Aorists
and Non-punctiliar Situations
If the scholars cited were consistent in their misuse of
the aorist, some rather interesting exegetical conclusions would be forced on
them at points in the NT. For example, in Mark 1:11 it is stated that Jesus at
his baptism heard the heavenly voice saying, εν σοι ευδοκησα. If the
aorist be "once-for-all," then the meaning would be "I was once
[or once-for-all] pleased with you"! If the aorist indicative must be a
preterit, then God's pleasure would refer to the past, but the context obviously
relates it to the present. God's pleasure in Jesus is neither momentary and a
single action nor limited to the past. His pleasure is not punctiliar. All that
may be said of the aorist here is that it refrains from describing.
A clear case of the aorist indicative for repeated action
may be seen in 2 Cor 11:24-25: "by the Jews five times I received (ελαβον)
thirty-nine stripes; three, times I was beaten with rods ερραβδισθην), ..
three times I was shipwrecked εναυναγησα)." It would be nonsense to
see point action here. These actions were not singular, momentary, or
once-for-all. Not less nonsensical is it elsewhere to build biblical
interpretation or theology upon the fallacy that an aorist must imply a single
or once-for-all occurrence.
A clear example of the employment of the aorist for a
non-punctiliar situation appears in John 2:20: Τεσσαρακοντα και ετεσιν
οικοδομηθη. The temple had been under construction for forty-six years,
there had been interruptions and resumptions of work, and the temple was not
yet completed. The aorist indicative does not here designate a single action in
the past. Neither is this an exceptional usage. This is a normal aoristic
usage, a simple allusion to an action without description, i.e., aoristic or
undefined.
Equally instructive is the aorist imperative in Luke 19:
13, Παργματευσσθε εν ω ερχομαι. The slaves are to carryon business until
or while the master comes. The action contemplated is not momentary, single,
once-for-all, or even viewed as completed. The aorist imperative tells nothing
of the nature of the action. It may treat it as a "point," but this
is simply to say that the aorist refrains from describing. The aorist belongs
to semantics and not to the semantic situation. (Frank Stagg, "The Abused
Aorist," Journal of
Biblical Literature 91,
no. 2
[June 1972]:228)
It does not follow that the aorist tense is without
exegetical significance (compare, e.g., aor. subj. and pres. impv.). The aorist
is well suited to action which in itself is punctiliar whereas some other
tenses, e.g., the imperfect, are not. But the aorist is also suited to actions
which are in themselves linear, unless one wants to stress its linear nature.
It follows, then, that the action covered by the aorist mayor 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. Contextual factors are primary for any
attempt to go behind the aorist to the nature of the action itself. (Ibid.,
231)
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