Chapter Five. Conclusion: Verbal Aspect And The Nature Of Revelation’s Greek

Abstract

This conclusory chapter attempts to apply insights from the semantic category of verbal aspect to Greek verb tenses in the Apocalypse of John. While the issue of tenses in Revelation has attracted some attention in the past, recent research into verbal aspect theory makes a reinvestigation of the tenses in Revelation worthwhile. The difficulty of accounting for the phenomenon of tense usage in the Apocalypse from a governing temporal standpoint has led to a variety of judgments regarding the handling of verb tenses. The Greek verb tenses reveal a more significant underlying semantic contour provided by the Hebrew tense system. The verb tenses in the Apocalypse, as a network system of specific semantic choices, as with the New Testament in particular and Koine Greek more generally, communicate verbal aspect or the author's reasoned subjective choice of conception of a process.Keywords:Apocalypse; Greek verb tense; Hebrew; New Testament; Revelation; verbal aspect