David Capes
Let’s think about the tenses, the present tense, the imperfect tense, the aorist tense, pluperfect, those kinds of things. They typically were understood to have a certain amount of leverage, and yet you would have then a historic present, let’s say, in Mark’s gospel. So what has aspect done to correct that or is it correcting that? What is it doing with those kinds of things?
Constantine Campbell
It’s a really good question, because what happens when you first start learning Greek in a very basic way. You might learn that the aorist is a past tense. For simplicity, you might be taught that. But then the first Greek I was reading as a student was Mark’s gospel, and it takes you all of 11 verses to get to a point where, wait, there’s an aorist that’s not referring to the past. Jesus is baptized, and the voice from heaven (God) says, this is my son with whom I was pleased. It’s an aorist.
David Capes
That’s a great example.
Constantine Campbell
“I was pleased.” Let’s suffice to say, no one translates that aorist that way. Every translation in English, I am pleased to say, they translate it like it’s a present in English. Even though it’s an aorist which is supposed to be a past tense. And actually, if you study the New Testament more fully, you see that about 30% of present indicatives don’t actually refer to the present. A lot of them refer to the past, and some even refer to the future. If you look at the aorist, which is supposed to be the default past tense, most of them do refer to the past, but about 15% of aorists in the New Testament, are aorist indicatives. They don’t refer to the past. And in my view, and I’ve argued this in my scholarly work, the only Greek tense form in ancient Greek and the New Testament that consistently refers to the time frame that it’s supposed to, is the future. Only the future refers to the future. 100% of the time, all the other tense forms actually have mixed temporal references. But don’t mishear me, because they each one does have a default temporal reference. The present, 70% of the time, does refer to the present and the aorist 85% of the time does refer to the past. What verbal aspect does is says this temporal way of thinking of the verb actually is not the most powerful way to explain how the verbs are being used. That’s really what I want to say, is that in linguistics, what we want to develop is a model of explaining the usage that we see that has the most power of explanation. And so that traditional view where the tenses refer to a set time frame has limited power of explanation. And people say, Oh, well, that’s just an exception. Yes, it is. It’s an exception to that rule, but it’s one that occurs 30% of the time.
David Capes
That’s a lot of exceptions.
Constantine Campbell
How good is the rule when there are so many exceptions. I’ll give you another example which is even more extreme, the perfect indicative. You would have learned that this communicates a past action with present consequences. That’s the tense. There are 858 perfect indicatives in the New Testament. I went through every single one. I argue 60% of perfects do not express a past action with present consequences. So basically, you’re left with a rule that only works 40% of the time.
David Capes
Well, we need a new rule. That’s what we need.
Constantine Campbell
We need a new rule that explains the usage more accurately.
David Capes
And that’s part of what modern linguistics is helping us do. Sometimes, when you read older commentaries, they don’t deal with verbal aspect. They deal primarily with these other categories that may be a little bit tired and worn out and don’t explain things quite as well as we would have hoped. Do you remember seeing any of those as you’ve been reading and working in Paul and other parts? I remember seeing one years ago in R.C.H. Linski’s commentary, and older Lutheran commentary. He pounded the pulpit on those points that past action was continuing result. But in fact, sometimes you’ve just got to choose.
Constantine Campbell
Yeah, I could point to lots of older commentaries for this. But I’ve heard preachers do similar things. One example that I raise in the introduction of my book is in Romans 5:6 where it says, while we’re still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly and died is apethanen. It’s an aorist indicative. And so the commentators and preachers I’ve heard, preached this because it’s an aorist, it means that Christ died once and for all for sins. Which means the Roman mass is wrong. You can’t recrucify Jesus. And so, they make a really strong theological point based on the fact that an aorist is used, and an aorist, they argue, is punctilious, so it’s a one off, instantaneous event never to be repeated. It’s a funny thing, because I would say that conclusion is correct. Theologically. I don’t want to argue with that. But yes, Jesus did die once for all, and 1 Peter 3:18 says that. Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous. But it actually uses the words once for all.
David Capes
in that case, yes. That’s right.
Constantine Campbell
In that case, Whereas in Romans 5:6 they’re making the point purely based on the aorist, and I would say it’s an incorrect understanding of what the aorist is communicating. And so ,it’s making the right point with the wrong evidence from the text. If that makes sense.
David Capes
Yes, you can make the same point better in other places. But I think sometimes our theological agendas do creep in there. I mean, as we interpret these.
Constantine Campbell
No question! No question.
David Capes
All right. What about your next project, are you going to continue to write about verbal aspect? Do research in verbal aspect?
Constantine Campbell
No, having the second edition come out is a little bit of a throwback for me, because I haven’t worked in verbal aspect for a little while. I’ve been focusing more on the apostle Paul, and so I’ve had a couple of large monographs on Paul come out. I’ve just started working on my third one, and in a few weeks, I’ve got a textbook on Paul coming out. I’ve been all about Paul for a while, but I think when my third monograph is done, I’m going to give Paul a rest and move on to something else.
David Capes
Go to Matthew for a while, which is what I’ve done these days. It’s been good. There are all kinds of fascinating things in there. Dr Constantine Campbell, thank you for being with stay on The Stone Chapel Podcast. Appreciate it so much.
Constantine Campbell
It’s my pleasure. David. Really great to talk with you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
