gousin -

- *8:20 le<gousin -

- *8:22 e@rxontai -

- *8:22 fe<rousin -

- *8:22 parakalou?sin -

*16:15 le<gei 8:29 e]phrw<ta 9:20 ei#pen

16:16 ei#pen *8:29 le<gei 9:20 ei#pen

16:23 ei#pen *8:33 le<gei -

*17:1 paralamba<nei *9:2 paralamba<nei 9:28 paralabw<n

*17:1 a]nafe<rei *9:2 a]nafe<rei 9:28 a]ne<bh

17:4 ei#pen *9:5 le<gei 9:33 ei#pen

17:17 ei#pen *9:19 le<gei 9:41 ei#pen

*17:20 le<gei - -

*17:25 le<gei - -

- *9:35 le<gei -

*18:22 le<gei - -

*18:32 le<gei - -

19:1 h#lqen *10:1 e@rxetai -

19:2 h]kolou<qhsin *10:1 sunporeu<ontai -

- - *11:37 e]rwt%?

TABLE 13-- continued

Matthew Mark Luke

- - *11:45 le<gei

- - *13:8 le<gei

- - *16:7 le<gei

- - 16:23 o[r%?

- - *16:29 le<gei

- - *17:37 le<gousin

*19:7 le<gousin - -

*19:8 le<gei - -

- *10:11 le<gei -

*19:10 le<gousin - -

*19:18 le<gei - -

*19:20 le<gei 10:20 e@fh 18:21 ei#pen

19:23 ei#pen *10:23 le<gei . 18:24 ei#pen

- *10:24 le<gei -

19:26 ei#pen *10:27 le<gei 18:27 ei#pen

*20:6 le<gei - -

*20:7 le<gousin - -

*20:7 le<gei - -

*20:8 le<gei - -

20:20 prosh?lqen *10:35 prosporeu<ontai -

*20:21 le<gei 10:37 ei#pan -

*20:22 le<gousin 10:39 ei#pen -

*20:23 le<gei 10:39 ei#pen -

20:25 ei#pen *10:42 le<gei -

100

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

20:29 e]kporeuome<nwn *10:46 e@rxontai 18:35 e]n t&? e]ggi<zein

- *10:49 fwnou?sin -

*20:33 le<gousin 10:51 ei#pen 18:41 ei#pen

- - *19:22 le<gei

21:1 h@ggisan *11:1 e]ggi<zousin 19:29 h@ggisen

21:1 a]pe<steilen *11:1 a]poste<llei 19:29 a]pe<steilei

21:2 le<gwn *11:2 le<gei 19:30 le<gwn

- *11:4 lu<ousin 19:33 luo<ntwn

21:7 e]pe<qhkan *11:7 e]piba<llousin 19:35 e]piri<fantej

21:7 h#gagon *11:7 fe<rousin 19:35 h#gagon

- *11:15 e#rxontai

*21:13 le<gei 11:17 e@legen 19:46 le<gwn

*21:16 le<gei - -

*21:19 le<gei - -

21:20 le<gontej *11:21 le<gei -

21:21 ei#pen *11:22 le<gei -

- *11:27a e#rxontai -

21:23 prosh?lqan 11:27b e#rxontai 20:1 e]pe<sthsan

21:27 ei#pan 11:33 le<gousin 20:7 a]pekri<qhsan

21:27 e@fh 11:33 le<gei 20:8 ei#pen

*21:31 le<gousin - -

*21:31 le<gei - -

*21:41 le<gousin - -

*21:42 le<gei - 20:17 ei#pen

101

TABLE 13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

*22:8 le<gei - -

*22:12 le<gei - -

*22:16 a]poste<llousin *12:13 a]poste<llousin 20:20 a]pe<steilan

22:16 le<gontaj *12:14 le<gousin 20:21 le<gontej

*22:20 le<gei *12:16 le<gei -

*22:21 le<gousin 12:16 ei#pan 20:24 ei#pan

*22:21 le<gei 12:17 ei#pen 20:25 ei#pen

22:23 prosh?lqon *12:18 e@rxontai 20:27 proselqo<ntej

*22:42 le<gousin - -

*22:43 le<gei - -

24:1 prosh?lqon *13:1 le<gei 21:5 lego<ntwn

... e]pidei?cai

*25:11 e#rxontai - -

*25:19 e@rxetai - -

*25:19 sunai<rei - -

26:17 le<gontej *14:12 le<gousin 22:9 ei#pan

- *14:13 a]poste<llei 22:8 a]pe<steilen

26:18 ei#pen *14:13 le<gei 22:10 ei#pen

26:20 a]ne<keito *14:17 e@rxetai 22:14 a]ne<pesen

*26:25 le<gei - -

*26:31 le<gei *14:27 le<gei -

26:34 e@fh *14:30 le<gei 22:34 ei#pen

*26:35 le<gei 14:31 e]la<lei -

*26:36 e@rxetai *14:32 e@rxontai 22:39 e]poreu<qh

*26:36 le<gei *14:32 le<gei 22:40 ei#pen

102

TABLE.13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

26:37 paralabw<n *14:33 paralamba<nei -

*26:38 le<gei *14:34 le<gei -

*26:40 e@rxetai *14:37 e@rxetai 22:45 e]lqw<n

*26:40 eu[ri<skei *14:37 eu[ri<kei 22:45 eu$ren

*26:40 le<gei *14:37 le<gei 22:46 ei#pen

*26:45 e@rxetai *14:41 e@rxetai -

26:47 i]dou< . . .h#lqen *14:43 paragi<netai 22:34 proh<rxeto

26:49 ei#pen *14:45 le<gei -

*26:52 le<gei - 22:51 ei#pen

- *14:51 kratou?sin -

26:57 sunh<xqhsan *14:53 sune<rxontai -

26:63 ei#pen *14:61 le<gei -

*26:64 le<gei *14:62 ei#pen -

26:65 le<gwn *14:63 e@rxetai -

26:69 prosh?lqen *14:66 e@rxetai -

26:69 le<gousa *14:67 le<gei 22:56 ei#pen

*26:71 le<gei 14:69 h@rcato. . . le<gein 22:58 e@fh

27:11 e@fh *15:2 le<gei 23:3 e@fh

*27:13 le<gei 15:4 e]phrw<ta -

*27:22 le<gei 15:12 e@legen 23:20 prosefw<nhsen

27:22 le<gousin 15:13 e@kracan 23:21 e]pefw<noun

27:27 sunh<gagon *15:16 sunkalou?sin -

27:28 perie<qhkan *15:17 e]ndidu<skousin -

27:29 e]pe<qhkan *15:17 peritiqe<asin -

103

TABLE.13--Continued

Matthew Mark Luke

27:31 aa]ph<gagon *15:20 e]ca<gousin 23:26 a]ph<gagon

27:32 h]gga<reusan *15:21 a]ggareu<ousin 23:26 e]pe<qhkan

27:33 e]lqo<ntej *15:22 fe<rousin 23:33 h#lqan

27:35 staufw<santej *15:24 staurou?sin 23:33 e]stau<rwsan

27:35 diemeri<santo *15:24 diameri<zontai 23:34 diamerizo<menoi

*27:38 staurou?ntai *15:27 staurou?sin -

28:1 h#lqen *16:2 e@rxontai 24:1 h@lqan

- *16:4 qewrou?sin 24:3 eu$ron

28:5 ei#pen *16:6 le<gei 24:5 ei#pan

*28:10 le<gei - -

- - *24:12 ble<pei

- - *24:23 le<gousin

- - *24:36 le<gei

This list is more helpful for examining the Synoptic Problem than

any in Hawkins's work for several reasons. First, it follows a more recent

critical text; Hawking follows the Westcott and Hort text exclusively.¹

Due to the different text or to a different interpretation, this table

includes three historical presents omitted by Hawkins (Mt. 2:18; 4:5, 9),

and omits one which Hawkins includes with a question mark (Mk. 6:45, a]po-

lu<ei, treated here as a relative time present). Second, the arrangement

of parallel readings is improved, and non-parallel but similar readings

are omitted. Third, the historical presents of all three books are inte-

grated into one list, making cross comparison much easier. Fourth, while

¹ Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, p. 144, n. 3.

104

Hawkins lists the parallel readings for Mark's historical presents, he

does not for Matthew's or for Luke's. This incomplete treatment leads

to an unbalanced conclusion. This table is especially revealing, since

it shows many cases where Matthew has a historical present while Mark

does not.

After examining this data, it is this author's opinion that the

use or disuse of the historical present provides absolutely no evidence

regarding the literary priority of any of the Synoptics. It is obvious

that Mark employs it more than Matthew, and that Luke employs it hardly

at all. Yet the places these authors use it show no significant pattern

of literary interdependence. Notice the following summary table:

TABLE 14

SYNOPTIC HISTORICAL PRESENT FIGURES

parallel Matthew (94) Mark (150) Luke (13)

Mt. hist pres 94 21 0

Mt. other 0 87 0

Mt. nothing 0 42 13

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mk. hist pres 21 150 1

Mk. other 21 0 0

Mk. nothing 52 0 12

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lk. hist pres 0 1 13

Lk. other 35 87 0

Lk. nothing 59 62 0

This table is revealing. Assuming for the moment that Matthew copied

from Mark, "correcting" Mark's historical presents, one might look at the

105

second vertical column to see what Matthew did with Mark's 150 historical

Presents. There it is seen that Matthew changed 87 of them to other

tenses--so far so good. And that same column shows that he simply did not

reproduce 42 of them, either because the entire section was omitted or

because he left out parts of the section. But also notice that he repro-

duced Mark's historical presents 21 times, which shows that his "correc-

ting" was not too energetic. But looking in the first vertical column,

one sees even more difficulties. Matthew not only brought over 21 of

Mark's historical presents intact, but he added 73 more historical

presents of his own! Fifty-two of them have no parallel in Mark, and he

evidently composed them himself, or got them from another source. Did

he incorporate them from source Q? That solution is unlikely since Q

was shorter than Mark (even assuming such a document ever existed), and

how in its shorter compass could it supply more than twice the historical

presents that Mark did? No extant Greek literature has a higher percen-

tage of historical presents than Mark. On the other hand, 'if Matthew com-

posed 52 historical presents himself, why would he "correct" 87 of Mark's?

But what is more amazing, and what Hawkins does not show in his charts,

is that 21 times Matthew has changed Mark's normal past narrative tense,

and has turned it into that dreaded historical present! In other words,

the data, taken as a whole, supplies no evidence that Matthew "corrected"

Mark's historical presents, only that Matthew used the historical present

less, whether he wrote before or after Mark.

The same may be said for Luke. He was averse to the usage. The

interesting feature in Luke is his use of historical presents in his pe-

culiar material. Twelve times he used it in Lukan material, once in

106

conjunction with Mark, never in conjunction with Matthew. The ratio is

similar to his use of fourteen historical presents in Acts.¹

It appears that each author employed the historical present as he

felt at the moment, without any special compulsion from previous writers.

Each writer maintained his own general style, which included the appro-

ximate frequency with which he normally used the historical present,

whether often, seldom, or in between.

Some writers have sought for various explanations to account for

the frequency difference. Some have sought it in the language of Christ's

original speech or of the particular Gospel or its sources.² Specifically,

it has been suggested that in Mark "the Aramaic participial sentence may

have contributed to its frequency."³ While these influences may indeed

have contributed to its use by different authors, they offer no clue to

the order of the Synoptic Gospels.

Some particular idiosyncrasies appear in each writer's use of the

historical present. Matthew limits it to verbs of speaking more than

three-fourths of the time.⁴ Matthew and Luke often make up the lack by

supplying i]dou<.⁵ And Mark quite often uses kai< before the historical

present, while John often employs asyndeton.⁶

¹ Hawkins notes only 13, omitting not in Acts 26:25, Horae Syn-

opticae, p. 149.

² For a good scholarly discussion of the contemporary languages of

Palestine, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "The Languages of Palestine in the First

Century A.D.," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, XXXII:4 (October, 1970),

501-31.

³ BDF, p. 167.

⁴ Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, p. 148, n. cf. Talbert and McKnight,

"Griesback," p. 355.

⁵ Robertson, Grammar, p. 868.

107

The conclusion can be only that "the personal equation may have

to explain the variations in the Gospels."¹ The difference is in the men

and their approach to literature:

Luke's manifest reluctance to use it . . . is due to the fact that

in Luke's time the construction was regarded as "too familiar for his

liking." He is the scientific historian, while Mark and John are

the dramatists. Different writers would feel differently about it.²

Moulton especially tries to size up Luke:

We conceive that Josephus would use the tense as an imitator of the

classics, Mark as a man of the people who heard it in daily use around

him; while Luke would have Greek education enough to know that it

was not common in cultured speech of his time, but not enough to re-

call the encouragement of classical writers whom he probably never

read, and would not have imitated if he had read them.³

Whether the personal reasons for the stylistic variations in the Synoptics

are correctly surmised by Moulton or not, detailed study of their use of

the tense reveals no evidence of the priority of any. Thus one can agree

with Stephen M. Reynolds, although for a different reason:

Comparative frequency or infrequency of the present tense in past

situations may have nothing to do with earliness or lateness of a

Gospel passage, and attempts which have been made to use this as a

criterion should be abandoned.⁴

The Zero Tense Controversy

The historical present provides the unlikely battleground for a

modern controversy which strikes right at the root of tense exegesis. So

far the battle has been joined only on one side. The traditional under-

standing of the present and imperfect tenses has received unquestioning

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 868. ²Ibid., p. 867.

³ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 121.

⁴ Reynolds, "The Zero Tense in Greek," Westminster Theological

Journal, 32:1 (November, 1969), 72.

108

acceptance for so long that its defenders are not responding to the

attack. The new theory comes from the linguistic school, from scholars

of comparative early Indo-European languages.

Traditional Interpretations

Why does an author use the historical present in some places and

not in others? What is its force, its semantical contribution? These

questions have produced various answers. The most common explanation by

far is that the historical present makes a "past action more vivid by

bringing it into the present, setting it before the reader's or hearer's

eyes instead of giving a remote report."¹ Thus Winer sees vividness

instilled in John's Revelation.² Writing later Burton includes the concept

in the definition itself: "The Present Indicative is used to describe

vividly a past event in the presence of which the speaker conceives him-

self to be."³ Likewise Robertson and Moulton ascribe the same significance

to the historical present.⁴ Attempting to explain the data more closely,

Goodwin and Gulick's Greek Grammar notes that the historical present

is "used vividly for the aorist" (p. 267), while Hawkins notes the

vividness it imparts to Mark and John: "In several cases the historic

present gives to this Gospel [Mark] something of the vividness produced in

the parallel places of Matthew and Luke by the use of i]dou<, which is never

employed by Mark (or by John) in narrative, but by Matthew 33 times and

¹France, "The Exegesis of Greek Tenses in the New Testament," p. 5.

² Winer, Idiom, p. 267. ³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 9.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, pp. 867, 868; Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 120.

