Tag Archives: εἶπον

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE AORIST AND THE IMPERFECT

(1) The difference between an Historical Aorist and an Imperfect of action in progress or repeated being one not of the nature of the fact but of the speaker’s conception of the fact, it is evident that the same fact may be expressed by either tense or by both. This is illustrated in Mark 12:41 and 44, where, with strict appropriateness in both cases, Mark writes in v. 41, πολλοὶ πλούσιοι ἔβαλλον πολλά, and in v. 44 records Jesus as stating the same fact in the words πάντες . . . ἔβαλον. The former describes the scene in progress, the latter merely states the fact.… Learn Koine Greek