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Course 5 · Lesson 3.3

Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline

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Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 3.3

What you will learn

  • Describe the main tense forms of Greek verbs and the debate about whether they mark time or aspect.
  • Explain the three voices, active, middle and passive, and the four moods.
  • Recognize participles and infinitives and say what they do.
  • Avoid common overreadings of the aorist, the present and the perfect.

The big idea

Greek verbs carry a great deal of information in their endings: person, number, tense, voice and mood. The tense forms, present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect and pluperfect, are best understood as showing how an action is viewed as well as when it happens. The voice shows the relation of the subject to the action, and the mood shows the speaker’s attitude. Scholars debate how best to describe these categories. A beginner can learn the outline but should be cautious in drawing conclusions.

Key terms

Tense
In Greek, a verb form that expresses time, aspect or both. Scholars debate the balance.
Aspect
The way an action is viewed: as a whole event, as a process in progress, or as a state resulting from earlier action.
Aorist
A verb form that views an action as a whole, without regard to its length. In the indicative it normally refers to the past.
Voice
The relation of the subject to the action: active (the subject acts), middle (the subject acts on or for itself) or passive (the subject receives the action).
Mood
The speaker’s stance toward the action: indicative (a statement), subjunctive (a possibility), optative (a wish) or imperative (a command).
Participle
A verbal adjective. It describes someone who performs or receives an action, such as the one believing.
Augment
An added vowel at the start of some past tense forms, in the indicative mood.

Background

Greek verbs are often the hardest part of the language for beginners. A single verb can have hundreds of forms, and each ending carries several kinds of information at once. For the reader of English translations the matter is less severe. The translator has already decided how to render each form, and a footnote may mention a close call. The student’s task is to learn what the categories mean so as to see where decisions were made.

The main account of Greek verbs has changed over the last century. Older grammars treated the tenses mainly as time. More recent work, since the later twentieth century, treats them mainly as aspect, with time a secondary matter outside the indicative mood. Scholars still argue about the details, and different grammars use different labels.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The tense forms

The present describes an action in progress or repeated, and often a general truth, as in God loves. The imperfect describes a past action in progress or repeated, he was teaching. The future describes an action to come. The aorist views the action as a single whole, without saying whether it was long or short. The perfect describes an action completed with a continuing result, and the pluperfect describes the same in the past.

The aorist is the usual narrative tense, so the verb he said or he came is often aorist. Outside the indicative, forms of the present and the aorist are distinguished mainly by aspect, not by time. The imperative, the subjunctive and the participle all show this.

Step 2: Voice

In the active voice the subject performs the action: he washes. In the passive the subject receives it: he is washed. The middle voice is the one English lacks. It shows that the subject acts in some way for itself or on itself, as in he washes himself, or he takes for himself. Some verbs have middle or passive forms and an active sense. Grammars have long called them deponent verbs, but many recent grammars question the label and describe the forms as middle voice with a distinct sense.

A passive may leave the agent unstated, as in he was raised. Some call this the divine passive when the unnamed agent is God. Whether that is the right way to read a given verse is itself a question of interpretation.

Step 3: Mood

The indicative states a fact or asks a question. The imperative gives a command. The subjunctive expresses a possibility, a purpose or a hope, and is often found in clauses beginning with hina, in order that. The optative, which is rare in the New Testament, expresses a wish, as in the expression may it never be, used by Paul in Romans.

A famous old rule said that the imperative in the present tense with a negative meant stop doing something already begun, while the aorist with a negative meant do not start. Many grammarians now consider this too simple, because the distinction depends on aspect and on context. A beginner should treat such rules with caution.

Step 4: Participles and infinitives

A participle acts like an adjective and a verb together. It can describe a noun, as in the believing man, or stand on its own, as in the one who believes. With a noun of the same case it can state a circumstance, such as going, he said, or because he went. The relation to the main verb, whether time, cause, means or condition, is not stated, so the translator must decide. This is a frequent source of difference between translations.

An infinitive names an action and works like a noun, as in to love or loving. It often follows another verb, as in he wished to go. The Greek of the New Testament uses infinitives in many ways, including purpose and result.

Step 5: Cautions

Three overreadings are common. The first is to say that the aorist means once for all. It means that the action is viewed as a whole, which says nothing about whether it happened once or often. The second is to say that the present always means continuous action. It can, but it also describes general truths and single acts. The third is to build an argument on the perfect, saying that the action must be permanently finished, when the perfect is flexible. Each of these claims appears in sermons, and each is open to challenge by grammarians.