109

by Luke 16 times."¹

A second proposed explanation is that certain authors were in-

fluenced by their language milieu, especially by Hebrew and Aramaic. The

primary apologist for this view is Nigel Turner, whose proclivity for

"Biblical Greek" has been noted earlier. He finds two Hebrew sources for

the historical present, "the picturesque participle in Heb. narrative,"²

and the Hebrew imperfect.³ Noting John's extreme tense variation in

Revelation, he maintains that John was "either inexpert in Greek or

deliberately provocative in his choice of Semitic constructions."⁴ He

thus maintains that even the Greek future in Revelation can be translated

by the English past or historical present, and he prefers such a trans-

lation:

One has only to examine the R.V. to experience the weird effect when

the tenses are literally rendered, to the puzzlement of commentators

all down the ages. Yet there is no doubt that the true text has a

succession of future verbs; the manuscripts which offer us the past

tense are clearly the victims of attempts to wring sense out of the

text.⁵

The second volume of Moulton's grammar concurs to some extent, since it

includes the historical present under the Appendix "Semitisms in the New

Testament."⁶ Moulton and Howard also enlist the statistics of Thackeray

and of Hawkins from the LXX to prove that the historical present cannot

be proved to be an Aramaism.⁷ Turner's conclusions, however, have come

¹ Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, p. 144. ² Turner, Syntax, p. 61.

³ Turner, Insights, p. 159. ⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 158-59.

⁶ Moulton and Howard, Accidence and Word Formation, pp. 456-57.

p. 456.

⁷ Ibid., p. 456.
110

under sharp attack. The historical present appears rather to be of good

Greek lineage, and not a Semitism. This fact is strengthened by wide

papyri usage. Hence Turner's theory seems based on insufficient evidence.¹

Several other explanations have been advanced. Jelf thinks

important events are emphasized by the usage, "the more important action

being held as it were before our eyes, as present to us, while the less

important one is suffered to pass rapidly by in the Aorist."² Winer

prefers the idea that "suddenness in a series of past events is indicated

with striking effect by the Present."³ While these observations may

correctly describe certain occurrences, they fail in the majority of

cases. Therefore others have sought more subtle explanations. Blass quotes

Karl Theodor Rodemeyer, Das Praesens historicum bei Herodot and Thukydides

(Basel: Buckdrucherei M. Werner Riehm, 1889), explaining his theory and

Blass's evaluation of it: Rodemeyer

attempts to show that the historical present indicates that an event

took place at the same time as, or immediately after, a point of time

already given; this is valid to a certain degree.⁴

Blass himself comes forward with a proposal; citing John 1:29-43, he

concludes:

Thus the circumstances, or all that is secondary, are given in a past

tense; on the other hand the main action is likely to be represented by

the present, while the concluding events are again put into the aor.

¹ McKnight, "The New Testament and 'Biblical Greek,'" esp. pp. 39-

42; earlier, Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, p. 78. For a dis-

cussion of Revelation usage, see below under "Surrounding Tenses."

² William Edward Jelf, A Grammar of the Greek Language (4th ed.;

2 vols.; Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1866), II, 68: also Turner, Syntax,

p. 61.

³ Winer, Idiom, p. 267.

⁴ BDF, p. 167; Turner notes this theory also, Syntax, p. 61.

111

because here a historical present would not be natural.¹

A final theory is one advanced by Thackery in his study of the historical

present in Kings. He notes that the historical present may be used to

"change scenes," or to introduce new characters or a new locality.² This

author noted several such examples in Mark's Gospel especially. Turner

hesitates: "at most, it may be a tendency."³ And summarizing all the

suggestions, he says, "but the hist. pres. is so universal that it is

impossible to theorize."⁴ The traditional interpretations thus are numer-

ous, but none of them fully accounts for the data. And each of them must

account for opposite data. These problems have resulted in the broadside

attack discussed next.

Criticism of the Traditional Theories

The most powerful onslaught on traditional theory has come from

a comparative linguist, Paul Kiparsky of the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology. His article "Tense and Mood in Indo-European Syntax" summarizes

the flaws of traditional grammar and proposes a bold new approach to

present tense exegesis (he would use the term "semantics"). He begins by

noting earlier explanations:

There are several: (1) The historical present expresses timelessness.

(2) The historical present expresses simultaniety with the action

denoted by the preceding verb. (3) The historical present has an

inceptive meaning. The range of examples that will come up here is

sufficient, I think, to show that none of these special meanings is

¹ BDF, p. 167.

² Thackery, The Schweich Lectures, pp. 21-22, quoted by Turner,

Syntax, pp. 61-62.

3 Ibid., p. 62; Moulton and Howard give stronger support to Thack-

eray's theory, Accidence and Word Formation, PP. 456-57.

⁴ Ibid., p. 61; also Robertson, Grammar, p. 868.

112

inherent to the historical present. In fact, any consistent semantic

difference between historical presents and narrative past tenses has

not been successfully demonstrated. Recognizing this, some have pro-

posed, equally unacceptably, that the use of the historical present

can be purely arbitrary.¹

Singling out the "vivid" or "dramatic" concept, he sees this concept as

a later development in Indo-European language.

While this is undoubtedly a correct intuition about the historical

present as found in modern European languages, I shall argue that it

is quite mistaken to transfer it to the earlier stages of Indo-European.

In Greek . . . the historical present has quite different syntactic

and semantic properties, to which the traditional idea, or any of its

variants, must utterly fail to do justice.²

In order to point up the weaknesses of traditional theory, Kipar-

sky notes five phenomena:³

a. the historical present behaves syntactically as a past tense

b. the historical present often is linked directly to a past tense

(as Thucydides, 7:29, "he attacked the town and takes it";

8:84, "they captured the fort and drive out the garrison";

8:102, "most of them escaped towards Imbros, but four are

caught")

c. the historical present "is never sustained over longer pas-

sages but normally alternates with preterite forms in rapid

succession"⁴

¹ Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," p. 30. ² Ibid.

³Ibid., pp. 30-33.

⁴ Kiparsky contrasts this to what he considers as modern usage: "A

curiously pervasive fact is that verbs of saying are especially frequently

put into the historical present in virtually all Indo-European languages.

. . . In general, however, conjunction of past and historical present is

quite untypical of modern languages. Conversely, the sustained use of

the historic present in long passages of narrative which is natural in

these, is conspicuously absent in earlier Indo-European. In this respect

the two systems are completely reversed" (p. 32). However, this author

recently ran across an example in modern literature which contradicts

Kiparsky's rule. Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize winning novel, One

Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovieh, graphically portrays the misery, cru-

dity, and hopelessness of Soviet prison camps. The novel was written in

"a peculiar mixture of concentration camp slang and the language of a

Russian peasant" (p. xvii). Telling a story to his men, a camp gang-boss

113

d. the present is used similarly for the future tense (as Hero-

dotus 1:207, "when they see so many good things, they will

turn to them and after that there remains for us . . .")

e. the present switches with the aorist in exactly the same way

in modal contexts, including subjunctives, optatives, and

imperatives.

Kiparsky sees no other alternative than to reject any particular special

exegetical or semantic meaning the historical present might have.

It would be absurd to seek in such examples any semantic differences,

however subtle, between aorist and present. But this simply highlights

the impossibility of adequately characterizing the so-called historical

present on a semantic basis alone. Rather a syntactic solution is

called for. It is beginning to look as if the historical present in

early Indo-European is a present tense only in its superficial form.

It functions syntactically as a past tense, as shown by sequence of

tenses, it is semantically indistinguishable from the past tenses,

and it alternates with these in conjoined structures.¹

Kiparsky's work was in classical Greek. But Biblical scholars

were not slack to spot the implications for New Testament exegesis,

Stephen M. Reynolds followed through with an article in the Westminster

Theological Journal, 32:1 (November, 1969), 68-72, entitled "The Zero

Tense in Greek." He notes his indebtedness to Kiparsky (pp. 68-69). He

especially is impressed by Kiparsky's argument "c," the lack of a sustained

series of historical presents throughout a narrative.

It is obvious that if the narrator for vividness intended to give

the impression that he was relating the events as he saw them, he

would continue to use the present tense and not break the illusion

by introducing a past tense. The New Testament writers make no effort

to maintain an illusion of this sort. On the contrary, they frequently

Tyurin mixes past tenses and historical presents as follows: past, past,

present, past, present, present, present, past, past, past, past, past,

present, past, . . . (pp. 100-01). It should be noted that the histori-

cal presents are limited to verbs of saying, as "says" and "tells"; and

that Solzhenitsyn himself normally does not employ the historical present

--only in his characters. The novel is trans. by Max Hayward and Ronald

Hingley (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1963).

¹Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," p. 33.

114

revert to the aorist. . . .

When in a given passage in the New Testament there are many changes

back and forth from aorist to present, it would seem that there is no

forgetting of time for vividness, but that the present is considered

the equivalent of the aorist in the context.¹

Citing the example of Mark 5:32-42, Reynolds opposes other suggested

theories as well:

I believe that no idea of the illusion of actually being present, or

of special vividness for certain words can be consistently maintained

to explain this interspersing of aorist and imperfect tense forms

with the present tense. I do not believe that any explanation saying

that verbs of primary importance are put in one tense and verbs of

secondary importance in another can be advanced successfully. The

only plausible explanation is that the present tenses here are the

equivalent of the past tense forms.²

The article by Reynolds, in turn, is cited by Frank Stagg, who also rejects

the "vivid" idea of the historical present or of the futuristic present:

"'Present tense' does not illuminate the past action of a 'historical pre-

sent' or the futuristic force of a 'futuristic present.'"³ While Eugene

Nida has not written explicitly in this area, his analysis of another

area could be viewed as sympathetic to the new trend. Speaking of lexical

definition of terms in a context, he advocates the meaning which changes

the context the least:

This process of maximizing the context is fully in accord with

the soundest principles of communication science. As has been clearly

demonstrated by mathematical techniques in decoding, the correct mean-

ing of any term is that which contributes least to the total context,

or in other terms, that which fits the context most perfectly. ⁴

The Zero Tense Claim

Kiparshy sets forth with admirable clarity his solution to the

¹ Reynolds, "The Zero Tense in Greek," p. 70. ² Ibid., pp. 70-71.

³ Stagg, "The Abused Aorist," pp. 222-23.

⁴ Nida, "Implications of Contemporary Linguistics for Biblical

Scholarship," p. 86.

115

problem. Rather than being exegetically significant, the historical (or

futuristic) present is governed by syntactical rules—i.e., mechanically,

as the Hebrew imperfect with waw-conversive is mechanical,--while it is

exegetically identical to the narrative aorist.

Everything points to its being an underlying past tense, and its

conversion into the present tense in the surface structure must be

governed by a syntactic rule, evidently some form of conjunction

reduction, which optionally reduces repeated occurrences of the same

tense to the present. Such a rule not only accounts for the histori-

cal present, but at the same time for the alternation of aorist and

present in modal contexts, and also for the alternation of future and

present, which in the traditional theory remain separate and unexplained

facts.¹

Thus the present can be a "zero tense," which merely carries on the thrust

of earlier tenses.

Schematically, then, the sequence . . . Past . . . and . . . Past . . .

is reduced to . . . Past . . . and . . . zero . . ., and since it is

the present which is the zero tense, the reduced structure . . . Past

. . . and . . . zero . . . . is realized morphologically as Past

. . . and . . . Present . . . . Repeated futures and subjunctives

reduce in just the same way.²

Kiparsky finds the Greek counterpart in the very early "injunctive" form

of the verb--the stem with past endings but without the augment:

The Indo-European counterpart to these forms which at once suggests

itself is the so-called injunctive. The unaugmented forms with

secondary endings which this term refers to were characterized by

Thurneysen in a classic study (1883) as forms which in effect

¹Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," pp. 33-34.

²Ibid., p. 35. Kiparsky notes several modern African languages

with such a zero tense (an "N-tense"): Masai, Bantu languages (Tswana,

Hereo, Duala), and Swahili (p. 36). He also adduces other evidence that

the present tense is the remnant of the zero tense: (a) when there are

two conditions in a general conditional sentence in Old Irish, the first

is subjunctive, the second is Present indicative: (b) the Prague School

linguistics theory concludes that the present indicative is the "unmarked

tense and mood"; (c) "while verbs may lack other tenses and moods, no verb

lacks a present indicative"; and (d) “nominal sentences are normally

interpreted as present indicative," pp. 34-45.

116

neutralize the verbal categories of tense and mood, expressing only

person, number, and voice.¹

These injunctive forms are found in the earliest copies of Homer, while

later copies have changed them to either imperfects or historical presents,

depending on the meter.² For example, the injunctive lei?pe would become

either e@leipe or lei<pei, whichever fits the rhythm. Subsequent Greek

writing (which is virtually all the extant Greek material) has only the

present or imperfect to serve as the injunctive, thus making positive

identification of a special injunctive tense usage impossible--which,

according to Kiparsky, accounts for the lapse of traditional grammar.

Thus he concludes with the following survey of the development of the his-

torical present in Greek:

(1) The oldest system, represented by Vedic Sanskrit, in which con-

junctive reduction of tense and mood yielded injunctive forms. We

shall see in the next two sections that the outlines of this system

can also be reconstructed from Homeric Greek and Celtic.

(2) A new system, in which the injunctive is lost and its role in

conjunction reduction as the unmarked tense and mood is taken over by

the present and the indicative. This stage is attested most clearly

in Greek and Old Irish, but also in early Latin, Old Icelandic, and

even some modern languages.

(3) The newest system, characterized by the loss of conjunction

reduction of inflectional categories. This system is that of most

modern European languages and was already nascent in classical Latin.

Thus in classical Latin the historical present does not always count

as a past tense in sequence of tenses, but already optionally counts

as a true present. Also we see the alternation of historical present

and past typical of the other Indo-European languages being lost in

¹Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," p. 36.

² Ibid., p. 39. Kiparshy notes H. Koller, who discovered "that the

verbs which typically occur in the historical imperfect are just those

which also can occur in the historical present," p. 40; thus, the histo-

rical imperfect is likewise a zero-tense: "As is well known, Herodotus,

Thucydides, and Xenophon, the same authors who use the historical present

in such profusion, also use a historical imperfect, which like the his-

torical present is semantically indistinguishable from the aorist and

also alternates in narrative with the aorist in much the same way as the

historical present does."

117

Latin and replaced by sustained sequences of historical presents,

which are frequent e.g. in Caesar.¹

Applying this theory to the New Testament, Reynolds, allowing

for such a thing as a "dramatic present" (which Kiparsky also does for

more recent Greek), believes there are no examples of it in the New Tes-

tament.² He separates examples like "David says," which have "a present

reference," and should have a distinctive name in English grammar."³

This paper concurs, and has already discussed such cases under the cate-

gory of citation presents.

If this theory is true, then much of previous grammar and exegesis

is false and arbitrary. More than the historical or futuristic present

is at stake. This theory would neutralize linear-punctiliar distinctions

in many modal usages as well, in participles, subjunctives, infinitives,

imperatives, and prohibitions. Certainly the theory deserves to be tested

and analyzed. The New Testament, with its hundreds of examples, provides

an admirable testing ground.

Relevant New Testament Data

The New Testament supplies many types of data. The data selected

for investigation here is that which bears most directly on the various

theories proposed to explain the historical present. The data for Synoptic

comparison already has been presented. The following sections shall discuss

data bearing on the exegetical significance of the historical present.

¹ Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," p. 38.

² Reynolds, "The Zero Tense in Greek," p. 72.

³ Ibid., p. 71.

