An Analysis of Verbal Translation in the Greek Text of Habakkuk
[Thesis]
Rutland, Stephen D.
Price, Craig
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
2019
110
M.A.
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
2019
The function of verbs in Koine Greek continues to be an area of scholarly disagreement. Specifically, the question of whether Greek indicative verbs encode aspect and tense, or aspect only remains open. The recent proposal by Ellis, Aubrey, and Dubis offers an explanation of Greek verbs which is rooted in morphology and views aspect as the prominent category throughout the verbal system, while also asserting that Koine verbs encode tense in the indicative through the augment. Unique to this proposal is the conception of temporality in the Greek verb as a binary (past vs. non-past), as well as a newly-proposed descriptive nomenclature. The present study seeks to test the proposal of Ellis, Aubrey, and Dubis utilizing the Septuagint (LXX) text of Habakkuk to determine whether this model of Greek verbal aspect offers a compelling and consistent explanation of the verbal forms. The Greek verbs are further considered in light of the underlying Hebrew through the Masoretic Text (MT) in order to identify any translational patterns which may inform the discussion of Greek verbal aspect.