Monday with Mounce

In speaking of Judas’ burial, Matthew writes, “Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: ‘They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me’” (Matt 27:9–10). The problem, it is claimed, is that the citation is from Zechariah and not Jeremiah.

Gone are the days of thinking the aorist must refer to a past event. Even though it is a default tense, it still has a wider range of meaning than most first-year students of Greek may suspect. I have often pointed out that English tends to see verbs in a row sequentially — verb A happened, then verse B, then verse C — Greek doesn’t and it uses a different mechanism.

I would guess that in all languages, words are left out that the reader must assume. We do it in English, and the biblical writers do it as well. When you have two statements that are in some way parallel (or at least connected), words from the first part don't need to be repeated in the second part.

This is a little picky thing, but it does illustrate the ascensive use of καί. Luke writes, “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and (καί) Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” ( NIV). My question is whether Mary was considered part of the group called “the women,” or was she outside the group?

When Jesus healed the man at the Pool of Bethesda, the Pharisees objected to him carrying his mat on the Sabbath and wanted to know who had told him to do so. Verse 13 says, “But the man who was healed did not know who he was (ἐστιν).” But ἐστιν is present tense. Why do all the translations make it past tense, “was”?