118

Verbs Used

The first question, and the easiest to investigate, is this: are

certain verbs unduly common as historical presents? If so, is their

exegetical significance different from other verbs which may appear as

historical presents? Many authors have noticed that verbs of saying

take the lead. In all Greek literature one often finds in "especially

vernacular ''(occasionally in Plutarch) in the reporting of a conversation"¹

the forms le<gei, and fhsi<n. Thackeray comments that "the historic pres-

ent tends to be used with verbs of a certain class"; he mentions that

verbs of seeing are common in the Pentateuch LXX and verbs of coming or

going in the later historical books, in addition to verbs of saying.²

Muddiman goes so far as to call verbs of saying "a separate category" in

the study of historical presents.³ Turner applies the tendency to all

language: "In all speech, especially the least educated, forms like

le<gei and fhsi<n appear in reports of conversation."⁴ The phrase "least

educated" may be misleading, for Luke himself several times employs fhsi<n

in the latter part of Acts.

In order to judge further this question, it will be necessary to

tabulate the historical present word usage in each New Testament book.

The results are tabulated below:

¹ BDF, D. 167; cf. Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, p. 99.

² Thackery, Septuagint, a. 24; also Turner, Syntax, p. 61.

³ Muddiman, "A Note on the Reading Luke XXIV. 12," p. 544.

⁴ Turner, Syntax, p. 61.

119

TABLE 15

HISTORICAL PRESENT VOCABULARY

hist. pres. Mt. Mk Lk. Jn. Acts Rev. total

a]ggareu<w 1 1

b a@gw 3 3

a]dike<w 1 1

a@dw 3 3

b a]kolouqe<w 1 1

b a]nabai<nw 1 1

b a]nafe<rw 1 1 2

a a]pokri<nomai 3 3

a]poste<llw 1 3 4

a]fi<hmi 2 2

ba<llw 1 1

g ble<pw 1 5 6

ge<mw 1 1

gi<nomai 2 2

dei<knumi 1 1

diameri<zw 1 1

di<dwmi 2 2

b e]ggi<zw 1 1

b e]gei<rw 1 1 2

ei]mi< 1 8 9

b ei]sporeu<omai 2 2

e]kba<llw 1 1

b e]kporeu<omai 4 4

120

TABLE 15--Continued

hist. pres. Mt. Mk Lk. Jn. Acts Rev. total

e]ndidu<skw 1 1

b e]ca<gw 1 1

a e]perwta<w 1 1

e]piba<llw 1 1

b e@rxomai 5 24 1 13 43

a e]rwta<w 1 1 4 1 7

e@xw 8 8

g qewre<w 3 4 1 8

i!sthmi 1 1

ka<qhmai 1 1

b katabai<nw 1 1

kei?mai 1 1

a kra<zw 2 2

krate<w 1 1

kri<nw 1 1

lamba<nw 2 2

a le<gw 68 72 8 120 2 12 282

lu<w 1 1

me<llw 1 1

neu<w 1 1

oi#da 1 1

g o[ra<w 1 1

a paragge<llw 1 1

121

TABLE 15--Continued

hist. pres. Mt. Mk Lk. Jn. Acts Rev. total

b paragi<nomai 2 1 3

a parakale<w 3 3

paralamba<nw 3 4 7

b pate<w 1 1

periti<qhmi 1 1

pi<ptw 1 1

plana<w 1 1

poie<w 4 4

poleme<w 1 1

b prose<rxomai 2 2

a proskale<omai 2 2

b prosporeu<omai 1 1

stauro<w 1 2 3

a sugkale<w 1 1

b sumporeu<omai 1 1

b suna<gw 3 3

b sunai<rw 1 1

b sune<rxomai 2 2

su<rw 1 1

ti<qhmi 1 1

tre<fw 1 1

b tre<xw 1 1

g fai<nw 2 2

b fe<rw 4 4

122

TABLE 15--Continued

hist. pres. Mt. Mk Lk. Jn. Acts Rev. total

a fhmi< 2 1 1 10 14

a fwne<w 1 1 2

xala<w 1 1

________________________________________________________________

total 94 150 13 163 14 54 488

Thus, out of a total of nearly two thousand verbs in the New Testament

vocabulary, only seventy-five are used in the historical present, and

only thirty-four of them are used so more than once. Traditional theory

mentions verbs of saying, coming or going, and seeing. These verbs have

been marked with the letters "a," "b," and "g," respectively. Their

totals are as follows;

TABLE 16

HISTORICAL PRESENT VERB TYPES

book saying going seeing other total

Matthew 70 11 3 10 94

Mark 78 44 4 24 150

Luke 10 1 2 - 13

John 125 18 13 7 163

Acts 12 - 2 - 14

Revelation 14 15 - 25 54

_____________________________________________________________

total 309 89 24 66 488

It certainly appears that traditional grammar fits with the New Testament

data here. Over 86% of the historical presents in the New Testament fit

the three categories. Of course, as expected, the lion's share belongs to

the single verb le<gw, with 58% of the total; the second highest, e@rxo-

mai, takes up 9% of the historical present usage. Only one other verb

123

is used over ten times, fhmi<, accounting for 3 1/2%. To counter the argu-

ment that these verbs are the most common anyway, one need note only the

verb ei]mi< with 2450 New Testament usages, but only nine of them histori-

cal presents, eight being in Revelation.

More significant is the analysis of each author individually.

In order to assist this analysis, Table 16 is here reproduced in percen-

tages rather than in total usages:

TABLE 16A

VERB TYPE PERCENTAGES

book saying going seeing other total

Matthew 74% 12% 3% 11% 100%

Mark 52% 29% 3% 16% 100%

Luke 77% 8% 15% - l00%

John 77% 11% 8% 4% 100%

Acts 86% - 14% - 100%

Revelation 26% 28% - 46% 100%

______________________________________________________________

total NT 63% 18% 5% 14% 100%

Matthew, Luke, and John reserve most of their historical presents for verbs

of saying (about 75%), while Mark spreads out his usage more over other

types (about 50% saying, 50% others). Luke, the most literary writer in

the list, totally avoids using the historical present for any but the

three categories named, and even there he uses it sparingly, and mainly

for verbs of saying (over 80%). Finally, the Revelation shows the most

unusual pattern of all. However, most of the historical presents in that

book occur while John relates visions; and in a sense, John was actually

describing the scene as if he were really present, for indeed, in his

mind he was! So for that book, the traditional understanding of the

historical presents often fits admirably well.

124

Change of Scene

Thackeray some time ago suggested that the historical present was

one technique used to change scenes or to introduce a new character or

subject.¹ Robertson also notes that it may often begin a new paragraph.²

This author found in the New Testament several places where the paragraphs

in the United Bible Societies' Greek text began with a historical present

(Mt. 2:13, 19; 3:1, 13; 9:14; 13:51; 15:1; 17:1; 26:31, 36; Mk. 1:12, 21,

40; 3:13, 20, 31; 4:13, 35; 5:35; 6:30; 7:1; 8:1, 22; 9:2; 10:23, 35;

11:1, 15, 27; 12:13, 18; 13:1; 14:27, 32, 43, 66; 15:21; Lk. 8:49; 11:37;

Jn. 1:29; 4:7, 16; 9:13; 11:38; 13:36; 18:28; 19:28; 20:1; 21:20; Acts

21:37; 26:24; Rev. 17:15). For most books this number does not seem ab-

normally large, except in the Gospel of Mark and in chapters 2-3 of Matthew.

What is more significant is that the verbs employed are often not le<gw in

books where le<gw is often a historical present, but are other words,

such as e@rxomai or paralamba<nw. Acts, on the other hand, which uses

le<gw only twice as a historical present, employs it one of those two

times to begin a paragraph at 21:37, and then continues down the paragraph

with fhsi<n at 22:2. Especially noticeable are the paragraph beginnings

in Matthew 2-3 and Mark 1, 3. Here and in a few other places one gets the

feeling that Thackeray is right, that the historical present often does

bring one back to his senses and does open his eyes to a new vista in the

story.

¹ Moulton and Howard, Accidence and Word Formation, pp. 456-57;

Turner, Syntax, pp. 61-62.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 868.

125

Surrounding Tenses

An important side of the controversy involves the tense-value of

the historical present. Should it be considered as a replacement for an

aorist verb or for an imperfect verb? Most writers tend to favor the

aorist verb. Blass says it "can replace the aorist indicative in a vivid

narrative at the events of which the narrator imagines himself to be

present."¹ The older grammarians Winer and Buttmann concur.² Goodwin,

however, allows either possibility in each case: "The present is often

used in narration for the aorist, sometimes for the imperfect, to give a

more animated statement of past events."³

In order to obtain objective data for this question, this writer

examined the verbal context of each historical present. Of primary concern

was the tense of the indicative verb before and the verb after each his-

torical present. Appendix C contains this information. Chains of two or

more historical presents were classified according to the verbs before and

after the entire chain. The imperfect of ei]mi< was considered neutral,

since there is no aorist form; in that case the second following (or pre-

ceding) verb was used for the classification. Also, it is important to

realize that the preceding and following verbs are not necessarily the

immediate neighbors of the historical present form in the text, but are

parallel verbs--on the same level of narration. For example, in this quo-

tation, "I said, 'Who was that.' And a voice says, 'Nobody is here.' But

¹ BDF, p. 167.

² Winer, Idiom, p. 267; Alexander Buttmann, A Grammar of the New

Testxnent Greek, p. 196.

³ William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the

Greek Verb (enlarged ed.; Boston: Ginn and Company, 1890), p. 11.

126

I knew better," the historical present "says" is surrounded in context by

"said" and "knew," not the more immediate verbs "was" and "is."

The following table summarizes Appendix C. The left hand column

describes the various tense contexts that occur. The dash represents

the historical present; the abbreviation "Para" indicates that the his-

torical present is the first or last tensally significant verb in the

paragraph:

TABLE 17

HISTORICAL PRESENT CONTEXTS

context tenses Mt. Mk. Lk. Jn. Acts Rev, total

Aor. only: 87 80 12 106 10 27 322

Aor--Aor 63 44 8 69 5 14 203

Para--Aor 12 32 3 22 1 2 72

Aor--Para 12 4 1 15 4 11 47

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Impf. only: 2 34 - 13 - 7 56

Impf--Impf - 12 - 4 - - 16

Para--Impf 2 15 - 3 - 1 21

Impf--Para - 7 - 6 - 6 19

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aor. & Impf.: 3 30 1 18 2 11 65

Aor--Impf 3 14 1 2 2 3 25

Impf--Aor - 16 - 16 - 8 40

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plpf. only: - 3 - 9 - 1 13

Para--Plpf - 1 - 2 - 1 4

Plpf--Para - 2 - 7 - - 9

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aor. & Plpf.: - 2 - 13 - - 15

Aor--Plpf - 1 - 6 - - 7

Plpf--Aor - 1 - 7 - - 8

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fut. only: - - - - - 4 4

Para--Fut - - - - - 2 2

Fut--Para - - - - - 2 2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aor. & Fut.: - - - - - 1 1

(Aor--Fut)

127

TABLE 17-Continued

context tenses Mt. Mk. Lk. Jn. Acts Rev. total

Impf. & Fut.: - - - - - 1 1

(Impf--Fut)

Isolated 2 1 - 4 2 2 11

(Para--Para)

total 94 150 13 163 14 54 488

In order to evaluate this table further, it is helpful to note

how much of the time percentagewise the historical presents in each book

are connected to each tense in parallel. Thus "Aor--Aor" counts as two

aorists, "Impf--Pare counts as one imperfect, "Impf--Fut" counts as one

imperfect and one future, and so on. Table 18 tabulates these findings.

TABLE 18

HISTORICAL PRESENT CONNECTIONS

book aorist imperfect pluperfect future

Matthew 97% 3% - -

Mark 66% 32% 2% -

Luke 95% 5% - -

John 78 1/2% 13% 8 1/2 -

Acts 89% 11% - -

Revelation 67% 24% 15 8%

_________________________________________________

total NT 78% 17 1/2% 3 1/2% 1%

This table reveals remarkable differences among the Biblical au-

thors. Matthew and Luke-Acts, especially the former, nearly always connect

the historical present to the aorist. Very seldom is it tied to an imper-

fect. This fact can show either that the historical present is substi-

tuted for an aorist in what would normally be a chain of aorists, or

that the historical present takes the place of the imperfect which would

128

normally be used to break the monotony of continuous aorists. The first

explanation seems simpler, and thus better. Also, in Matthew and Luke-

Acts, the historical present is not usually used in context with imperfects,

suggesting that it is not substituted for the imperfect in these books.

The fact that it has no tie to the pluperfect or future, confirms its re-

stricted exegetical force for the writers Matthew and Luke.

Mark, on the other side, places his historical presents next to

imperfects nearly a third of the time. It seems that in his Gospel the

historical present can substitute for either an aorist or an imperfect;

and the fact that thirty times he places a historical present between an

aorist and an imperfect, indicates that he considers the present even as a

bridge which spans those tenses.

John's Gospel takes a mediating course. He can use the historical

present as an imperfect on occasion, but usually prefers the aorist. The

higher percentage with pluperfects is noticeable in his Gospel. His Reve-

lation is similar to Mark in its use of the historical present for other

tenses than the aorist.

Revelation ties most of them to the imperfect, and a few even to

the future. This latter strange tendency is explained thusly: John saw

visions in the past, he relates them as if present, and applies them to

the future. In his important work on the morphology of the Revelation,

G. Mussies explains and defends this understanding of the tense shifts.

Although the quotation is long, its scholarship, importance, and clarity

call for its insertion here:

In recounting visions and dreams an author usually starts by using a

past tense expressing something like "I heard" or "I saw." This is

also the case in the Apocalypse: all the indicatives which pertain

129

to St. John's act of seeing or hearing are past tenses. . . . The

contents of the visions can of course also be told in past tenses and

St. John usually starts in this way . . . all together 31 instances.

However, in 4:5; 5:5; 6:16; 7:10; 8:11; 14:3; 15:3; 16:21, the author

switches over to a present indicative, and he does so immediately

after the introductory ei#don, h@kousa, etc., in 12:2, 4; 16:14: 19:

9, 11. These shifts indicate that he is no longer telling what he

saw in the past, but rather what he is seeing again before his eyes,

and as such these present indicatives give the idea of lively repre-

sentation. Similar shifts have also been noticed in dream accounts

that have come down to us in Egyptian papyri.

A further complication in the Apocalypse is the fact that the

visions are supposed to predict future events (1:1, 19). This may

account for the shifts to the future indicative usually via the inter-

mediary stage of (historical or futural) presents. Immediate tran-

sitions from past tense to future tense are: 13:7-8; 22:1-3. Via

the present indicative: 4:8-10; 7:14-17; 9:4-6; 18:4, 7-8, 15;

19:14-16; 20:4-8; 21:22-26.

The reverse shift is also found a number of times: 11:1-11 (verses

12-14 contain 8 more past tenses; here the direct speech contains a

prophecy in futural and present tenses which become more and more

picturesque until it suddenly falls back into the past tense again);

18:15-19; 20:8-10.

In our opinion it is unnecessary to see behind these shifts of

time the inability of an author who could not handle the Greek tenses.

