(You can watch this blog on YouTube)

Changes in tenses are important to note. Even if it is subtle, there is always a reason. Take the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (or as I liked to say when teaching at Azusa Pacific University, the “Good Biola Student”).

The lawyer’s question is, “Who is (ἐστίν) my neighbor”? (Luke 10:29). It was a limiting question, designed to restrict his responsibility to a smaller group. I would guess the lawyer was thinking in ethnic and geographical terms. “For whom do I have to be responsible?” (Correct grammar can sound so odd at times, can’t it?)

Jesus tells the parable and concludes, “Which of these three do you think was (γεγονέναι) a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (10:36, NIV, also NLT). The problem with this translation is that γεγονέναι is a perfect, not an aorist. Why use a perfect?

Note: you can watch this blog on YouTube

In first year Greek we historically do just one wooden, word-for-word translation. This way the teacher knows that the student knows the tense of the verb or case of the noun. The problem is that the students leave first year class thinking that word-for-word is acceptable English and is the most accurate translation method, neither of which is accurate.

Take Matt 13:11 for example. “And (δὲ) answering he said to them (ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν), ‘because (ὅτι) to you it has been given (δέδοται) to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (οὐρανῶν), but to them it has not been given (δέδοται).’”

1. But translating δέ in this context is redundant. In v 10 the disciples asked a question, and v 11 is his answer. No connective is necessary in English, nor is it stylish English.

2. Since “answering he said” is not English by anyone’s measure, and since the idiom simply means “to answer,” why not say that?

3. In the rush to translate every Greek word with a specific English word, did the student miss the fact that ὅτι introduces direct speech and is translated by quotation marks, as most translations do?

I was asked about the interchange of tenses in Col 1:21-23. It is part of a much larger theological question that I can’t get into right now, but it is worth looking at the Greek.

There are some fascinating differences in translation between the KJV and other versions on Galatians 2:20.