Elementary New Testament Greek, 2014a

Interpretive Meaning of the Aorist
Indicative
In the Indicative Mood, the Aorist usually indicates that an action took place in past
time, relative to the speaker.
But in every Mood and Mode (Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Optative,
Innitive, Participle), the Aorist Tense commonly views actions (events, processes,
or states) in one of three (3) ways:
The Constative
Aorist:
The Ingressive
Aorist:
The
Consummative
Aorist:
The vast majority of Aorists simply view an event from a
simple, external vantage point, without any interest in its
internal progression or duration. The simple English past tense
is often the most appropriate translation: “we sang,” “we
studied,” “she swam,” “they worked,” etc. [Notice how these
English expressions give no indication of duration, no “inside
view” of progression or of stages.]
Sometimes the meaning of the verb itself, combined with the
context in which it appears, suggests that the Aorist Tense is
encouraging us to view the onset of the activity, not really its
entirety. If an Aorist verb can effectively be translated into
English with a “began to” introductory expression, then we
may classify the usage as the Ingressive Aorist. “And they
began to follow him…”
Sometimes the meaning of the verb itself, combined with the
context in which it appears, suggests that the Aorist Tense
is encouraging us to view the completion of the activity, not
really the whole process leading up to the completion. Because
no formulaic English translation exists which can convey this
notion in every situation, we will need to experiment with
various English paraphrases to communicate how an action
may be viewed from its “nished” perspective.
12: Aorist Tense
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