Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 153 Optative) forms if it is treated as Indicative. At the same time, although the usage of the Future has an apparent overlapping in function with the non-Indicative Moods, if treated as a non-Indicative form, there is no Indicative choice to complete the paradigm129. In addition to the problem of an odd formal paradigm, grammarians are also confronted with instances of the Future used in non-temporal (non- future) and non-Indicative contexts. Porter articulates this phenomenon meticulously saying that, “[t]here are functions and constructions that the Future shares with Indicative verbs and there are functions and constructions that the Future shares with non-Indicative Moods”130. However, this does not mean Porter considers that the Future is used to express time in the NT. In fact, scholars that insist on an exclusive temporal usage or modal usage of the Future must confront all kinds of exceptions and qualifications that make the category become meaningless. Virtually all treatments of the Future have to deal with the fact that the form itself is used in distinctly non-future and non-Indicative contexts, such as timeless expression (Matt 6:14-15; 15:14; etc.), command (Matt 5:21; 6:5; 7:7; etc.), or parallel with the Subjunctive (Matt 18:6)131. Scholars have agreed on the late development of the Future in the history of the Greek language132. The fact that its origin is possibly a non-Indicative form partly explains its usage in non-Indicative contexts and non-Indicative expressions133. This late emergence of the form also helps to explain the paradigmatic peculiarities134. To summarize, the Future is intrinsically handicapped with regard to being on par with the other tense-form due to the virtual independence of its form in relation to the Greek verbal network. The Future does not offer a clear and meaningful paradigmatic choice in opposition to other tense- forms. Thus one way of explicating the aspectual vagueness of the form is in terms of its unique position in the Greek verbal network. Since form and function goes hand-in-hand within a verbal system, the paradigmatic peculiarities or the underdevelopment of the Future form resulted in 129 The other tense-forms’ paradigms are complete to varying degrees. It is also pointed out that the Future has a Participle and an Infinitive it cannot be treated as a non-Indicative Mood alone. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 409. See also Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 129-30. 130 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 412. 131 Temporality will be discussed in the next section. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 411. 132 The debate is rather on the origin of the form. See for example, Moulton, Prolego- mena, 148-51; Evans, Verbal Syntax, 32-4, Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403-4, 412 and Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 158. 133 Scholars have not agreed on whether the Future was growing out of the Aorist Sub- junctive or desiderative forms or both. See Porter, Verbal Aspect, 403-4. 134 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 438.