Three Nuances of the Perfect Indicative in the Greek New Testament
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
This book analyzes the existence of the three nuances of the perfect tense occurring in the Greek New Testament: resultative-stative, anterior (current relevance), and simple past. The ancient Greek perfect expresses a resultative-stative nuance, with intransitivity dominant. Some of these archaic perfects survived up to the Koine period and appear in the Greek New Testament. In Classical Greek, the perfect went through a transition from resultative to anterior (current relevance) with increasing transitivity. In the Koine period, the Greek perfect shows another semantic change from the anterior to simple past. In the end, the perfect merged with the aorist, ending up in decay. It disappeared until the modern Greek development of a perfect forming using the auxiliary ἔχω.
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- Analyzes the existence of the three nuances of the perfect tense.
- Resolves the mystery of the perfect tense’s usage in the New Testament.
- Helps students and scholars alike.
Even advanced Greek scholars sometimes struggle to explain a New Testament author’s choice of the perfect tense. Building on the very good insights of Rutger Allan, Hanbyul Kang demonstrates that three distinct nuances of the perfect tense occur in the New Testament. Kang’s careful analysis goes a long way toward resolving the mystery of the perfect tense’s usage in the New Testament. I have cited Kang’s study in my own writing and will continue to point others to his detailed and insightful work.
—Robert L. Plummer, Collin and Evelyn Aikman Professor of Biblical Studies, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Hanbyul Kang’s work on the Greek perfect is helpful to student and scholar alike. Surveying recent and past views of the perfect in Greek, Kang critiques and analyzes each view. Then he offers his own understanding of the Greek perfect in three general categories: Resultative-Stative (a present state implied from the past), Anterior/Current Relevance (a current relevance resulting from past events), and Perfect as Simple Past (preterite). Kang’s work is clear and compelling.
—Russell Fuller, President, Theological Classroom
- Title: Three Nuances of the Perfect Indicative in the Greek New Testament
- Author: Hanbyul Kang
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Pages: 210
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- ISBNs: 9781666715293, 1666715298
- Resource ID: LLS:THRNNCSNWTSTMNT
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-22T16:51:16Z