Lancellotti, the only scholar who has thus far devoted a special study

to the use of tenses in the Apocalypse holds the view that these

"haphazard" shifts can be accounted for by assuming the Biblical

Hebrew verb system as the underlying substrate. St. John's wavering

between past and present, present and future is according to him due

to the timelessness of both the Biblical Hebrew indicatives. If the

influence of Biblical Hebrew were so strong still that St. John could

not clearly distinguish between present and future tenses it is dif-

ficult to understand why he did not avoid to use the Greek future at

all. The present indicative could then be used either as a present,

past or future tense and the aorist as a past tense. Lancellotti's

point of view would be proved if in the Apocalypse future indicatives

were misused for past tenses or with the value of present time,^l or if

aorists were used as presents or as futures. As long as this is not

the case we think it more probable to assume that the underlying Heb-

rew had developed to a great extent towards Mishnaic Hebrew or was

perhaps already identical to it.

As it is, the transitions to the future tense in the Apc. are

usually preceded by another kind of transitions, namely those from a

past tense to the present indicative. Such a use of tenses seems quite

¹ Mussies defends 4:9-11 as futuristic, Apocalypse, pp. 342-47.

130

natural for an author who has to recount visions actually seen, or

pretended to have been seen, in the past, but which at the same time

predict future events.¹

Thus the genre of the book explains the connections of its historical

Presents.

The shifts of time which we have discussed are caused by the apo-

calyptic "genre": the visions reported were seen in the past, can

be vividly pictured by present indicatives, but predict the future.

It is therefore not accidental that there are no shifts of time in

non-visionary parts like the Letters to the Seven Churches.²

Exegesis of the Historical Present

Aspect

First the aspect of the historical present must be determined.

Some grammarians summarily assign to it punctiliar or aoristic force.²

Many say it is primarily aoristic.³ Robertson places the bulk of his

discussion of the historical present in the "punctiliar action" section,

but he also notes that "the hist. pres. is not always aoristic. It may

be durative like the imperfect. This point has to be watched."⁴

Robertson's point is well made. Often the historical present is

durative. He himself supplies three examples: Mk. 1:12, e]kba<llei; 1:21,

ei]sporeu<omai; and also 6:1, a]kolouqou?sin.⁵ Many classical Greek scho-

lars see this usage too. H. W. Smyth's grammar says, "The historical

present may represent either the descriptive imperfect or the narrative

¹ Mussies, Apocalypse,., pp. 333-36.

² Ibid., p. 349.

³ E.g., Chamberlain, An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek New Testa-

ment, pp. 68, 71.

⁴ E.g., BDF, p. 167; Turner, Syntax, p. 60; Mussies, Apocalypse,

p. 276 (but he modifies this statement on p. 349 by equating it with a

Hebrew participle).

⁵ Robertson, Grammar, p. 867; cf. pp. 866-69, 880.

⁶ Ibid., p. 880.

131

aorist."¹ Goodwin had stated already that the historical present could

stand for either the aorist or the imperfect,² and B. L. Gildersleeve,

using the expression "kind of time" for "aspect," emphasized the durative

nature of the present tense, even in narration, and the corollary possi-

bility that the aorist tense can describe present time:

A typical difference having set itself up between imperfect and aorist

in certain forms, the present associated itself with the imperfect and

became by preference durative, by preference progressive. When, there-

fore, an aoristic present was needed, the aorist itself was employed.

We who have learned to feel the augment as the sign of the past time

may have our sensibilities shocked, but we have to unlearn that feeling;

and in any case the fact is there, and it is impossible to explain all

the uses of the aorist side by side with the present by a resort to

the paradigmatic aorist or the empiric aorist. . . . The paradig-

matic aorist and the empiric explanations do not satisfy the feeling

in passages in which the shift from present to aorist is clearly a

shift from durative to complexive, from progress to finality, and it

is just these passages that show how alive the Greek is to the kind

of time.³

Among scholars of New Testament Greek, the picture is basically the same.

Burton, without being specific, seems to favor a progressive understanding.⁴

Farrar also likens the historic present's role to that of the imperfect

in narrative.⁵ Similarly Buttmann notes the close relation of present to

imperfect in conative usages.⁶ The traditional understanding of the

role of the imperfect tense in narrative has been stated admirably by

¹ Smyth, A Greek Grammar, p. 277; this older edition of Smyth also

states that the imperfect "sets forth subordinate actions and attendant

circumstances," p. 284; but that statement does not square with the data

and was dropped in the Smyth-Messing edition, Greek Grammar, p. 422.

² Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, p. 11.

³Gildersleeve, Problems of Greek Syntax, pp. 244-45.

⁴ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p, 9.

⁵ Frederic W. Farrar, A Brief Greek Syntax and Hints on Greek

Accidence, pp. 121-22.

⁶Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 205.

132

Robertson:

The personal equation, style, character of the book, vernacular or

literary form, all come into play. It largely depends on what the wri-

ter is after. If he is aiming to describe a scene with vividness, the

imperfect predominates. Otherwise he uses the aorist, on the whole

the narrative tense par excellence. . . . The imperfect is here a sort

of moving panorama, a "moving-picture show." . . . Sometimes the

change from aorist to imperf. or vice versa in narrative may be due to

the desire to avoid monotony. . . The aorist tells the simple story.

The imperfect draws the picture. It helps you to see the course of the

act. It passes before the eye the flowing stream of history.¹

It is not within the scope of this paper to analyze the imperfect tense,

but it is here noted that this description by Robertson sharply contrasts

with that of Kiparsky, noted above, which sees the imperfect in narration

as a zero tense.

Whatever role the imperfect plays in narration, the historical

present is tied to it in many cases. Gildersleeve has observed that "this

use of the present belongs to the original stock of our family of languages.

It antedates the differentiation into imperf. and aorist."² Following this

up, Dana and Mantey say, "This idiom is possibly a residue from the pri-

mitive syntax of the Indo-European language, when, like the Semitic verb,

time relations were indicated by the context rather than the inflectional

forms."³

With this bewildering array and variety of views, one might be

tempted to throw up his hands in despair. But the data in this chapter

should lead to a more definitive conclusion. It appears that the New

Testament was written in a transition period, from zero tense usages to

¹ Robertson, Grammar, pp. 839-40, 883.

² Gildersleeve and Miller, Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to

Demosthenes, I, 86.

³ Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 185.

133

more modern dramatic present usages. The various authors were each more

or less developed in the transition. In Matthew, Luke-Acts, and most of

the narrative of John, the historical present seems aoristic. Especially

is it so when surrounded by aorists in context (as Mt. 19). In Mark the

historical present has various aspects. Generally, verbs which introduce

new paragraphs, and verbs of saying or going are aoristic. However, when

a section contains a high percentage of imperfects and historical presents

(e.g., the Passion Narrative), those historical presents can be assumed

to be durative in aspect. Likewise in John's Gospel, those few passages

with large percentages of historical presents (e.g., ch. 2, 20, 21)¹

using unusual verbs can be taken as durative. The historical presents in

the visions in Revelation are most probably durative, since John's language

is written from the standpoint of one actually viewing the events described.

Translation

It has been noted already how different versions translate his-

torical presents.² Some writers suggest that all historical presents be

given special treatment in translation. Robertson points out,

A vivid writer like Mark, for instance, shows his lively imagination

by swift changes in the tenses. The reader must change with him. It

is mere commonplace to smooth the tenses into a dead level in trans-

lation and miss the writer's point of view.³

And likewise France:

In translation, the important point is not to aim at wooden literalness

of tense (if the language would allow it), but to achieve the same

degree of vividness as the Greek intends, by whatever idiomatic means

¹ Cf. Robertson, Grammar, pp. 868-69; and Abbott, Johannine Gram-

mar, pp. 350-51.

² See above, p. 17.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 830.

134

the language offers (which may be nothing to do with tense). Beware

of making a lively narrative stuffy be being too literal. Translate

idiom into idiom.¹

Unlike France, Robertson suggests that the English historical present

always should replace that in the Greek: "Modern literary English abhors

this idiom, but it ought to be preserved in translating the Gospels in

order to give the same element of vividness to the narrative."² The United

Bible Societies' translation rule #27 allows a little more flexibility:

"In narrative style the present tense forms may be used to indicate the

'liveliness' of the narrative."³

The conclusions of this chapter lead to a more specific translation

policy. This policy may be summarized in a series of points:

a. Historical presents in Matthew, Luke, and Acts normally should

be translated as simple pasts.

b. Historical presents at the beginning of a Paragraph, especially

if followed by past tenses, should be translated as simple

pasts, but with some indication of a new paragraph--either

indentation or introductory particles.

c. Historical presents in Mark or John normally should be trans-

lated by simple pasts, especially if they are verbs of saying

or going, unless they appear in a context with an unusually

high frequency of historical presents or imperfects. In that

case, they should receive special emphasis; whether the English

present or progressive past is used is a matter of English

style preference.

d. Historical presents in visions in Revelation should be trans-

lated as progressive pasts or as presents.

While the zero tense arguments have much validity, it seems arbitrary to

rule that the natural "dramatic present" idiom, used in all languages,⁴

¹ France, "The Exegesis of Greek Tenses in the New Testament," p. 5.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 868.

³ Nida, The Theory and Practice of Translation, p. 183.

⁴ Kiparsky himself admits this for verbs of saying, "Tense and

Mood," p. 32.

135

could never appear in koine Greek. Also it, is arbitrary to assume that

"dramatic present" narratives must never include past tense verbs. These

tendencies appear in writers of every language. It appears that Mark

and, to a lesser degree, John are the two New Testament writers with a

legitimate "dramatic" use of the historical present.

Other Past Time Usages

Several times the New Testament offers a present tense verb which

cannot be called a historical present, but yet which describes past action.

These examples are tied more directly to present time; hence the present

tense is in a more "normal" usage. There are two such categories.

Present for Immediate Past

Occasionally an event, usually a speech, which is just over is

referred to in the present. For example, when Jesus declared to the

paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven," the scribes immediately said, "This

one blasphemes!" (Mt. 9:3). They did not mean that Jesus was continu-

ously blaspheming, but that He had just blasphemed. The present tense,

however, ties the past act to the present in point of time.

While grammarians have not noted this category under the present

tense, Robertson does include a similar category for the aorist tense,

called the "dramatic aorist":

The aorist in Greek, particularly in dialogue, may be used for what

has just happened. It seems awkward in English to refer this to past

time, but it is perfectly natural in Greek. So we translate it by

the present indicative. From the Greek point of view the peculiarity

lies in the English, not in the Greek.¹

As the "dramatic aorist," the aspect of the present for immediate past

¹Robertson, Grammar, 842.

136

appears to be aoristic, the present tense suggesting immediacy. There

are fifty-seven examples of this usage in the New Testament, nearly half

of them in John's Gospel.

Imperfective Present

The imperfect tense describes action as continuous in the past.

The imperfective present can do the same--in some cases as a historical

present--or in others as an imperfective present. The difference with the

imperfective present is that it goes up to and includes present time: it

"gathers up past and present time into one phrase."¹ The name given this

category varies considerably among grammarians who distinguish it. Robert-

son calls it "progressive present,"² Moule, "present of past action still

in progress,"³ and Burton, "action still in progress."⁴

Often the usage is distinguishable by the combination of a past

adverb or adverbial phrase with a present tense verb--e.g., John 15:27,

"from the beginning you are with me."⁵ As the imperfect, the imperfective

present need not be progressive, but can be iterative, as in Luke 13:7,

"three years from when I come seeking fruit." The usage occurs frequently,

most often in John's Gospel. The following list shows its number of occur-

rences in each book in which it is found: Matthew (6), Mark (3), Luke (10),

John (26), Acts (4), 1 Corinthians (2), Galatians (2), 2 Timothy (1),

and Hebrews (1); total for the New Testament (55).

It is interesting to note that, as with the previous category,

¹ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 119. ² Robertson, Grammar, p. 879.

³ Moule, Idiom Book, p. 8. ⁴ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 10.

⁵ Cf. Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 10; Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 119.

137

this one can be performed by the aorist as well. Burton notes that the

aorist "may also be used of acts beginning in past time and continuing to

the time of speaking. Mt. 27:8; 28:15."¹ Here, however, there is an as-

pect difference. The aorist has no defined aspect, while the present--

describing the same sort of action--would view the action from a durative,

continuous standpoint. Kiparsky understands this usage as zero also,²

but it seems that the predominance of durative verbs here such as ei]mi<

(29 out of 55 times), especially in John, would call for the durative as-

pect. Burton³ calls for translation with the English perfect--e.g., "I

have been with you,"--and his suggestion seems best.

Conclusion

The present tense often reaches back into past time. When it does

so, it often retains its durative aspect, especially when the action con-

tinues into the present or when the writer imagines himself to be in the

past as he describes the event. More often, however, the present indica-

tive functions with a "zero" aspect, the tense being used as a substitute

for the aorist in normal narration. The different style from author to

author accounts for the variation in historical present usage. Language

never stands still, and the New Testament provides a cross-section of its

development. The conclusions reached in this chapter will affect the

succeeding chapters as well. In addition, their implications can affect

the exegesis of presents in modal contexts, but that is another study in

itself.

¹ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 11.

² Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," pp. 46-48.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 10.

IV. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN FUTURE TIME

Just as the present indicative can reach back to describe events

in the past, so it can look ahead and relate future events. This chapter

shall discuss two types of presents, futuristic presents and presents for

immediate future. The former category is the larger, and shall receive

its treatment first.

Futuristic Present Frequency

The futuristic present has been called the "counterpart to the

historical present."¹ It describes a future event with a present tense

verb--e.g., Matthew 26:2, "after two days is the Passover." For the sake

of convenience, the New Testament examples have been divided into two

Parts, general futuristic presents, dealing with normal events, and

eschatological futuristic presents, dealing with events of the last days.

occurrences of each type are tabulated below.

TABLE 19

FUTURISTIC PRESENT FREQUENCY

book general eschatological total fut. pres./100 verb forms

Matthew 21 17 38 0.96

Mark 16 6 22 0.84

Luke 17 12 29 0.66

John 87 13 100 2.83

Acts 5 - 5 0.13

Romans 5 2 7 0.60

1 Corinthians 2 10 12 0.93

2 Corinthians 2 - 2 0.26

Galatians 1 - 1 0.25

¹ BDF, p. 168.

138

139

TABLE 19--Continued

book general eschatological total fut. pres./100 verb forms

Ephesians - 1 1 0.31

lossians - 1 1 0.43

1 Thessalonians - 2 2 0.82

2 Thessalonians - 2 2 1.64

Timothy 1 - 1 0.33

Timothy 1 - 1 0.45

Hebrews 3 - 3 0.33

1 Peter 2 - 2 0.73

2 Peter 1 3 4 2.06

1 John 1 4 5 1.15

Revelation 3 32 35 2.28

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

total NT 168 105 273 0.99

As can be seen from this table John prefers this usage much more

than other authors, both in his Gospel and in Revelation. The higher

percentages in 2 Peter and 2 Thessalonians result from the eschatological

content of those books.

In a few cases classification of examples is tricky, and the

category chosen depends on one's interpretation of the passage. For exam-

ple, Matthew 10:16 occurs in Jesus' speech to the Twelve before their

itinerant preaching journeys: "Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst

of wolves." If the verse applies to the Twelve at that time, it should be

classed as either a progressive present or a present for immediate future.

However, the context seems to indicate a later time. Verse 16 marks a

transition in the discourse from triumph (experienced by the Twelve) to

persecution (experienced by the Twelve and others later); and verse 23

ties that persecution to the second coming of Christ: "You shall by no

means finish the cities of Israel until the Son of man comes" (cf. Mt.

