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Let me only say in regard to your ad hominem slur, that if you are asking if I need a walker to read Greek, the answer is no. Doubtless, I have forgotten more from my many years of Greek study than you have learned in your one semester study.

Congragulations on you advanced Greek study. My comment was far from being a slur. I have had people before claim Greek when it was obvious they had no clue. I have been honest about my lack of Greek (one semester completed, grade a). You are quoting from the Greek as though you know what you are talking about...whilst making some blunders. I accept that blunders can be made, but calling gennesthai an aorist, at least i think warrants me asking about your abilities in the language without you taking it as a personal attack (ad hominem). Don't you think? so don't get worked up because i dared to ask. i accept that you are well trained in greek.

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The Aorist Indicative is frequently used in narrative passages of a past event which precedes another past event mentioned or implied in the context.

You would call this a narrative passage?

You wrote
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FYI, "who were born" in the Greek is genesthai, which is an aorist infinitive which denotes a past action, i.e., "who had been born".

We understand that you wrote the wrong Greek word, but here you say that the aorist, which by definition is without aspect, has a pluperfect aspect of "had been born".

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First, it may be used to describe an action or event in its entirety. This use of the tense, since it is by far the most frequent, may be called by preeminence the Indefinite Aorist. In the Indicative it may be called the Historical Aorist. The Aorist of any verb may be used in this sense; thus eivpei/n, to say; diakon/hsai, to serve.

The Aorist for the Perfect and the Aorist for the Pluperfect are, as explained below (52), not distinct functions of the Aorist, but merely special cases of the Historical, Inceptive, or Resultative Aorist.

Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek, Ernest De Witt Burton,

And especially

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The Historical Aorist. The Aorist Indicative is most frequently used to express a past event viewed in its entirety, simply as an event or a single fact. It has no reference to the progress of the event, or to ANY EXISTING RESULT OF IT.

and again

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Instances of the Greek Aorist for the English Pluperfect arise when a past event which is conceived of simply as an event without reference to existing result is mentioned out of its chronological order, or is expressed in a subordinate clauses The Greek employs the Aorist, leaving the context to suggest the order; the English usually suggests the order by the use of a Pluperfect.

I cannot see how this applies here at all. The double use of the word gennao ties the second use, "who were BORN," to the first, "to them who received him he gave the right to BE BORN children of God."

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A Pluperfect is strictly required only when the precedence in time is somewhat prominent. The Revisers of 1881 have used the Pluperfect sparingly in such cases. It might better have been used also in Matt. 9:25; Mark 8:14; John 12:18 (had heard).


The rest I will address when I have further time.
Zion Seeker