  1. What tense, voice and mood is the verb, and what does each tell me?
  2. Is the verb in the indicative, where time can matter, or in another mood, where aspect is the main thing?
  3. Is the voice middle or passive, and who is the agent?
  4. How is the participle related to the main verb in my translation?
  5. Am I claiming more than the tense can show?
  6. Do grammarians agree about this form, or is there a live debate?

Examples

The aorist in narrative

John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. In Greek both verbs are aorist, viewing the loving and the giving as whole acts. The tense does not tell how long the loving lasted. An argument that the aorist here means a single moment in time goes beyond the evidence.

The perfect in an appeal to Scripture

When Jesus answers the tempter with it is written, in Matthew 4:4, the Greek is a perfect form, gegraptai. It describes a past act of writing with a continuing result, and so has the force of it stands written. English translators render it with it is written.

A participle with different translations

In Matthew 28:19, the command to make disciples of all nations is followed by participles about going, baptizing and teaching. Some translations render the first as go, as though it were a command, and others as as you go. The Greek participle does not decide the question, and the grammatical discussion continues.

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Orthodox readers emphasize that the Greek of the New Testament lives in the liturgy, and the fathers, who knew Greek as their own language, read verbs in the light of the church’s teaching. The Greek fathers did not use the modern grammatical terms but read the text closely.

Catholic

Catholic translations from the Greek use the same tools as other scholars, and Catholic commentary on a verse like Matthew 28:19 may bring the verb forms into a discussion of mission and baptism. Church teaching on baptism does not depend on a single grammatical form.

Protestant

Protestant preachers have often drawn on verb tenses for application, sometimes with great care and sometimes with the overreadings described above. Protestant grammarians have been among the leaders in revising older rules about aspect.

Scholarly

Scholars differ over how far Greek tense forms mark time at all. Some hold that aspect is the main feature in all moods, while others keep a larger role for time in the indicative. Introductions to the field usually present several views.

Why it matters

Verbs carry much of the detail of the New Testament, and claims about what a tense means are common in preaching and writing. A student who knows the categories, and knows that scholars disagree about some of them, can ask good questions and can avoid being impressed by a technical sounding claim that goes beyond the grammar.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The aorist always means a single, completed act.

Correction: The aorist views an action as a whole, without saying whether it was single, repeated, long or short. The context tells which is the case.

Misunderstanding: The Greek present tense always means continuous action.

Correction: It can describe ongoing action, but also single actions, general truths and, in narrative, vivid past events. Context decides.

Misunderstanding: There is no middle voice, since English translations do not show it.

Correction: Greek has a middle voice, which English cannot always show. A translation may render it in a way that hides the middle sense.

Misunderstanding: A rule from an old grammar settles how a form must be read.

Correction: Many older rules have been revised. A student should check recent grammars and commentaries.

Knowledge check

What are the main Greek tense forms, and what is the debate about them?

They are the present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect and pluperfect. The debate concerns whether they mainly mark time or aspect, the way an action is viewed. Many modern grammarians stress aspect, especially outside the indicative, while time is more clearly marked in the indicative mood.

What is the middle voice?

It shows that the subject acts on itself or for its own benefit, or has a special interest in the action. English has no exact equivalent. Some verbs have middle or passive forms and an active meaning, and recent grammars question the old label deponent for them.

What is wrong with the claim that the aorist means once for all?

The aorist views an action as a whole without saying whether it happened once or often, or how long it lasted. Whether an event was single is learned from context, not from the tense. The claim confuses a point of view with a fact about the event.

Why can participles produce differences between translations?

A participle describes an action but does not state how it relates to the main verb. It might give time, cause, means, condition or manner. The translator must choose, and Matthew 28:19 shows how translations render the participle go either as a command or as a circumstance.

Think it through

  1. Why might an English reader be misled by a tense label in a sermon?
  2. What does it say about a language that it marks how an action is viewed and not only when it happened?
  3. How would you check a claim about a Greek tense in a sermon you hear?
  4. What changes if the voice of a verb is passive and the agent is not named?

Independent assignment

A verb in three translations

In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Choose John 3:16 or Matthew 28:19. Using an interlinear or a Greek text with grammatical labels, write the tense, voice and mood of each main verb and participle. Copy the verse from four translations and note any differences in how the verbs are rendered. Write a paragraph on which differences come from the Greek and which from style, and one on what you cannot decide without more Greek. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study