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I've read that one of the difficulties of translating New Testament Greek is the presence of the aorist tense of verbs in Greek. I think I understand what is meant by "aorist tense" in that it seems to mean there's no indication of the action in question happening in the past, present or future. Am I understanding the meaning of aorist tense correctly?

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closed as off-topic by Daи Mar 31 at 20:46



VTC as this is a general reference question. –  Daи Sep 5 '13 at 22:08
Actually, this question is actually off topic according to our About page. –  Daи Sep 6 '13 at 22:13
Tried to delete the question but I cannot. –  Onorio Catenacci Sep 7 '13 at 13:25
By the way @Dan just because there's something on Wikipedia doesn't make this totally off-topic. Reread my question: part of my question is regarding how the aorist verb impacts translation. –  Onorio Catenacci Sep 7 '13 at 17:16
True Onorio, but if you look at our About page you'll see that we don't allow questions about the Greek language. But in regards to general reference, I followed the chart in the meta post I linked to. –  Daи Sep 7 '13 at 21:03

3 Answers 3

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Wikipedia has a nice summary of the aorist and more details can be found om the the article on the ancient Greek aorist in particular.

This is from the first link.




There is disagreement as to which functions of the Greek aorist are inherent within it. Many authors hold that the aorist tends to be about the past because it is perfective, and perfectives tend to describe completed actions;[11] others that it is essentially a mixture of past tense and perfective aspect.[12] [edit] Hermeneutic implications


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Thanks for that--should have occurred to me to check wikipedia. :-) –  Onorio Catenacci Feb 10 '12 at 15:14
@Onorio: This is accurate. Is there anything that this doesn't answer for you? If so, can you clarify what that would be? –  Mallioch Feb 15 '12 at 5:27
Sorry--forgot to accept the answer. All done now. –  Onorio Catenacci Feb 15 '12 at 13:18

To the grammarian it may seem like beating a dead horse to protest that the aorist does not necessarily reflect the nature of the action or event it covers. But the horse is not dead; he is very much alive and cavorting rather freely in exegetical and theological pastures. The fallacy of "theology in the aorist tense" stubbornly persists, even in the writings of distinguished scholars.

Thus begins the article by Frank Stagg, "The Abused Aorist", Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972): 222-231. (It is also available online by permission at BiblicalStudies.org.uk.) This article should be required reading in seminaries everywhere.

Among other things, Stagg provides a catalogue of several pages discussing "abuses" observed in works of major commentators. Here's one example, from p. 224:

A. N. Wilder falls into the aoristic trap in his interpretation of 1 John 2:1, "But if any one does sin (i.e., commits an act of sin [aorist tense]; contrast habitual sin in the present tense, 3: 6, 9 and 5: 18....)"12 John may imply a distinction between a single act of sin and habitual sin, but the aorist tense does not require this. It permits it.
12 A. N. Wilder, "The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John," The Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon, 1957) 12, 227.

With these and many other such cases, Stagg demonstrates the "abuses" that a misunderstanding of the aorist can produce. He also has a discussion of the broader range of uses of the aorist, and surveys the main NT Greek grammars on the subject. He concludes (p. 231):

It does not follow that the aorist tense is without exegetical significance (compare, e.g., aor. subj. and pres. impv.). ... [T]he aorist may or may not be punctiliar, and the presence of the aorist does not in itself give any hint as to the nature of the action behind it.

So, to answer the question in brief: yes, the OP is essentially correct his understanding of the aorist in Koine Greek. And perhaps that means things have improved since Stagg wrote his article in 1972!

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Well, I think the aorist has a specific meaning according to the circumstance and that a semelfactive perfective interpretation gives itself in many instances. The Latin perfectum is more or less the same as the aorist in the past, and for many verbs it is based on former aorist forms, especially the s-aorist. What is not continued in Latin is the true old perfectum, even though the Latin perfectum forms are partly based on this too.

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