24:34). For these reasons a]poste<llw in Matthew 10:16 is catalogued as a

futuristic present.

140

By failing to recognize as a futuristic present die<rxomai, in

1 Corinthians 16:5, the inserters of the subscription to 1 Corinthians

("written from Philippi") have introduced an error, and a contradiction

with verses 8-9, which state that Paul was in Ephesus while he wrote the

epistle. This spurious subscription stands in the Textus Receptus, and

therefore in the King James Version.¹

The distinction between present and future in John is nearly in-

distinct on occasion. Abbott notes the subtle shift in John 4:21-23 from

future to present.

"The hour cometh" . . . refers to the time when Jerusalem and Gerizim

will cease to be the special homes of worship; to the earlier and

immediate time when worship is to be "in spirit and truth." The former

(5:28) is used to predict the resurrection of those "in the tombs";

the latter to predict (5:25) the proclamation of the Gospel to those

who are "dead (in sins)." In 16:2, 25, the shorter form is used to

predict the persecutions and revelations that await the disciples

after Christ's death; in 16:32, a version of the longer form, "the

hour is coming and hath come," predicts the "scattering" of the disci-

ples on that same night, and, perhaps literally, in that same "hour."²

Some see in certain cases a present reference, as Blass at John 8:14, who

believes that the "going" is present--only the destination is future.³

However, this interpretation is not necessary, especially when compared

with other futuristic usages of u[pa<gw and e@rxomai. Ti<qhmi in passages

like John 10:15 has caused controversy. Was Jesus then giving His life,

or was He about to give His life on the cross? Some prefer the former

understanding.⁴ But rather, it appears that the figure of the Shepherd,

¹ Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, p. 100; see also Hen-

ry Clarence Thiessen, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids:

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943), P. 205.

² Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 352-53. ³ BDF, p. 168.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 870.

141

and the ordinary meaning of yuxh<, indicate more than earthly living, ra-

ther, His ensuing death. For this reason, these references are classed

as futuristic. Another controversial usage is ei]mi< in John 12:26 (cf.

14:3; 17:24). Abbott mentions that some MSS show the difficulty by chang-

ing the form to ei#mi, "I go."¹ He himself claims that it "is not prophe-

tic present, but expresses the real, and existing, though invisible fact."²

Winer modifies this idea by translating "where I have my home."³ It ap-

pears to this writer that ei]mi< can be used futuristically just as easily

as gi<nomai can,⁴ and that it is so used here. Finally, one should note

the futuristic use of ]Anabai<nw in John 20:17, "I ascend to my Father."

In order to press this idea into present time, Abbott resorts to almost

incredible spiritualizing. He does not even translate it "I am on the

point of ascending," but maintains that

more probably the words are intended to suggest the thought of a

spiritual ascending, already begun. . . . The mysterious words "Touch

me not for I have not yet ascended" seem to mean that when the Lord

had ascended His disciples would be able to "touch" Him (perhaps as

being the "Bread of Life"). The Ascension may be regarded in two ways,

1st, as an uplifting from the material earth up to and beyond the

material clouds and out of sight, 2nd, as an uplifting of the Messiah

in the invisible world, and simultaneously in the hearts of the dis-

ciples, to the throne of God. Luke describes the former in the Acts.

John may be thinking of the latter here, and, if so, a]nabai<nw may

mean, not "I shall ascend" but "I am ascending," i.e. the Father is

preparing the moment when the Son shall be exalted to heaven in the

sight of angels above and in the hearts of believers below.⁵

To steer clear of mysticism, one would do well to categorize these verbs

¹ Abbott, Johannine Grammar, p. 354; cf. p. 163. ² Ibid., p. 353.

³ Winer, Idiom, p. 265. ⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 869.

⁵ Abbott, Johannine Grammar, p. 355. Lest it be thought that his

spiritualizing be thus limited to John, note his subsequent evaluation of

the ascension in Acts, which he considers to be both a subjective and ob-

jective experience: "The moment for His full and final ascension will not

have arrived till he can be so 'lifted up' as to 'draw all men' unto Him-

self," p. 355, n. 1.

142

in John as what on the surface they appear to be--futuristic presents.

Futuristic Present Vocabulary

Just as the historical present prefers certain words to others,

so the futuristic present shows a similar preference. The vocabulary

words used by each author are charted below. Hebrews' three examples are

listed under Paul.

TABLE 20

FUTURISTIC PRESENT VOCABULARY

word Mt. Mk. Lk.-Acts Jn.-Rev. Paul Peter total

a]gora<zw 1 1

ai@rw 1 3 4

ai]te<w 1 1

a]kolouqe<w 1 1

a]nabai<nw 1 1 4 6

a]noi<gw 1 1

a]poqn^<skw 2 2 4

a]pokaqista<nw 1 1

a]pokalu<ptw 1 1 2

a]po<llumi 1 1

a]poste<llw 4 2 3 9

apotele<w 1 1

a]fi<hmi 2 3 5

ba<llw 1 1

baptizw 2 2

ble<pw 1 1

143

TABLE 20--Continued

word Mt. Mk. Lk.-Acts Jn.-Rev. Paul Peter total

game<w 1 1 1 3

gami<zw 1 1 1 3

gi<nomai 1 1 2

ginw<skw 1 1 2

diame<nw 1 1

di<dwmi 3 3

die<rxomai 1 1

dikaio<w 1 1

du<namai 1 1 2

e]gei<rw 1 1 1 2 6 11

ei]mi< 11 2 6 15 4 1 39

ei]sporeu<omai 1 1

e]kba<llw 1 1

ekdike<w 1 1

e]kporeu<omai 1 1

e]rga<zomai 1 1

e@rxomai 5 2 8 36 6 57

eu]fai<nw 1 1

e]fi<sthmi 1 1

e@xw 3 2 1 9 15

za<w 1 1

z&opoie<w 2 2

qewre<w 6 6

katarge<w 1 1

144

TABLE 20--Continued

word Mt. Mk. Lk.-Acts Jn.-Rev. Paul Peter total

katoike<w 1 1

klai<w 1 1

kri<nw 4 1 5

lamba<nw 2 2

marture<w 1 1

me<nw 1 1 1 3

nusta<zw 1 1

para<gw 2 1 3

paradi<dwmi 2 2 1 5

paralamba<nw2 2

pe<mpw 1 1

penqe<w 1 1

pi<nw 2 2

pi<ptw 1 1

poreu<omai 1 5 1 7

proa<gw 1 1 2

prosdoka<w 1 1

proseu<xomai 1 1

spe<ndomai 1 1

sth<kw 1 1

telei<ow 1 1

th<komai 1 1

ti<qhmi 3 1 1 5

u[pa<gw 1 1 21 24

145

TABLE 207-Continued

word Mt. Mk. Lk.-Acts Jn.-Rev. Paul Peter total

fe<rw 1 1

feu<gw 1 1

xai<rw 1 1

total NT 38 22 34 140 33 6 273

Of the sixty-seven verbs which are found in the futuristic present, only

thirteen occur five times or more. These are their occurrences:

57—e@rxomai 6—a]nabai<nw

39—ei]mi< 6—qewre<w

24—u[pa<gw 5—a]fi<hmi

15—e@xw 5—kri<nw

11—e]gei<rw 5—paradi<dwmi

9—a]poste<llw 5—ti<qhmi

7—poreu<omai

Most prominent are verbs of going, especially e@rxomai; in the

short list above they account for half of the total usages. It is be-

lieved that e@rxomai originally had a futuristic meaning in the root,

derived from the classical verb ei#mi.¹ Thus e@rxomai, can be futuristic

whether or not it is prophetic (Mt. 17:11; cf. 24:43).² Futuristic e@rx-

omai, can account for God's "wrath" predicted against the earth to be still

future, at the Tribulation (Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6; cf. present participle

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 354; Goodwin, A Greek Grammar, p. 247

(he notes that the future form e]leu<somai, was not used in Attic prose);

Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, pp. 50, 204; Abbott,

Johannine Grammar, p. 353; Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, pp.

99-100.

² BDF, p. 168.

146

at 1 Th. 1:10; cf. 1 Th. 5:9).¹ This tendency to stay in the present is

obvious when it is in parallel with a future verb, as in Luke 12:54-55

(e@rxetai . . . e@stai) and John 14:3 (e@rxomai kai> paralh<myomai).² The

present participle, "the coming one" is also futuristic, as in Revelation.³

Blass, however, tends to discount this meaning in e@rxomai. He maintains

that the futuristic present "is not attached to any definite verbs, and

it is purely by accident that e@rxomai, appears with special frequency in

this sense."⁴ He tries to neutralize some of the data by stating that

"verbs of going and coming when used in the present also have the mean-

ing of being in course of going (or coming), in which case the arrival

at the goal still lies in the future: Jn. 3:8; 8:14; 14:4-5; Acts 20:22;

Mt. 20:18; Jn. 20:17."⁵ The newer edition of Blass concurs and cites

the same examples.⁶ To some extent Buttmann's grammar tries to argue for

a similar treatment:

By the Future e]leu<somai, (Mt. 9:15; 1 Cor. 4:19; 16:12) the beginning

of the future action is placed at a distance, by the Present it is

placed more in the present (to be sure, not always in the immediate

present of which the senses take cognizance as John 21:3, but also

proleptically in the imaginary present of prophetic vision.⁷

This argument, however; seems strained. The coming or going is not in

¹ John A. Sproule, "A Revised Review of The Church and the Tribu-

lation by Robert H. Gundry" (postgraduate seminar paper, Grace Theological

Seminary, 1974), p. 63.

² BDF, p. 168.

³ Cf. Mt. 3:11; Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek,

p. 204.

⁴ Blass-Thackeray, Grammar, p. 189. ⁵ Ibid.

⁶ BDF, p. 168.

⁷ Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 204:

147

progress until it is in progress. When Paul said he was to go through

Macedonia (1 Cor. 16:5), he was not packing his bags--he was planning to

leave later on (cf. vv. 8-9). Many similar examples can be shown from

Jesus' life as well. When He said, "I come to you" (Jn. 14:18), He was

not yet in the process of coming, for He had not even gone yet. It is

better to realize, as most grammarians have, that e@rxomai and related

verbs can take both a progressive use (in progress of coming) or a fu-

turistic use (will come), just as other verbs do. The reason for its

higher percentage is the nature of its meaning and the history of its

root development.

The verb "to be," ei]mi< or gi<nomai, is the next most common. The

verb gi<nomai, is recognized as often being futuristic, even though there

are only two New Testament examples.¹ Yet not much discussion is given

to futuristic ei]mi<. Zerwick, however, does note the futuristic use of

ei]mi<, and suggests that its high frequency (along with that for e@xw) is

due to an Aramaic speaking background, which language would render them

with a present participal and a temporal adverb.²

Most of the other terms on the most frequent list are special

favorites of one author or of the Synoptic writers. The verbs u[pa<gw,

e@xw, poreu<omai, a]nabai<nw, qewre<w, and kri<nw are favorites of John. The

three "going" verbs, along with e@rxomai, are mostly in the Gospel. @Exw

is found also in the visions of Revelation. The alternation in meaning

in e@xw from the Gospel to Revelation is remarkable.

¹ Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, pp. 203-04;

Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, p. 101.

² Zerwick, Biblical Greek, pp. 93-94.

148

In John e@xw is used most often for possessions which are unseen ex-

ternally, such as eternal life. In Revelation almost all the usages

of this verb are open and visible, such as bodily parts or marks or

objects grasped in the hand.¹

This change in emphasis in e@xw from John to Revelation is typical of the

two books.

The book of John shows the first stages of belief and unbelief. The

world consists of men who are to be convinced that Jesus is the Christ,

and who thereby are to have life. The appeal goes out. Some hear and

understand and accept, and others do not. The words in John are di-

rected to this decision making process.

The book of Revelation, on the other hand, vividly paints the pic-

ture of the outcome of the decision demanded in John. Only occasionally

is the call repeated. The choice of the majority of the world has al-

ready been made. The visible punishments are now to be meted out, as

are the visible rewards. That was in John an inward allegiance becomes

in Revelation an external categorization. The lost have the mark of

the beast; the redeemed have the mark of God. God, who influences the

heart in John, judges the earth in Revelation. The words used in

Revelation point to that emphasis, most of them being interpreted

literally and externally.²

The verb qewre<w is significant in the Gospel, as "seeing" in John some-

times has a higher spiritual significance.³ The Synoptic writers account

for the frequency of a]poste<llw and paradi<dwmi, since each book contributes

one usage in the three parallel passages. John and Matthew divide a]fi<hmi

between them, and John divides ti<qhmi, with Peter and Paul. The Pauline

futuristic present use of the verb e]gei<rw prevails in 1 Corinthians 15,

where there are many similar usages classified in this paper under fac-

tual presents. The word admittedly can be futuristic,⁴ but the cogent

¹ John A. Battle, Jr., "An Exegetical-Statistical Study of the

Most Common Words in John and Revelation" (unpublished S.T.M. thesis,

Faith Theological Seminary, 1971), p. 47.

² Ibid., pp. 102-03.

³ Cf. Ibid., pp. 47-52; Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 356-58.

⁴ Cf., Jn. 7:52, Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek,

p. 204.

149

arguments of Winer concerning 1 Corinthians 15 bear weight. The passage,

he says,

treats of the resurrection of the dead, not as a fact (of the future),

but as a doctrine: in what manner does the resurrection of the dead

(according to thy teaching) take place? cf. vs. 42. In the same

we can say: Christ is the judge; the punishments of the damned are

eternal, etc.¹

In this sense they could be classified as factual presents; but the events

described are basically futuristic and prophetically eschatological;

therefore, it was decided to class most of them as futuristic--especially

since the future resurrection was debated, not the resurrection of Christ,

which was admitted by all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12).

Futuristic Present Aspect

Is the futuristic present aoristic or durative? Or is it either?

Most writers classify it as primarily aoristic. For example, Robertson

says, "This futuristic present is generally punctiliar or aoristic. The

construction certainly had its origin in the punctiliar roots."² Moulton

concurs in finding the origin of the usage in the punctiliar roots,³ and

he sees further evidence to link the futuristic present to the aorist as-

pect: "Compare the close connexion between aorist (not present) subjdnc-

tive and the future, which is indeed in its history mainly a specializing

of the former." However, both Robertson and Moulton go out of their way

to point out that durative roots are used as well. Robertson mentions the

historical development of the future and the futuristic present as taking

¹ Winer, Idiom, p. 266.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 869; also Blass-Thackeray, Grammar, p. 188;

and Chamberlain, Exegetical Grammar, p. 71.

³ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 120. ⁴ Ibid., n. 1.

150

place with durative roots as well,¹ and Moulton admits that

though it is generally asserted that this use of the present tense

for future originates in the words with momentary action, this limi-

tation does not appear in any NT examples, any more than in English.²

And he notes the futuristic use of e@rxomai and gi<nomai, which "have no

lack of durative meaning about them."³ Burton goes a step further and

seems to teach that futuristic presents primarily are progressive, that

is, durative.⁴ Turner mentions the papyri usage in legal wills, the use

of katalei<pw, "I leave," an "aoristic" declaration.⁵ An interesting

discussion can follow on Revelation 14:11, "They do not have rest day

and night." Does this verse teach eternal, durative suffering? The an-

swer is yes, but the reason must not be the present tense of e@xousin;

rather, it is the durative adverbial phrase of the genitive nouns "day

and night," and the wording of the predicate "not have rest." These two

factors prove eternal torment of those who rebel against God.

