I have been told so many times that the Greek Present Tense is always a continuous tense that its not funny. The Greek Present Tense can be either present tense of present continuous tense.
I am not sure where people get this idea but here is what Croy’s Primer of Biblical Greek says concerning the Koine Greek present tense.
2.11 The Present Active Indicative
In Greek, there is no such distinction. As a result, every single time you translate a Greek present tense verb, you must CHOOSE between the two English possibilities: present and present continuous. This is just one of those basic, pervasive differences between Greek and English that makes translation such a difficult art!
Every single time you translate a Greek present tense verb into English, you are making a choice – and that requires some thought on your part! There is no such thing as automatic translation when it comes to Greek and English.
Recent Comments