At 08:56 AM 6/22/98 -0700, wrote: >If you were to translate this sentence as, say, "Jesus started to >cry", or "Jesus started crying", then its sense would lock up into the >inception only of the event. The aorist, inceptive or not, denotes >the whole of the event, and thus makes the inceptive translation >tricky. This is the way inceptive aorists are generally translated. Consider the following examples, taken from Wallace (or look at ATR, Smyth, Zerwick, Winbery, or any other reputable grammar): Matt 9:27 *HKOLOUQHSAN* AUTWi DUW TUFLOI two blind men *began to follow* him Matt 22:7 hO BASILEUS *WRGISQH* now the king *became angry* John 4:52 KOMYOTERON *ESXEN* he got better 2 Cor 8:9 DI hUMAS *EPTWXEUSEN* HLOUSIOS WN, hINA hUMEIS TH EKEINOU PTWXEIAi *PLOUTHSHTE* Although he was rich, for your sake he became poor, in order that you, by his poverty, might become rich Rev 20:4 *EZHSAN* KAI EBASILEUSAN META TOU CRISTOU CILIA ETH *they came to life* and ruled with Christ for a thousand years As I understand it, the inceptive aorist treats the entry *into* the state as the event, which is seen "from the outside", "as a whole", or whatever your favorite description of aorist is. In particular, the endpoint is not in view - it does not portray the time that the blind men stopped following him, that the king stopped being angry, that the man was no longer better, that Jesus stopped being poor or we stopped being rich, or that the saints were no longer alive. In fact, many of these events will never stop. >This is why I like the indefinite "weeps", which brings the >historical fact that he wept into a mentally present event, by means >of bridging the gap between "Jesus wept" and "Jesus is weeping." But this is precisely the point - the aorist does not have imperfective aspect, it does not portray it as a mentally present event. That's what the imperfect or the present do. Both the traditional grammars and the modern grammars generally agree on this. >One additional note, that makes this so very enigmatic: Contrary to >your comment above, Jusus already knows Lazarus is dead, and has >already seen everyone weeping. He weeps only when they say to him >"Come and see." That would be an argument against the inceptive aorist, in which case "Jesus wept" may be the best translation. I'm sitting on the fence on this one. Jonathan Texcel Research --- b-greek home page: To post a message to the list, To subscribe, To unsubscribe,[]