As with the historical present, it appears that the aspect of the

futuristic present basically is aoristic. The fact itself is in view, not

the process of carrying out the fact. This view does not rule out durative

action; it only defines the standpoint from which the action is viewed.

When one says "Jesus is coming," he views the action aoristically as long

as the action is still in the future. But when the last time events are

in the process of taking place, the same statement could be durative, for

he would then view the second coming as a series of events going on.

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 354. ² Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 120.

³ Ibid. ⁴ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 10.

⁵ Turner, Syntax, p. 63; for other examples from the papyri, see

Robertson, Grammar, p. 869.

151

Futuristic Present Exegesis

The Bible reader naturally asks what stress or importance to place

on futuristic presents. The grammarians are not agreed; they range over

all views. Some take it be be parallel to the historical present (the

“dramatic" variety), seeing added vividness by its use. Thus Robertson

sees in it "the present in a vivid, lively sense projected into the future,"

a “vivid future, as is true of all language," which "startles and arrests

attention," which "affirms and not merely predicts."¹ And Blass adds,

“In confident assertions regarding the future, a vivid, realistic present

may be used for the future (in the vernacular; a counterpart to the his-

torical present."² Likewise Burton concurs: "The Present Indicative may

be used to describe vividly a future event."³ He continues,

It is indeed not to be supposed that Greek writers confused the Present

and the Future tenses, or used them indiscriminately. But that the

form which customarily denoted an act in progress at the time of speak-

ing was sometimes, for the sake of vividness, used with reference to a

fact still in the future, is recognized by all grammarians. The whole

force of the idiom is derived from the unusualness of the tense em-

ployed.⁴

Other grammarians, however, and even the same grammarians in other

instances, see other overtones in the futuristic present. Blass mentions

that the form occurs often in classical Greek in prophecies,⁵ and France

then calls the entire category "prophetic present.”⁶ Smyth notes an ex-

ample, "in time this expedition captures Priam's city."⁷ Even Kiparsky

¹ Robertson, Grammar, pp. 353, 829, 870. ² BDF, p. 168.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 9. ⁴ Ibid., p. 10.

⁵ BDF, p. 168.

⁶France, "The Exegesis of Greek Tenses in the New Testament," p. 7.

⁷ Smyth, A Greek Grammar, p. 277.

152

recognizes this usage in some cases.¹ Closely related to prophecy is the

idea of assurance or certainty. For some the futuristic present gives an

added tone of assurance.² Winer amplifies: "An action still future is to

be designated as good as already present, either because it is already

firmly resolved upon or because it follows according to some unalterable

law."³ Others see the certainty of the event as based upon its foreseen

immediate fulfilment. Smyth says it describes actions which are "immedi-

ate, likely, certain, or threatening";⁴ and Buttmann says it sometimes is

used “in order to portray the more impressively their closely impending

occurrence.”⁵

On the other hand, advocates of the zero tense in the historical

present carry over a similar argument for futuristic presents. The present

is merely a substitute for the future--nothing more, nothing less. Butt-

mann, in spite of his confident assertions quoted above, wrestled with a

large number of apparently "zero" usages:

In this case the Present as the more common and simple verbal form

perfectly takes the place of the Future in all languages, and a mul-

titude of instances can be adduced from the N.T. where not only the

Present alone has the future force, . . . but also where (especially

in John) Presents alternate with Futures without a sensible difference,

or where (in parallel passages) one writer employs the Present, the

other the Future.⁶

This situation seems indicated by the historical development of the future

tense. It appears that for some time the present doubled as the future

¹ Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," pp. 48-50.

² Moule, Idiom Book, p. 7; Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 120.

³ Winer, Idiom, p. 265. ⁴ Smyth, A Greek Grammar, p. 277.

⁵ Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 205.

⁶ Ibid.

153

for many roots. In fact, "in South Italian Greek the futuristic present

is the only means of expressing the future ind."¹ While Kiparsky does

not defend with vigor the zero futuristic use of the present, Reynolds

claims the same principle applies in verses like Matthew 26:2.

This illustrates a rule in New Testament Greek and modern English

that when an action is known to be in the future the present tense

may be substituted for the future tense. The present tense thus

becomes semantically a "zero" tense, taking a future meaning from

the context.²

After analyzing all the futuristic present tenses in the New Tes-

tament, this author believes that by and large the futuristic present is

a simple equivalent for the future tense. It is here a "zero tense."

This appears to be especially so for verbs like e@rxomai and u[pa<gw, and

also for ei]mi<. The historical development of the future of these verbs

seems to have been retarded, giving the present a broader scope. Some

verbs, as e]gei<rw in 1 Corinthians 15, could be kept in the present to

emphasize the argument of the passage--a debate of fact.³ The only ex-

ceptions would be in passages that are clearly prophetic and use other

verbs, especially the visions in Revelation. In these cases the futuris-

tic present is indeed vivid, as John sees the future painted before him.

Therefore, futuristic presents normally should be translated by simple

futures, or where appropriate, by parallel English futuristic presents

(e.g., "I go, am going," etc.). In truly vivid usages, it should be trans-

lated by an English present, in order to preserve the immediacy and

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 869.

² Reynolds, "The Zero Tense in Greek," p. 69.

³ Cf. Abbott, Johannine Grammar, pp. 352, 354, for a similar argu-

ment for passages in John.

154

excitement of the original.

Present for Immediate Future

In a few places the present indicative describes action which is

just about to take place. There may or may not be "warning signs" in the

present, but normally the present situation causes the impending future

event. This category is distinct from futuristic presents, since the ac-

tion is to take place immediately, not at some undetermined later time.

Winer notes that here "the Present is employed to denote what is just about

to take place, what one is on the point of doing, that for which he is

already making preparation."¹ No grammarian consulted named this parti-

cular category. Many of them had an overlapping category, the conative

present, which represents unsuccessful action.² Burton, however, when

defining the category, very nearly defines this one:

The Conative Present is merely a species of the Progressive Present.

A verb which of itself suggests effort, when used in a tense which

implies action in progress, and hence incomplete, naturally suggests

the idea of attempt.³

The difference is this: the conative present must have some action going

on in the present, and the action must be stopped short in the future.

Since this is the case, the verb should be classified as a progressive

present (which Burton does). The problem arises with the examples cited--

for in each case which is not a progressive present, the action is still

future. And since it is future, it is not different in kind from other

¹ Winer, Idiom, p. 265.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 880; BDF, p. 167; Burton, Moods and

Tenses, p. 8.

³ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 8.

155

immediately future action which will be completed successfully. Hence,

the title "present for immediate future" appears better and more accurate.

The conative idea is not to be disregarded entirely, however, and it is

a legitimate use of the imperfect tense.¹ Abbott classes John 10:32;

13:6, 27, as describing "actions of which the beginnings have been de-

scribed."² But the last example he uses, "what thou doest do quickly,

is not conative, and could be classed as immediate future.

An interesting controversy surrounds John 11:47, "What do we do,

because this man does many miracles?" This verse is classed as immediate

future. It is a deliberative question. Blass and Buttmann make it a

special usage, a substitute for the subjunctive, a loosening of classical

standards.³ Winer, on the other hand, had defended a special force for

the indicative here that a subjunctive would have lost. In his "Transla-

tor's Preface" to Buttmann's grammar, Thayer notes the conflict.

While Winer . . . seems loath to recognize incipient departures from

classic usage, Prof. Buttmann, on the other hand, is quick to concede

and to trace out the general tendency of the language to degenerate

from the classic standard Hence it comes to pass that respecting

several details, such as . . . the Indic. Pres. for the Subjunc. in

deliberative questions, his views vary materially from those of his

predecessor.⁴

In rebuttal, Lunemann in his revision of Winer, answers Buttmann, insisting

that the present indicative in John 11:47 (and 1 Cor. 10:22) is stronger

than the subjunctive.

The Ind., however, here strictly denotes that something must undoubtedly

be done (forthwith); so we say, what are we doing? more resolute and

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 880; BDF, p. 169.

² Abbott, Johannine Grammar, p. 353.

³ Cf. Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 209.

⁴ Ibid., p. vi.

156

emphatic than what shall we do? 1 Cor. 10:22--not Subj., but "or

do we provoke God? is that the meaning of our conduct, to awaken

God's wrath?¹

Abbott adds his assent. He compares the indicative in John 11:47 with

the subjunctive in 6:28. The subjunctive, he says, asks "What is to be

our course of action?" The indicative queries, "What are we accomplishing?"

--that is, “We are accomplishing nothing.” Abbott puts it this way, "We

are doing nothing while this man is doing miracle after miracle."² It

appears to this writer that the indicative does add this perspective to

the verb, but it does not refer merely to present (or past) action alone;

it asks for the future as well.

Another question surrounds an example normally quoted as an exem-

plary progressive present, but which this author feels is immediate fu-

ture. Dana and Mantey cite Matthew 8:25, "Lord, save, we perish!" as a

descriptive progressive present.³ It appears rather that the disciples

were still very healthy, but feared imminent death in the storm and waves.

A very important example in the NT is the recurrent oi[ a]pollu<menoi

"the perishing." Just as much as a]poktei<nw and its passive a]poqn^<skw,

a]po<llumai, implies the completion of the process of destruction.

When we speak of a "dying" man, we do not absolutely bar the pos-

sibility of a recovery, but our word implies death as the goal in

sight. Similarly in the cry of the Prodigal, lim&? a]po<llumai, Lk.

15:17, and in that of the disciples in the storm, sw?son, a]pollu<meqa,

Mt. 8:25, we recognise in the perfective verb the sense of an inevi-

table doom, under the visible conditions, even though the subsequent

story tells us it was averted.⁴

For this reason this verb often has been classified in this study as

¹ Winer, Idiom, p. 284.

² Abbott, Johannine Gramar, p. 359, text and n. 1.

³ Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 182.

⁴ Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 114.

157

present for immediate future, rather than as progressive present.

This usage is fairly common in the gospels and occurs occasionally

in a few other books. Here are listed its occurrences: Matthew (6),

Mark (3), Luke (11), John (21), Acts (10), Romans (1), Revelation (4);

total for the New Testament (56).

Translating the present for immediate future requires flexibil-

ity. Robertson suggests using "try" or "begin" followed by an infinitive.

Often it can be translated by itself, with the meaning "about to . . . “

being understood.

Conclusion

The present tense in future time has many parallels with the pres-

ent tense in past time. In both cases the majority of usages derive not

from some purposeful intention of the writer, but from the history of the

development of individual verbal roots. Certain verbs prefer the present

form to the future, especially verbs of going or coming.

Present tense verbs for the future normally are aoristic in as-

pect, the action being viewed as a unit, not as durative. This says no-

thing about the action in fact, only the manner in which it is viewed.

When deciding whether or not a verb is futuristic, one should note

the root--is it a root that prefers the present stem? He should note the

author--John is the biggest user of this form. In these cases the verb

under question may well be futuristic. Other cases are more exceptional.

Finally, the force of futuristic verbs usually is equivalent to

simple futures, especially with e@rxomai and u[pa<gw. The futuristic

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 880.

158

present of ei]mi< can likewise be a "zero" usage, unless spoken by Christ

in a Messianic context, where the specialized meaning of the term dis-

cussed earlier would come into play. The only extended passages with

truly vivid futuristic presents appear to be the visions of Revelation.

V. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN RELATIVE TIME

In many cases the present tense occurs in a context which places

the verb in a past or future time setting, yet with the verb being under-

stood in that setting as being in present time. Normally it is in a

subordinate clause; often it describes the content of one's speech,

thought, or perception.

Relative Present

Often a present tense in a subordinate clause describes nonpresent

action.

In subordinate clauses, the action expressed by the present may be

(a) contemporaneous, (b) antecedent, or (c) subsequent to that set

forth by the main verb. The context alone decides in which sense

the present is to be taken.¹

These subordinate, relative clauses normally are introduced by a relative

pronoun (as o!j, o!stij, oi$oj, o!soj) or by another relative word (as o!te,

w[j, o!pou, w!sper, etc.).² Often these clauses are indefinite, and therefore

can be conditional. These cases will be discussed under conditional

presents.³ Sometimes these relative clauses are introduced by adverbs

of time (as e!wj, e!wj ou$, a@xri, me<xri, pri<n, etc. ).⁴ The combination

of o!tan and the indicative occurs seldom, usually in "the two least

¹ Smyth-Messing, Greek Grammar, p. 425.

² Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 117-18.

³ See Ibid., pp. 119-24, for an excellent discussion of conditional

relative clauses.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 126-29.

159
160

correct of the N.T. writers," Mark and John.¹

Sometimes the relative present describes prophecy (cf. Mt. 2:4,

genna?tai), sometimes a timelessly valid truth (Rom. 9:18, qe<lei), and

sometimes a hypothetical or parabolic truth (Mt. 13:44, e@xei). The usage's

occurrences will be enumerated at the end of the next section.

Indirect Present

English grammar places indirect discourse and similar constructions

in the same tense as the main clause. Thus in English one says, "He said

that he felt sick," but in Greek, "He said that he feels sick." Greek

retains the tense of the original statement, even when the quotation is

indirect, with a change of person in the subject.² The construction o!ti,

plus the indicative can be understood as a noun clause.³ In this usage

Greek differs from Latin and English, in that it employs the indicative.⁴

And sometimes Greek employs a mixed construction, the direct object followed

by the o!ti-clause.⁵ However, this usage is not universal in the New Tes-

tament; several passages change the discourse tense.⁶

¹ Simcox, The Language of the New Testament, p. 10; he cites Mk. 3:11;

11:19, 25; Rv. 4:9; 8:1; one can disagree with this label, since a@n appar-

ently was used by the best writers with the indicative: Lk. 13:28; 1 Th. 3:8.

² J. Harold Greenlee, "The Importance of Syntax for the Proper Under-

standing of the Sacred Text of the New Testament" (hereinafter referred to

as "Syntax"), The Evangelical Quarterly, XLIV:3 (July-September, 1972),

144-45; he notes Jn. 4:1; 6:22.

³ Ibid., p. 144; he notes the similar i!na with the subj. in Mt.

14:36 and with the impv. in Mk. 6:25.

⁴ Moule, Idiom Book, p. 153.

⁵ M.k. 1:24: Jn. 9:29; 2 Th. 2:4; ibid., p. 154.

⁶ Jn. 1:50: cf. 9:30, 32, 35; Acts 19:32; Robertson, Grammar, pp.

1029-30.

161

In indirect discourse from past time classical can use either the

present or the past depending on whether the temporal point of view

of the original sneaker or that of the reporter is adopted. In the

NT the latter (oratio obliqua) is not popular and the former, which

conforms to direct speech (oratio recta), prevails.¹

An imperfect in indirect discourse therefore normally is rendered as a

pluperfect.²

This category is entitled "indirect present" because a form simi-

lar to that of indirect discourse often appears with verbs of seeing,

hearing, thinking, believing, or knowing, in which the original tense

is preserved.³ For example, Joseph heard that "Archelaus reigns" (Mt.

21:45). Since these occurrences are grammatically identical to indirect

discourse, they are included with them in the overall category of indi-

rect presents.

