Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 171:682 (Apr 2014)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Jefferson P. Webster

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BSac 171:682 (April-June 2014) p. 233

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of Dallas Theological Seminary

Jefferson P. Webster

Editor

“The Abused Present,” David L. Mathewson, Bulletin for Biblical Research 23 (2013): 343-63.

Most students of biblical Greek are by now familiar with Frank Stagg’s celebrated article, “The Abused Aorist,” published in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 1972. It served as a necessary corrective to the “once-for-all” aorist idea so prevalent in exegetical and expository literature of that era. Mathewson has picked up on that approach and lays out in similar fashion dozens of examples of the present tense abused in exegetical literature. As he notes, his article “will examine the meaning of the present tense form, provide examples from grammars and commentaries of abuses of the present tense, and then conclude with brief suggestions for responsible use of the present tense in NT exegesis” (p. 344).

The foundation of Mathewson’s argument is especially the treatments of verbal aspect by Stanley Porter and Buist Fanning (whose doctoral theses were published in 1989 and 1990 respectively). The author speaks of the present tense’s aspect as looking “at the action from the perspective of its development and unfolding, irrespective of the actual duration or time of the action being portrayed” (p. 345, italics original). Further, “as the more marked tense [than the aorist] the present is often used to highlight or foreground certain activities in the discourse” (ibid.). Mathewson correctly notes that “labels typically assigned to the present tense (continuous, durative, and so on) are not the semantic property of the present tense itself; rather[,] they represent information or possible realizations of the tense form that pragmatically comes from broader contextual features” (p. 345).

The author helpfully offers a litany of abuses found in commentaries, grammars, and works on biblical theology. Among his many examples, 1 John 3:6 and 3:9 deserve special mention (p. 358). He rightfully criticizes the exegesis that sees the present tenses in these verses as meaning, in themselves, an ongoing, habitual action (e.g., “keeps on sinning,” “continues to sin,” “go on sinning” [NIV, TNIV]). To think that the verbs here must indicate continual action goes back to Westcott’s commentary. But if continual sin, indicated by the present tense, is the basis for exclusion from the family of God, what are we to say about the brother who sins continuously (again, assum...

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