What basis is there for deciding between “he just kept standing there knocking again” - ἐπέμενεν as a full verb and “he went on knocking” - ἐπέμενεν as a sort of modal?
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What follows is not an answer.
Acts 12:16 ὁ δὲ Πέτρος ἐπέμενεν κρούων· ἀνοίξαντες δὲ εἶδαν αὐτὸν καὶ ἐξέστησαν.
Acts 12:16 (NRSV) Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed.
John 8:7 ὡς δὲ ἐπέμενον ἐρωτῶντες αὐτόν, ἀνέκυψεν καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· ὁ ἀναμάρτητος ὑμῶν πρῶτος ἐπ᾿ αὐτὴν βαλέτω λίθον.
John 8:7 (NRSV) When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Here ὡς makes somewhat more explicit the temporal relationship to what follows.
Concerning Acts 12:16 Parsons & Culy say:
When used in the sense of “to continue,” ἐπιμένω takes a complementary participle.
As Stirling pointed out, κρούων is a supplementary participle, and a participle cannot be a main verb. No, it does not by itself imply continual knocking. By itself, the present participle simply means that the action is taking place at the same time as the main verb. A supplementary participle, however, fills out the action of the main verb, in this case ἐπέμενεν.
② to continue in an activity or state, continue, persist (in), persevere w. dat., transf. sense of 1 (X., Oec. 14, 7 τῷ μὴ ἀδικεῖν, Hell. 3, 4, 6; Aelian, VH 10, 15; SIG 1243, 26 ἐ. τῇ αὐθαδίᾳ; POxy 237 VI, 18 τῇ αὐτῇ ἀπονοίᾳ; PTebt 424, 4; Jos., Vi. 143; TestLevi 4:1 τ. ἀδικίαις; cp. Just., A II, 68, 2 τῇ ἀδικίᾳ; JosAs 23:12 τῇ βουλῇ) τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ in sin Ro 6:1. τῇ πίστει Col 1:23. τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ Ro 11:23. ταῖς ἡδοναῖς Hs 8, 8, 5; 8, 9, 4. ταῖς πράξεσι Hs 9, 20, 4; τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ 9, 26, 2. αὐτοῖς (w. ref. to ταῦτα, τούτοις 1 Ti 4:15; cp. Jos., Ant. 8, 190) 1 Ti 4:16. ἐ. τῇ χρηστότητι continue in the sphere of (God’s) goodness Ro 11:22. τῇ πορνείᾳ Hm 4, 1, 5; cp. 6. ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ Hv 3, 6, 2. W. ptc. foll. keep on, persist (stubbornly) in doing someth. (Pla., Meno 93d; Menand., Her. 35 J. and Kö. ἐπιμένει τὸ χρέος ἀπεργαζόμενος; Cornutus 17 p. 31, 11; POxy 237 VI, 18 [186 A.D.] ἐπιμένει ἐνυβρίζων μοι; 128, 7 ἐ. λέγων) ἐ. κρούων Ac 12:16. ἐπέμενον ἐρωτῶντες αὐτόν they persisted in questioning him J 8:7; cp. 2 Cl 10:5. ἐ. ἕως τέλους λειτουργοῦντες Hs 9, 27, 3. But ἐπιμένοντος πάλιν αὐτοῦ καὶ λέγοντος when he insisted again and said MPol 10:1. Without ptc. in the same mng. 8:2. Likew. abs. persist Hs 6, 5, 7. ἐπιμενόντων τῶν ζητούντων αὐτόν when those who were looking for him did not give up (the search) MPol 6:1
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., pp. 375–376). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mindy,
I understand this to be a separate question about verb aspect in Matthew 7:7.
κρούετε Verb second plural present active imperative
I have read sermons and commentaries on this text which claim exactly what you’re suggesting. It didn’t take me more than one search just now to locate an example. I would avoid making a claim like this in public because I think there are sufficient grounds for questioning this assertion. I think that line of reasoning is a reflection of the kind of New Testament Greek exegesis that was taught half a century ago.
I’m not going provide an explicit refutation because verb aspect is just too convoluted a topic to take up in this forum. It has been discussed on b-greek for 20+ years. Several years ago there was a conference at Tyndale House Cambridge devoted to the discussion of the greek verb.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2990
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Mindy,
Okay let me frame the question then: does the present imperative form of the verb carry an explicit meaning of repeated continual action? “Continue to knock” ?
My answer to that question is, I don’t know.