The following table delineates the occurrences of the present for

relative time.

TABLE 21

PRESENT FOR RELATIVE TINE

book rel. Pres. ind. pres. total

Matthew 10 10 20

Mark 7 15 22

Luke 15 9 24

John 14 27 41

Acts 1 18 19

Romans 10 - 10

1 Corinthians 9 - 9

¹ BDF, p. 168.

² Ibid.; for a thorough discussion of indirect discourse, see Bur-

ton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 130-42.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1029; BDF, p. 168.

162

TABLE 21--Continued

book rel. pres. ind. pres. total

2 Corinthians 1 - 1

Galatians - 1 1

2 Thessalonians - 1 1

Hebrews 2 2 4

James 1 - 1

1 John 3 1 4

Revelation 4 2 6

--------------------------------------------------------------

total NT 77 86 163

As would be expected, the highest numbers of indirect presents occur in

books with much narrative and dialogue, especially John. The relative

presents are more spread out, noticeable especially in Romans and 1 Corin-

thians.

The aspect in this category varies from example to example. Since

relative time is actually present time viewed from afar, the durative

aspect of the progressive present appears to prevail. In translation,

presents of relative time are normally rendered by appropriate English

tenses, whether past, general present, or future. The durative nature

of non-iterative roots can be emphasized in exegesis.

VI. THE PRESENT INDICATIVE IN CONDITIONAL SENTENCES

This chapter shall consider present indicative verbs which are

the main verb in the protasis of a conditional sentence, or a similar

construction. These sentences are often complex grammatically. Normally

they are divided into types or classes, depending on the grammatical

form, including particles and verbal tense and mood, and upon sense.¹

Thus the form of a conditional sentence is largely determined by two

main factors--time (past, present, future) or Aktionsart (instantane-

ous, protracted, recurrent, etc.) and the degree of reality (impos-

sible, improbable, possible, probable, actual). . . . The protasis

is the only half in which the mood is variable. In the apodosis it

is always Indic. (or its equivalent).²

This discussion shall analyze conditional presents in two classes: those

in the protasis; and those in the apodosis, though catalogued elsewhere.

Present of the Protasis

The protasis is the "if" part of the sentence. Conditional sen-

tences with a present indicative in the protasis are all classed by gram-

marians as "first class" conditional sentences. But here the agreement

stops. Terminology which describes these classes varies from one authority

to another. "The lack of any generally accepted terminology makes easy

reference difficult. The classical grammars are also hopelessly at vari-

ance."³ Older grammars called these constructions "simple" conditional

¹ For thorough discussions, see Moule, Idiom Book, pp. 148-51:

Robertson, Grammar, pp. 1004-23; BDF, pp. 188-216: Burton, Moods and

Tenses, pp. 101-11; Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek

Verb, pp. 145-73.

² Moule, Idiom Book, p. 150. ³ BDF, p. 189.

163
164

sentences. "When the protasis simply states a present or past particular

supposition, implying nothing as to the fulfilment of the condition, it

takes the indicative with ei].”¹ Recently, LaSor has retained this ter-

minology.² Blass likes the term for classical Greek, but believes that

by New Testament times the meaning had developed to the point where he

prefers determined as fulfilled" for the koine term.³ This is the term

of Robertson.⁴ Sometimes the sentence is mixed, with a protasis of one

class and an apodosis of another. Burton lists examples of various types

of these sentences.⁵ In order better to define and exegete these protasis

constructions, it will be necessary to examine them in detail.

Frequency of the Present in the Protasis

Most conditional constructions begin with the particle "if,"

as Matthew 4:3, "If (ei]) you are the Son of God." Sometimes, however,

another conditional construction is used, as an indefinite relative

pronoun, for example, Matthew 5:39, "whoever (o!stij) strikes you." The

occurrences of each of these types of protases are listed below. "Non-

ei] protasis" also includes cases in which a compound form with ei] is

used. All these usages would be considered "first class" conditional

clauses, since they are ei] plus the present indicative.

¹ Goodwin, A Greek Grammar, p. 267; cf. Burton, Moods and Tenses,

p. 101.

² LaSor, Handbook of New Testament Greek, II, 221-23.

³ BDF, pp. 188-89.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1004.

⁵ Burton, Moods and Tenses, pp. 109-10.

165

TABLE 22

PROTASIS PRESENT FREQUENCY

book ei] prot. non ei] prot. total prot./100 verb forms

Matthew 27 9 36 0.91

Mark 9 5 14 0.54

Luke 18 5 23 0.52

John 13 2 15 0.42

Acts 9 - 9 0.23

Romans 16 5 21 1.81

1 Corinthians 38 7 45 3.49

2 Corinthians 14 4 18 2.37

Galatians 10 4 14 3.44

Philippians 3 - 3 1.18

Colossians 2 - 2 0.85

1 Thessalonians 2 - 2 0.82

2 Thessalonians 2 - 2 1.64

1 Timothy 8 - 8 2.68

2 Timothy 2 - 2 0.89

Titus 1 - 1 0.89

Philemon 2 - 2 4.55

Hebrews 4 3 7 0.76

James 11 1 12 3.46

1 Peter 7 - 7 2.55

2 Peter 1 1 2 1.03

1 John 2 4 6 1.38

2 John 2 - 2 4.17

Revelation 5 1 6 0.39

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

total NT 208 51 259 0.93

It is evident that these conditional sentences are the favorites of Paul

in his Soteriological Epistles, of Peter, and of James. The high per-

centages in Philemon and 2 John are due to the shortness of these letters.

1 John also shows a high frequency, but it will show an even higher fre-

quency in the apodosis category.

Significance of the Simple Protasis

The most important question for the exegesis of these conditional

sentences is this: What credence does the form of the protasis (normally

plus the present indicative) lend to the truth of the proposition?

166

Some writers take it to be "true to fact." For example, A. Glenn Campbell,

Professor of Greek at the Montana Institute of the Bible, insists that

the Greek construction of Matthew 4:3 should be translated, "Since you are

the Son of God," that the Devil here admits the deity of Christ.¹ J. Har-

old Greenlee criticizes Kenneth Wuest's similar handling of the passage in

his Expanded Translation.² Wuest carries this idea into other passages

as well, translating ei] as "since." James Boyer also criticizes this

simplistic approach:

The problem is a careless misapplication of the grammatical point.

A condition determined as fulfilled has nothing whatever to do with

the truth or reality of the supposition, only with the way the author

is looking at it. For the sake of argument he assumes it as fact

and draws a conclusion from it. . . To translate this simple con-

dition of ei with the indicative by "in view of the fact" or "since"

is a very serious mistranslation.³

In order to test the force of ei] and the indicative, at least for

the present tense, this author examined each protasis in the New Testa-

ment to see if Wuest's theory holds up, and to see just what the construc-

tion implies. The data of this investigation is noted in Appendix D. It

was discovered that the "truthfulness" of the protasis to fact varied con-

siderably, according to these percentages: true to fact (33%), contrary to

fact (81%), either possible (36%), impossible to determine (22 ½%). In

other words, over half the occurrences are either true or false, only a

third are definitely true, and many are contrary to fact. That last cate-

gory is of special interest; so its examples are here listed:

¹ Campbell, "From the Greek Testament," Voice, an Independent Church

Journal, March-April, 1974, p. 10.

² Greenlee, "'If in the New Testament," p. 39; Robertson says the

Devil assumes it as true for the sake of argument, Grammar, p. 1009.

³ Boyer, "Semantics in Biblical Interpretation," p. 33.

167

Mt. 12:26, "if Satan casts out Satan"

Mt. 12:27, "if I cast out demons by Beelzeboul"

Lk. 11:19, “if I cast out demons by Beelzeboul”

Lk. 22:42, "if you will"

Jn. 8:39, "if you are children of Abraham"

Jn. 10:37, "if I do not the works of my Father"

Acts 5:39, "if it is of God" (see discussion below)

Acts 19:38, "if Demetrius and craftsmen have a matter"

Acts 25:11, "if I am guilty"

Rom. 4:15, "where (if?) there is no law"

Rom. 8:13, "if you live according to the flesh"

1 Cor. 9:17, "if I do it voluntarily"

1 Cor. 15:13, "if there is not a resurrection"

1 Cor. 15:15, "if the dead rise not"

1 Cor. 15:16, "if the dead rise not"

1 Cor. 15:19, "if in this life only we have hope"

1 Cor. 15:29, "if the dead rise not"

1 Cor. 15:32, "if the dead rise not"

Gal. 2:18, "if I build again the things I destroyed"

Gal. 5:11, "if I yet preach circumcision"

2 Tim. 2:13, "if ye are unfaithful"

Heb. 11:15, "if they are (were) mindful"

Heb. 12:8, "if you are without chastisement"

Ja. 2:11, "if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder"

Ja. 3:2, "if someone does not stumble in word" (?)

In order to see the absurdity of claiming a "true to fact"

168

interpretation for this construction, all one needs to do is insert the

word "since" instead of "if, and read these passages from the Bible.

Thus David R. Lithgow is right when he says that "the protasis introduced

with ei, can have any degree of certainty from absolutely sure to im-

probable or hypothetical."¹ Greenlee correctly observes that ei] with the

indicative "does not imply either that the speaker believes that the

condition stated is true or that he believes it is not true. . . . The

'if' clause itself implies nothing concerning the speaker's assumption."²

he provides examples of the condition where the speaker may: (a) believe

it, John 15:20a, (b) disbelieve it, John 15:20b, (c) be uncertain, John

20:15, or (d) be mistaken, John 11:12.³

Since this variety of usage is so clear, why do many still teach

that the condition is true to fact? One reason is simple: in many cases

it is true to fact, and in many more it could be true to fact. But another

cause is the unfortunate terminology used. It already has been mentioned

that Goodwin, Burton and others call these protases, “simple” conditions.

However, others have used the term "determined as fulfilled."⁴ Robertson

goes out of his way to explain what he means. He emphasizes that "the,

point in 'determined' is that the premise or condition is assumed to be

true (or untrue)."⁵ The certainty is related to the statement, not to

the fact itself:

¹ Lithgow, "New Testament Usage of the Function Words Gar and Ei,

Notes on Translation, 47 (March, 1973), 19.

² Greenlee, "'If' in the New Testament,'' p. 40. ³ Ibid.

⁴ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1007; BDF, p. 189.

⁵ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1004.

169

The point about all the four classes to note is that the form of the

condition has to do only with the statement, not with the absolute

truth or certainty of the matter. . . . We must distinguish always

therefore between the fact and the statement of the fact. The con-

ditional sentence deals only with the statement.¹

Thus the context must decide on the actual truth or falsity of the pre-

mise: "This condition, therefore, taken at its face value, assumes the

condition to be true. The context or other light must determine the ac-

tual situation."² And he purposefully selects Matthew 12:27 as his first

example, to emphasize his point: "This is a good example to begin with,

since the assumption is untrue to fact, though assumed to be true by

Jesus for the sake of argument."³

But it is not enough to see what the construction does not say;

rather, its real force needs to be determined. That force appears to be

this: with the present indicative expresses a premise in the realm of

fact or reality. Either it is true or it is not.

Ei] with the indicative simply means, "If it is a fact that . . . ,"

or "If it is not a fact that . . . ," while e]a<n with the subjunctive

means, "If at some time or other it should be true that . . . ," or,

"If at some time or other it should not be true that . . . ." These

two types of conditional clauses have nothing to do with the degree

of certainty of the condition assumed.⁴

The ei] conditions and the e]a<n conditions both can express either true

or false premises.⁵ Robertson seems a little wide of the mark when he

says that in John 13:17 (ei] tau?ta oi@date, maka<rioi< e]ste e]a>n poih?te au]ta<)

"we have the first and third class conditions happily combined with

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1006. ² Ibid., p. 1008.

³ Ibid.; cf. Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 101.

⁴ Greenlee, "Syntax," D. 145.

⁵ Greenlee notes Jn. 15:20: Gal. 1:18; 1 Jn. 2:23; 3:2, ibid.,

pp. 145-46.

170

clear distinction. [So far so good.] Jesus assumes the knowledge as a

fact, but the performance is doubtful."¹ It would be better to say,

"Jesus regards their present knowledge as either existing or not--that

matter is settled. But He regards their performance as possible or pro-

bable in the future." Robertson is difficult to read. He has already

stated that first class conditions need not be true. But sometimes he

gives the opposite impression. For example, he also criticizes Goodwin

for saying that it “implies nothing as to the fulfilment of the condi-

tion.”² This obscurity, plus the title "determined as fulfilled," has

created some confusion among subsequent Greek students.

The clearest exposition of conditional present exegesis which

this author has found is an unsigned article entitled "Greek Conditional

Sentences."³ First and third class conditional sentences are defined as

follows:

When ei with the indicative is used, it implies that the truth or

otherwise of the condition is regarded as in principle "determined,"

i.e. is represented as a fact (although the speaker does not commit

himself as to whether he believes the condition is true or not).

When ean with the subjunctive is used, it implies that the truth

or otherwise of the condition is regarded as in principle "undeter-

mined," i.e. is represented as uncertain, either because the condition

is conceived as a future occurrence, which may or may not ever take

place, or because the condition is a general one which may be realised

at any time.⁴

Thus ei] with the indicative is translated as, "If (it is a fact that)

. . . ," while e]a<n with the subjunctive is translated as, "If (at any

time it happen that) . . . ."⁵ These distinctions are in the viewpoint

¹ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1019. ² Ibid., p. 1006.

³ The Bible Translator, XIII:4 (October, 1962), 223-24.

⁴ Ibid., p. 223. ⁵ Ibid.

171

of the speaker, not necessarily in the events themselves, since the same

thing can be thought of both ways (Mt. 5:46, cf. Lk. 6:32: and Mk. 3:24,

cf. v. 26). However, the rule is recognized as not foolproof.¹ But it

does explain the data better than any other theory examined. Hence, the

title "simple condition" seems best for ei] plus the indicative.

Before leaving this section, it would be good to notice one more

passage. In Acts 5:38-39 Gamaliel warns the Sanhedrin to shun hasty ac-

tion against the new sect of Christians. He reasons, "If it is of men

(e]a<n plus subj.), it shall cease; but if it is of God (ei], plus ind.), you

shall not be able to stop them." Some have thought that the Greek shows

Gamaliel as actually believing in Christ. A critical writer taking that

view has argued on that basis that the speech was "Christianized" in

Acts.² Even Robertson tries to get Gamaliel on the side of the Christians,

to some extent at least:

Gamaliel gives the benefit of the doubt to Christianity. He assumes

that Christianity is of God and puts the alternative that it is of

men in the third class. This does not, of course, show that Gamaliel

was a Christian or an inquirer. He was merely willing to score a

point against the Sadducees.³

It seems better, rather, to view Gamaliel's speech from the standpoint of

aspect. Whether the new sect and its miraculous power were from God, is

a settled fact which nothing can change. If, on the other hand, it is of

men, then future events will show it to be so--an alternative Gamaliel

could have considered probable, even though he used a with the indica-

tive.

¹ “Greek Conditional Sentences," p. 224.

² Radermacher quoted in Zerwick, Biblical Greek, pp. 104-05.

³ Robertson, Grammar, p. 1018.

172

Other Uses with ei]

Occasionally the form of a sentence is the same as a conditional

sentence, but the meaning is not. There are two specialized uses of this

sort.

