Notes on the Aorist Participle (Luke 10:18)

Edited on 8/10/18.

Ernest De Witt Burton writes regarding aorist participles on page 67 of his syntax (section 146):

"The Aorist Participle used as an integral part of the object of a verb of perception represents the action which it denotes as a simple event without defining its time. The action may be one which is directly perceived and hence coincident in time with that of the principal verb, or it may be one which is ascertained or learned, and hence antecedent to the action of the principal verb. In the latter case it takes the place of a clause of indirect discourse having its verb in the Aorist Indicative.

Acts 9:12; καὶ εἶδεν ἄνδρα . . . Ἁνανίαν ὀνόματι εἰσελθόντα καὶ ἐπιθέντα αὐτῷ χεῖρας, and he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay hands upon him. See also Luke 10:18; Acts 10:3; 11:3; 26:13; 2 Pet. 1:18.

Luke 4:23; ὅσα ἠκούσαμεν γενόμενα, whatever things we have heard to have been done."

The foregoing is what Burton says verbatim.

Looking at the NWT 1984 rendering, "I began to behold Satan already fallen like lightning from heaven," it seems that NWT construes Ἐθεώρουν (1st person singular imperfect indicative active) ingressively: this strategy is fine since K.L. McKay writes in A Syntax of the Verb in NT Greek (pages 29-30):

"The imperfective aspect presents an activity as going on, in process, without reference to its completion. This may consist of a single activity in process at the time of reference, or a series of repetitions of an action, whether consecutively by one agent or distributively by a number of agents, regarded as parts of a wider whole activity. According to its context an activity in process may imply a notion of attempting, continuing, setting about, beginning or the like, and a variety of English translations may be needed to represent one Greek form."

See Mt 5:2.

As for the "already fallen" rendering of πεσόντα, it appears that the NWT simply construes the aorist participle as denoting antecedent action (i.e., Jesus began to see an event that had already occurred [began to occur] before he started to perceive it) by using the English past participle "fallen" coupled with the adverbial "already."

I must admit that after reading Stanley Porter's works and consulting Buist Fanning, my understanding of aorist participles has shifted somewhat. If you care to read Porter's dense monograph on aspect, see Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the NT, With Reference to Tense and Mood (New York: Peter Lang, 1989). Frankly I think he provides one of the most "scientific" accounts of aorist participles. Having said the foregoing, I believe the NWT rendering is not problematic from a translational standpoint.

As an update to this old post, I must point out that Porter has been thoroughly criticized by Chrys Caragounis. The latter scholar argues (somewhat convincingly) that Porter has misrepresented how Greeks understand tense and aspect.