I'm finally getting back to discussing Merkle's "Exegetical Gems": I will post four more submissions about the book before concluding my discussion of his work. This post deals with chapter 16, which covers aorist imperatives.
Merkle begins by referencing the famed article by Frank Stagg on "The Abused Aorist" (published in JBL 1972). Stagg's goal was to refute suggestions that the aorist verbal form is inherently or necessarily punctiliar (Merkle 71). Rather, any punctiliarity associated with the aorist comes from "the lexical meaning of the verb and the context."
See Easley. https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2012/07/aorist-verbs-vis-vis-present-tense.html
Merkle illustrates this point by invoking Ephesians 4:20: ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν
The verb there (ἐμάθετε) is aorist indicative 2nd person plural and it's negated by οὐχ ("you did not learn"). HCSB: "But that is not how you learned about the Messiah"
With this verse in mind, Merkle asks the following questions:
"In using the aorist form, is Paul indicating that this verb should be viewed as a onetime action or a single event such as conversion? Or can the verb communicate a summary statement that would allow an undetermined period of time?"
Before answering these questions, Merkle supplies an overview of Greek aorist indicatives. This verbal tense-form is the most frequently used in the New Testament: the aorist portrays action as a whole without respect "to its progress or duration." It is the default tense for narratives, and this tense-form occurs with a past reference 80% of the time. To find out more about various uses of the aorist (e.g., ingressive, constative, etc.), see https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-greek-aorist-and-its-diverse-uses.html
Getting back to the chapter's focus, Merkle addresses whether ἐμάθετε in his estimation is punctiliar or could allow for an extended period of time. He begins by reviewing and assessing the stance of Ernest Best, who argues that the aorist verb in Ephesians 4:20 is punctiliar: he thinks it refers to the time when the Ephesians became Christians. However, as we read the next verse, two other verbs come into play: ἠκούσατε and ἐδιδάχθητε. Both of these verbs are aorist ("heard" and "were taught"), so how should we construe them? Moreover, what impact do they have on Ephesians 4:20?
Best applies ἠκούσατε to "the time of conversion" and ἐδιδάχθητε to "a past period of teaching" since he reckons the verb does not appropriately fit with the depiction of ongoing action. This commentator concludes: “The two verbs of hearing and being taught may refer to the same event of becoming a Christian looked at from distinct angles." The bottom line is that Best believes the aorist verbs in Ephesians 4:20-21 depict punctiliar rather than ongoing action.
On the other hand, Harold Hoehner insists that ἐμάθετε is inceptive, portraying the action at its initial stage. This would mean that the verb in this context points to "the time of conversion. Gentiles and Jews who had previously opposed God, heard Christ preached and received him. This then is the beginning point of their ‘learning Christ’" (Merkle quoting Hoehner).
While Hoehner doesn't agree in toto with Best, Merkle appears to be less than satisfied with either explanation. He invokes Wallace, Thielman, and Lincoln to make a case for construing ἐμάθετε as a constative aorist. He quotes Wallace, who writes that a constative aorist "describes the action in summary fashion, without focusing on the beginning or end of the action specifically."
Therefore, Merkle concludes that the aorist in Ephesians 4:20 delineates action as a whole: it is not punctiliar or depicting a one-time action. Another scholar invoked is William J. Larkin. To quote Merkle, "Thus Larkin is certainly correct in writing, 'A point in time event like conversion reads too much into the aorist tense."
The next chapter in his book is about perfect and pluperfect indicatives.
4 comments:
I appreciate the breakdown on this subject, as it woke me up to the potential pitfalls of focusing too unduly on the moment of conversion and subsequent dedication a Christian makes as if it were an end in itself. I'm still slowly working through Vincent's Word Studies. He views the aorist in the archaic sense of "one and done".
Would I be right in surmising that viewing the aorist as punctiliar, " once and for all time" kind of situation would lend itself to the "once saved always saved" line of reasoning?
These are "Gems" no doubt, thanks for sharing.
You're welcome, Terence, and I would say be cautious of reading "tense discussions" published before Stagg's 1972 article since many abused the aorist prior to that time and that includes Vincent, a source that I enjoy reading and can still be used if one is aware of its limitations.
And I think you're right that viewing the aorist as punctiliar in se could lead one to reason that once saved always saved is true. I believe that Merkle explains that any punctiliarity of the aorist comes from the verb tense + context. Other works give fine examples to illustrate this point.
"Since the aorist tense simply denotes occurrence without reference to initiation, progress, completion, or any such thing, it is usually translated from the indicative mood into English by a past tense" (Greek Enchiridion, W.G. MacDonald, page 9).
Great, thanks!
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