Concessive Present

When the protasis states a condition in spite of which the apodo-

sis will occur, the clause is concessive. Thus the unjust judge says,

"Though (Ei]) I fear not God nor regard man, I will avenge her" (Lk. 18:4).

It would be wrong to translate ei] by "if," since it would reduce the sen-

tence to absurdity.

Most writers mention the addition of kai< to the ei] in these

clauses. Burton suggests that ei] kai< ("even though") represents an ad-

mitted fact, while kai> ei] ("even if") represents an improbable supposi-

tion.¹ However, it is good to heed LaSor's warning: "The distinction

between kai> ei], and ei] kai> does not always obtain. The primary importance

of context must not be disregarded!"² The aspect of concessive clauses

follows the same lines as that of normal conditional clauses.³

The New Testament examples of concessive present indicatives are

here listed: Lk. 18:4, fobou*mai, e]ntre<pomai; 18:7, makroqumei?; Rom. 7:16,

poiw?; 1 Cor. 9:2a, ei]mi; 2 Cor. 4:16, diafqei<retai; 12:11, ei]mi; Heb.

6:9, lalou?men; 1 Pet. 1:6, [e]sti>n].

¹ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 113; also Robertson, Grammar,

p. 1026.

² LaSor, Handbook of New Testament Greek, II, 226.

³ Greenlee, "'If' in the New Testament," p. 43.

173

Substantive Present

Occasionally ei] introduces a clause much as o!ti, would, only the

clause is an indirect statement or question. Sometimes the question is

direct, but then o!ti often introduces a direct quotation.¹ The whole

clause of ei] plus the present indicative verb can be understood as a

noun clause, hence the name "substantive present."

The number of New Testament examples is as follows: Matthew (3),

Mark (2), Luke (5), John (1), Acts (9), 2 Corinthians (2), 1 John (1);

total for the New Testament (23). As can be seen, Luke uses this form

more than twice as often as the other writers combined. The aspect of

each verb should be determined by its root. Impersonal verbs like

e]stin normally are aoristic, as are futuristic verbs like a]pokaqisa<neij

(Acts 21:37; 1:6). Most of the others are durative.

Present of the Apodosis

Although all examples of the present indicative in the apodoses

of conditional sentences have been catalogued under their appropriate

categories, it is profitable to consider them together in this chapter.

The present indicative finds its way into the conditional sentence often

through the apodosis, the "then" clause: "If he really ate fourteen ham-

burgers, he has problems."

In these sentences the protasis may be one of any number of forms.

It may be an indicative verb with a noun, or a relative or an indefinite

pronoun, perhaps even referring to future time:

If the fact stated in the apodosis is already true at the time of

speaking, or if the issue involved has already been determined,

¹ Greenlee, "'If' in the New Testament," p. 43.

174

though not necessarily known, the Present indicative is frequently

used after a protasis referring to future time. The thought would

be expressed . . . as it will appear that or it will still be true

that.¹

In that case, the sentence is a first class condition. There are no

examples of second class conditions with the present indicative, since

that class requires a secondary tense in both members. The present indi-

cative often supplies the apodosis in third class conditional sentences,

with e]a<n and the subjunctive in the protasis.² It is also found as the

apodosis in fourth class sentences, with ei] and the optative in the pro-

tasis. However, there are no complete New Testament examples, only par-

tial ones (1 Cor. 14:10; 15:37; 1 Pet. 3:14, 17).³ In addition to the

four "normal" classes of protases and to relative clauses, conditional

participles often function as a protasis.⁴ A familiar example is John

3:36, “The one believing (o[ pisteu<wn) on the Son has eternal life,” which

means, "if one believes, then he has eternal life," as evidenced by the

contrasting unbeliever mentioned next in the verse. The classical Greek

scholar Gildersleeve gives an example from Herodotus, and mentions that

the conditional participle was a comparatively late development in Greek.

LaSor concludes from his inductive New Testament study that several forms

are possible in the protasis of a conditional sentence, including along

with ei]-clauses "a participle (often in genitive absolute), an adverb,

a prepositional phrase, a relative clause, or some other single word or

¹ Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 108; cf. BDF, p. 192.

² Burton, Moods and Tenses, p. 107. ³ Ibid.

⁴ BDF, pp. 215-16; and Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 227.

⁵Gildersleeve, Problems in Greek Syntax, pp. 12-13.

175

phrase."¹ One must be careful, however, not to overdo it. Some sentences

are similar in form, but are simple factual statements, with no condi-

tional element intended. For example, while John 3:36 apparently stresses

the conditional aspect and makes a plea for belief, a similarly worded

passage, 1 Corinthians 9:13, "the ones working at (oi[ e]rgazo<menoi) the

temple eat of the temple," is classed as a simple customary present. In

the latter passage there is no condition, no appeal, rather a simple

substantive use of the participle. These distinctions sometimes are nice,

and judgments may vary from person to person. However, the overall pat-

tern should remain about the same in the total.

Frequency of the Present in the Apodosis

Since so many more types of conditional sentences have the pres-

ent indicative in the apodosis than have it in the protasis, the number

is higher than the protasis count. However, there are a few losses,

since some first class sentences have another form in the apodosis. The

frequency of apodosis presents for each book in which they occur is tabu-

lated below. All of these examples are catalogued in Appendix A under

their normal categories, but they can be seen there by the "A" written

after the code number.

TABLE 23

APODOSIS PRESENT FREQUENCY

book apod. pres. apod. pres./100 verb forms

Matthew 59 1.49

Mark 21 0.80

Luke 63 1.44

¹ LaSor, Handbook of New Testament Greek, II, 220-21.

176

TABLE 23--Continued

book apod. pres. apod. pres./100 verb forms

John 75 2.12

Acts 8 0.21

Romans 26 2.24

1 Corinthians 63 4.89

2 Corinthians 10 1.32

Galatians 10 2.46

Ephesians 3 0.92

Philippians 4 1.57

1 Thessalonians 2 1.64

1 Timothy 3 1.00

2 Timothy 2 0.89

Hebrews 5 0.55

James 12 3.46

1 Peter 1 0.36

2 Peter 2 1.03

1 John 58 13.30

2 John 3 6.25

3 John 1 1.96

Revelation 9 0.59

------------------------------------------------------------------

total NT 440 1.59

Obviously, the writer most addicted to this usage is John. And

his First Epistle is by far the outstanding example. His Gospel also

surpasses the other three in its use of conditional sentences with the

present indicative. One may wonder at the low score for Revelation. The

score drops even more when chapters 2-3 are removed, for they contain over

half of the examples. This low percentage fits with Revelation's style

and thrust. The book in its vocabulary and syntax is nearly totally be-

reft of logical statements or appeals to reason (unlike his Gospel and

Epistle). It paints the picture of the result of one's previous choice,

considered as already made.¹ As with the protasis present, James rates

high, as does Paul in his Soteriological Epistles (not 2 Cor.). These

¹ Battle, "An Exegetical-Statistical Study of the post Common

words in John and Revelation," pp. 37, 72-73, 93-94, 99-100, 102-03.

177

two writers' argumentative style lends itself to frequent use of condi-

tional sentences.

Significance of the Present Apodosis

In order to ascertain the meaning and force of the apodosis, one

must first examine the make-up of the protasis, and compare it with the

context. In only two places does the New Testament contain "logically

inconsequent" conditional clauses: Galatians 5:15 and James 3:14, "In

both instances the Imperative clause remains valid whether or not the

condition in the protasis is fulfilled. Logically, the Imperative clauses

should be Future Indicative clauses--if you go on like this, you will

. . . ."¹ Otherwise, the protasis-apodosis relation is logical.

If the condition is first class, a present indicative in the apo-

dosis indicates a present situation which is either true or untrue. In

either case, these conditions are matters of present reality, matters of

fact. If the condition is third class (or fourth), or if the protasis

is a participle or a relative clause, the present indicative in the apo-

dosis assumes another force. Many times a maxim, a universal truth, is

of this form.² Sometimes it takes the form of legal legislation (Mt.

5:32; 19:9; Mk. 7:12; 10:11-12; Lk. 16:18; Rom. 14:23; 1 Cor. 7:4, 36;

Heb. 10:28). When the condition is hypothetical or futuristic (as the

third class often is), the present indicative apodosis is often a futur-

istic present (John 14:3). When a third class condition describes a pres-

ent possibility, the present indicative apodosis is whatever aspect that

¹ Moule, Idiom Book, p. 152.

² Robertson, Grammar, p. 1019; cf. Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods

and Tenses of the Greek Verb, p. 170.

178

verb would normally have: progressive, customary, or whatever (1 John

1:6-10). Similarly, a participial protasis, or an indefinite relative

clause protasis, can speak of past, present, or future time (1 John 2:9,

10, and 17, respectively). The net result is a factual statement, which

is applied in the specified cases.

One particular question in 1 John deserves notice here. 1 John

3:6 states, “Everyone abiding in him does not sin”; also verse 9, "Every-

one begotten of God does not do sin"; and 5:18, "Everyone begotten of God

does not sin." In order to get around the difficulty, most commentators

and grammarians rely on the present indicative form of the apodosis. Wuest

quotes 3:9 and says, "That simply is not true," and solves the difficulty

by translating it "does not habitually sin."¹ Most writers note the aorist

subjunctive in 2:1, "if anyone does sin." J. R. Mantey thus compares the

aorist and present usages:

The aorist tense in 1 John 2:1 is inadequately translated in prac-

tically all English translations. The tense basically was used to

state a single act or thought, the opposite of the present tense, which

pictures action in progress, as in 1 John 3:8-9, "continue sinning."

The aorist in 1 John 2:1 = "do not sin at all . . . commit a sin."²

Nigel Turner takes a different tack. He sees the aorist of 2:1 as incep-

tive and the present of 3:9 as durative:

The apostle affirms that a Christian believer can never be a

sinner. He will start to be one, will take the first (aoristic) step

by committing this or that sin, but he stops short of the condition

of being "a sinner."³

¹ Wuest, The Practical Use of the Greek New Testament (Chicago:

moody Press, 1946), p. 45.

² Mantey, "Notes from the Greek," Notes on Translation, 42 (Decem-

ber, 1971), 23.

³ Turner, Insights, p. 151.

179

The results of the study of this paper lead this author to a different

emphasis. John obviously favors the present tense in this book, especial-

ly in apodoses. This is the character and thrust of the book. All issues

are before his eyes at once. He sees truth at the poles. The book is

"marked by contrasts, antitheses, opposites; . . . it is a picture in

high contrast: a line drawing, rather than half-tone."¹ John uses present

tense verbs for both punctiliar and durative action (cf. lamba<nomen and

throu?men in 3:22). The point is the aspect John views the action, not

the type of the action itself. John views the Christian as one who does

not sin, as opposed to the unbeliever, who does sin. John does not dis-

tinguish durative from punctiliar sins. The present tense here is factual,

not progressive; it describes John's vivid perspective toward sin, not the

nature of the sin itself. In practice, all Christians do sin--isolated

sins, habitual sins, and even continuous, durative sins. "In actual ex-

perience, of course, we find ourselves in 'dirty grays."² John's point

is that sin itself is inimical to the Christian. God keeps him and works

within him (3:9; cf. 5:18, where o[ gennhqei<j is Christ³). A correct

view of aspect will keep one from casuistry on one hand and from naiveté

on the other.

Conclusion

Conditional present indicatives are key words in exegesis. The

danger lurks, however, to make them say too much. A present indicative

¹ James L. Boyer. "Johannine Epistles" (class syllabus, Grace Theo

logical Seminary, 1973), p. 2.

² Ibid.

³ Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. 719; Stagg, "The Abused Aorist,"

pp. 226-27.

180

in the protasis tells the exegete only one thing: the condition is deal-

ing in factual data. Either it is true or it is not true. The best term

is "simple conditional sentence," and the best translation is, "if (it is

a fact that) . . ," or, for concessive clauses, "though (it is/be a

fact that) . . . “

A present indicative in the apodosis should be interpreted as it

would be in any other context, normally as factual, as customary, or as

progressive. The root and the context must provide the key. In John's

writings especially, where this usage is most common, it must be remembered

that verbal aspect describes the author's viewpoint, not necessarily the

nature of the action itself. Apodoses with e@rxomai or u[pa<gw often are

futuristic, especially with a third class protasis.

PART III. CONCLUSION

The Problem of the Present Indicative

Grammarians always like to have things fit together. For this

reason they are perplexed by the present tense. Gildersleeve raises his

voice with perhaps a note of resignation:

To the Greek the present was an indefinite tense. In familiar lan-

guage it answered for present, it answered for past, it answered for

future. It is universal: "The sun rises in the East and sets in the

West." It is particular: "The sun sets behind a cloud." And this

suffices.¹

Moulton also has said that "the present tense is not primarily a tense,

in the usual acceptation of the term."²

Previous research has seen four main phases. The first phase

viewed all tenses as time centered. Thus Winer writes, "The Present Tense

. . . expresses present time in all its relations."³ The second phase

realized that time was secondary for the present tense, even in the in-

dicative.⁴ Instead, this stage saw the present tense as defining the

Aktionsart, the kind of action.⁵ Even Stagg, who denies a particular

Aktionsart for the aorist, claims there is one for the present.⁶ Most of

¹ Gildersleeve, Problems in Greek Syntax, p. 244.

²Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 120.

³ Winer, Idiom, p. 265.

⁴ E.g., Robertson, Grammar, pp. 881-82; Nida, Toward a Science of

Translating, pp. 198-99.

⁵ Robertson, Grammar, p. 825; Goodwin-Gulick, Greek Grammar,

166; Smyth, A Greek Grammar, pp. 275-76; and many others.

⁶ Stagg, "The Abused Aorist," p. 231.

181
182

these writers claim the type of action described to be durative action.

Goodwin goes even so far in his chart to deny that the present tense can

represent "action simply taking place" in present time, leaving the space

blank!¹ However, other writers recognize the present tense's use for

both punctiliar and linear action.² The third phase saw the rise of

"aspect" as an alternative to Aktonsart. K. L. McKay even has called for

renaming the present tense the "imperfective aspect" in all moods but the

indicative, but he still resides in phase two, regarding the indicative

present as describing only durative action.³ An excellent definition of

verbal aspect is that of Maximilian Zerwick:

The use of the "tenses" is determined not so much by the objective

reality as by the speaker's needs: he will use the aorist for an

action which objectively lasted a long time or was repeated, if what

he wishes to express is simply the fact that the action took place;

or the present for an action which is of its nature momentary, if what

he wishes to express is the nature or kind of action as distinct from

its concrete realization.⁴

The fourth phase is the zero-tense phase, introduced by Kiparsky. He

himself recognizes a non-zero use of the present as well: "The [early

Indo-European] present tense, besides serving as a zero tense, also has

the positive function of denoting present time, and analogously in the

case of the indicative mood."⁵ G. Mussies defines the present indicative

as "a timeless or omnitemporai indicative."⁶ Each of these four phases

¹ Goodwin-Gulick, Greek Grammar, D. 267.

² Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 181.

³McKay, "Syntax in Exegesis," pp. 45, 49.

⁴Zerwick, Biblical Greek, p. 78.

⁵ Kiparsky, "Tense and Mood," pp. 35-36.

⁶ Mussies, Apocalypse, pp. 250-55.

183

has left its mark on the study. Yet none accounts for all the data.