The purpose of this article is to evaluate Stanley Porter’s theory of aspectual prominence. According to Porter the three verbal aspects of the Greek language (perfective, imperfective and stative) operate at a discourse level to indicate prominence (background, foreground and frontground). This theory will be tested against the points of emphasis and climactic junctures evident in a selection of Luke’s miracle and pronouncement stories.
Taking Saussure’s distinction between language (langue) and speech (parole) as a starting point, the present article describes a concept of ‘style’ with special reference to the use of a given language system by the author of Luke-Acts. After discussing several style definitions, the question is raised whether statistics are helpful for the study of style. Important in the case of Luke is determining whether his use of Semitisms is a matter of style or of language, and to what extent he was influenced by ancient rhetoric. Luke’s stylistics should focus on his preferences (repetitions, omissions, innovations) from the range of possibilities of his language system (“Hellenistic Greek”), on different levels (words, clauses, sentences, rhetorical-narrative level and socio-rhetorical level), within the limits of the given grammar, language development and literary genre.
This article identifies 102 New Testament verbs that designate transference and describes alternative usages of these verbs as derivates of motion and state. The discussion first considers the manner in which verbs grammaticalize the event of transference by assuming a particular focus and perspective on its elements and by indicating the degree of affectedness of the subject. The study then develops the usages of motion and state in terms of the exclusion of elements of the event of transference and changes in focus and perspective. A concluding discussion summarizes the results of the investigation.
Contrary to the traditional definition, supporters of the theory of the verbal aspect claim that the transitive perfect, like the intransitive perfect, puts the stress on the state of the subject. From this perspective the present article deals with the Johannine formula τα̃υτα λαλ́αληκα ὐμ̃ιν in order to affirm that the emphasis of the expression is on the state of the subject of λαλ́αληκα and not on that of the object τα̃υτα: the formula specifies above all the condition of Jesus revealing of the divine.
Besides the normal meaning, ἔνοχος has special dimension in the Sermon on the Mount. Unaware of this commentators missed a great opportunity.
13:1-12 is the section covered by these notes, a passage that marks an important development in the narrative as Paul becomes the main protagonist for the rest of the book of Acts. It is in these verses that the Holy Spirit calls him, by his name of Saul, to be the collaborator of Barnabas for the work of spreading the message of Jesus to the Gentiles. The mission begins in Cyprus, where Paul’s strategy of visiting the Jews first, in order to prepare them for the entry of the Gentiles into Israel, will be shown up by Luke, in the text of Codex Bezae, to be out of step with the plan of Jesus.
This article provides a new argument for an alternative punctuation of Jn 9,3-4, associating “the works of Him who sent me” with what follows rather than what precedes. Rather than being allusions to his departure from this world, Jesus’ references to working “while it is day” and not working “when night comes” refer to a literal nightfall, formulated in a way that undermines the pharisaic halakha of Sabbath observance (for which nightfall frees one to resume working). This interpretation is supported by the fact that Jesus has the blind man break the Sabbath as visibly as possible.