In previous generations seminary students were encouraged to demonstrate exegetical implications of the surface features of Greek and Hebrew grammar. I can’t begin to speculate on how many times the aorist tense has been appropriated for use in Bible studies and sermons. We learn to edit what were reading or hearing, when the pastor starts talking about Greek syntax we switch the channel, tune out.
Mindy,
We have several misunderstandings taking place hear. My heading This is not an answer was an introduction to my response which followed.
It was not a response to your post. It took me a while to figure out how it could be understood as a response to your post. Apologize for sounding rude and blunt. The comment wasn’t directed at your post.
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I didn’t understand it either. εκηβόλος “- ἐπέμενεν as a sort of modal?”
A.T. Robertson uses that language, I’m familiar with it but I don’t really get it. David Crystal says it has to do with contrasts in mood.
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Auxiliary verb - having lost the idea of physically remaining in a place (literal) or mentally exercising one’s will and determination (metaphorical), it becomes a part of the grammar of the language, describing the way an action is carried out.
This particular word is a candidate for reëvaluation because of the way that “continue” is vague and therefore ambiguous in English. Saying that that somebody “continued eating the fried liver despite it being so spicy” has two meanings.
● First, it could mean that the exercised a determination to carry on, or
● Second it could mean that an observer (narator) noticed that they were still eating.
Both of the translations that CSB quoted, viz. “continued”, and “kept on” are ambiguous in the English, and un-Greeked readers could understand it either way. The explanation given in BDAG (quoted) above favours the sense of ἐπέμενεν as being a description of the mental state (will and determination) of the knocker. That implies that “continue” in those English translations is the “continue”, which describes the heart - “persist with”, rather than simply describing the repeated movement of the hand on the door.
I am saying that in addition to any clarification about what “continue” means, in other words that I think that in both those New Testament examples, there is room for allowing the meaning “continue” in the sense of “hung about”, “didn’t (physically) leave”. In both stories, the person or persons described changed their physical location soon after too - to express it in the negative, it is the difference between “he/they didn’t leave off” and “he/they didn’t leave”.
I understood this statement to mean, “What I’m about to say doesn’t really answer your question, but it might add to the discussion”.
That is interesting in that it is the inverted negative of the pencil (rather than pen) strength rule I would follow when composing, if I were to attempt to use a verb from that family.
- The μένω family of verbs belong to a class of verbs that can not be used as an adverbial (I hate that description) participle, except in genitive absolute or nominative absolute phrases.
Based on evidence to date, I would think that ἐπιμένων ἔκρουσεν* “he remained there and and spent the time knocking”* would not be permissible in the language. A passage like Plutarch, Nicias 26.3 οἱ δὲ καὶ τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην καὶ τὴν νύκτα τὴν ἑτέραν ἐπιμείναντες | ἐπορεύοντο κλαυθμῷ καὶ ὀλοφυρμῷ, is, I think, divided into two phrases, and would be recognised as being a division, because of the rule I just mentioned. Another example of this type of division is Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivales 3.2.3 χιὼν δὲ πολλάκις ἡμέρας συχνὰς ἐπιμένουσα τοῖς ἄλλοις φυτοῖς | φεύγει τάχιστα τὸν κιττόν:
Apparently this interpretation is still quite popular. I found several samples of exegetical work published in the last five years claiming the present imperative in Matt. 7:7 implies some combination of continuance and/or iteration. On the other hand, David L Mathewson of Denver Seminary says:
… to suggest that the present tense form itself means “continuous action”
fails to distinguish aspect and Aktionsart, or the meaning of the tense
form with information that might be found in the broader context.
The present tense itself does not indicate continuous action,
but only that the author chooses to view the action
internally, from the perspective of being in progress, irrespective of the
nature of the action to which it refers.
The Abused Present > by David L Mathewson, Denver Seminary
Bulletin for Biblical Research 23.3 (2013) 343–363
https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/bbr23c03.pdf
NOTE: I realize this is a completely different question than the one raised by ἑκηβόλος.
Interesting. As if Luke had meant: Ὁ δὲ Πέτρος ἐκεῖ ἐπέμενε καὶ ἔκρουε.
Interesting. As if Jesus had meant: ἐπιμένετε κρούοντες καὶ ἡ θύρα ἀνοιγήσεται ὑμῖν.
Interesting. Can you expand on this a bit? What is the pencil strength rule?
Would ἐπιμένων ἔκρουεν be any better?
μένε. ἑκηβόλος γὰρ ἐρεῖ σοι.
μένων ἄκουσον. ἑκηβόλος γὰρ ἐρεῖ σοι.
