Brother Charlie:
     Thank you for your suggestions for improving our Fresh Manna
on MATTHER 6:14-15!
     (1) You observed,
|It is by no means certain that Jesus taught in Aramaic.
     Indeed, in one draft of this, I actually included the word
"presumeably?", but found the commentaries I consulted seemed to
agree this was the most likely underlying language.  One Bible
dictionary we have here, says "probably".
     In view of these things, I have now changed "the language
the Lord originally taught it in--", to "the language the Lord
probably taught it in--".  And that change will appear in all
future publication of this Fresh Manna.
     This doesn't completely fulfill all you suggested, but it
does convey much of your meaning, in the same space as before.
[I have to keep it to the same space, since each Fresh Manna is
set up for people to print on one page of 8 1/2" x 11" paper.]
IXTHUS<<
     (2) You suggested,
|the verb apheimi is in the second aorist tense and the
|subjunctive mood.  The aorist tense does not convey time except
|as context dictates
|...
|You've interpreted the verb as if it were a perfect tense and
|that is completely wrong.
     More than that, it's even found in the PRESENT tense in some
manuscripts, including whichever one that part of the Textus
Receptus was based upon.  This is thought to be patterned on the
version of the Lord's prayer reported by Luke, in LUKE 11:4,
where the verb is in the present.
     This wouldn't affect the interpretation, of course.  As you
noted with regard to the aorist, even if it were present tense,
our forgiving others still precedes our asking God to forgive us.
And the Lord's own expansion on this, in MATTHEW 6:14-15, which
is the text, and the point of the said Fresh Manna, emphasizes
this forcefully.
     As to the perfect, I must admit I had come to regard this as
a perfect, and was surprised to find it an aorist!  And of course
the aorist has more the concept of "punctiliar action as opposed
to ongoing action", than "past opposed to present action".
     However, Machen does say, "The aorist is like the imperfect
in that it refers to past time ... the aorist is the simple past
tense" (p. 81).  He goes on to say, "It should be observed,
however, that the aorist tense is often translated by the English
perfect" (p. 82).  And he continues,
     "The context will usually determine quite clearly whether a
     Greek aorist is to be translated in English by the simple
     past tense (e.g. I loosed) or by the perfect tense (e.g. I
     have loosed").  The former translation should be adopted in
     the exercises unless it is perfectly certain the other is
     intended.  What the student needs to understand first is
     that the aorist is the simple past tense."  (p. 82)
     This is why I wrote in the Fresh Manna on MATTHEW 6:14-15,
"What the Greek likely said is, `Forgive us our trespasses as WE
FORGAVE [/HAVE FORGIVEN]'".  The intent was to acknowledge that
not all manuscripts have the aorist, though this is indeed the
majority view.  Also, to show it as a simple past tense, but to
indicate that in the context it had more the force of the perfect
in English.
     I realize this doesn't deal with your point about the
function of the aorist tense in conditional clauses--
|As I said, this is merely a conditional sentence and the
|condition to receiving any *future* forgiveness from the Father
|is we must forgive now.
     But that, I fear, is beyond my level of knowledge of Greek.
Writing for beginners like me, Machen only describes conditions
which begin with "EAN", and "EI"; not with "WS", as we are
discussing.  So at present, to me it would seem the present tense
would convey the meaning you have described, and the aorist the
meaning I have described.
IXTHUS<<
     3)  I was very interested in your analysis,
|English is an analytical, syntactical language while Greek is a
|synthetic language.  English meaning is determined by word order
|within a sentence while Greek is determined more by the formation
|of words in conjugations of verbs and cases of nouns and
|adjectives, etc.
     I wonder if you'd mind expanding on this thought a bit
sometime.  Sounds like something I'd like to consider further.
IXTHUS<<
     Anyway, thanks for your help.  We really appreciate someone
who tries to make our work more effective!
    ||        Many blessings!   --Ralph
    ||        Ralph & Gene Ann Wood
    ||        randg.wood@encode.com
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