Ha ha. Mentioning the Μᾶρκος character is an ingenious invitation for me to compose a dialogue. Role play is a great way to step aside from some of the inhibiting constraints of adult sensibility.
A pencil strength rule is one that is not set in stone yet, not written with indelible ink, etc. i.e. the exact form of it is likely be changed slightly in the future to take into account the other patterns into which it is embedded.
The most simple solution (Ockham’s razor) for ἐπιμένειν seems to be stay for some time. In many instances the verb is accompanied by the length of time spelt out in the accusative. The reply I recently gave you in the weather thread about διάστημα in the accusative + length of length of time in the genitive served to point out that the accusative expressing the length of time can have the preposition ἐπὶ added. Following that line of reasoning, ἐπιμένειν means “stay for some length of time”, i.e. a verb with the accusative (stated or implied as in Peter’s story). On the other hand, the virtues, etc. that one persists in are in the genitive or dative, so perhaps, that is a different sense of ἐπὶ being called into play. An end of that reasonings is to ask the question whether ἐπέμενεν κρούων question ought be paraphrased by ἐπέμενεν τῇ κρούσει (continue in a pursuit). I don’t accept the simplest solution is necessarily the most correct one, but it is one of a number if possible solutions that can be conjectured. A third and less simple reading of it is that ἐπιμένειν means “spend time waiting for the arrival (of action) of somebody (in the accusative)”, which in this case would be the girl who was so close to opening the door, possibly implying that he waited so long that he started knocking again, rather than just went on knocking throughout.
I wouldn’t like to speculate. My point is that they are in different phrases. I tend to agree with our friend Michael’s summation (characterisation actually) in the Accentuation books thread in reply to Illogical that there are those …
There are those who look for simple relationships and plainly stated rules about the relationship between (adverbial) participles and the main verb. The most commonly agreed on preconception seems to be that it is significant whether the participle is aorist or present.
One point that I’m making here is that although the participles in those Plutarch quotes are a participle in the same sentence as the main verb, they are not related, because they are in different phrases. Worse than those who look for simplistic rules are those who use simplistic rules together with unspoken or unrealised preconceptions to generate “data” from computer rountines as evidence of patterning. One needs to at least differentiate whether there is a relationship (and if what sort) between two elements before doing some sort of search.
Analysing like that is analogous to exploring or analysing the relationship between each “pair” of people sitting next to each other in a bus. Those getting off at the same stop are more likely to have a relationship worth analysing. Again to make it clearer, as I mentioned quite simply to the forlorn and red-named David, there is a difference between degrees of closeness of sentence elements as there is between say the H₂O and Na₂SO₄ in solution. There is a physical bond between the water and the sodium sulphate, because the water can be removed by the physical process of heating, but there is a chemical bond between sodium and the sulfate. Additionally, besides the structure of the equation, both the monenclature and the Lewis dot diagramme suggest that the sodium atoms are peripheral.
Despite the fact that the ἐπιμένειν means “remain upon”, in describing the relationship between the snow melting on different types of plants is clearly part of the same mixture (solution) - sentence, as Plutarch says χιὼν δὲ πολλάκις ἡμέρας συχνὰς ἐπιμένουσα τοῖς ἄλλοις φυτοῖς | φεύγει τάχιστα τὸν κιττόν: as they arechance or unrelated actions. This is what I called a nominative “absolute”, independent of the other element - the subject is still the snow, but it is different snow. The relationship between the parts if the same clause are closer.
Does that help clarify things?
Yes, I think it should.
Ὁ δὲ Κηφᾶς, μένων ἐν ἐπιμονῇ, ἐπέμενε τῷ ἐπιμένειν. ἡ δὲ θύρα ἔμενε κλειστή. πάλιν οὖν ἔκρουε. ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ὠσὶν αὐτοῦ ἔμεινεν ὁ λόγου τοῦ Ἰησοῦ: «κρούοντός σου, ἀνοιγήσεταί σοι.»
ἐπιμένωμεν παίζοντες ἵνα ἡ μάθησις πλεονάσῃ. τῆς γὰρ μαθήσεως ὁ παῖς ὁ πάτηρ ἐστίν.
Yes, inceptive imperfect. The inchoative aspect, with the time reference of the participle borrowed from the main verb.
In the course of your mantra or trance-like composition (repetative sounds, religious awareness and presumably subconcious stream of thought) you’ve lighted upon the form. cf. Krasden’s assertion that the LAD continues to function given the right conditions.