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Comments
The verse I listed is past in Coptic. That was my point.
Now are you telling me that there is no "believed" in the past tense in the English translation.
Here are some verses for you references.
Genesis 15:6
And he [Abraham] believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Does this mean Abraham stopped believing because the verb "believe" is in the past tense and happened at only one point in time in the past?
Daniel 6:23
Then the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God.
Following your interpretation, does "believed" in this verse suggests that Daniel stopped believing after he came out of the den?
John 2:22
Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
Are you suggesting that the disciples stopped believing after Jesus' resurrection?
I can go on but I hope you get the point.
Simple past does not mean that the consequence of the event does not continue after the event took place.
When we say "We believed in You" does not mean that we stopped our belief in Him. I am sorry to say your logic is wrong and dangerous when it comes to interpreting the Scriptures. Look again at the verses I listed and you will see what I mean.
Thanks.
Our Arabic prayers are translated into Arabic from the Coptic and the same tenses are used in Arabic as they are in English.
Just because the translation from Coptic or Arabic into English happens to be different does not mean it is right - I am here referring to the our prayers like the one you listed from bioyk or the Midnight praises.
Why is "We believed in You" wrong? I am arguing that the translation itself is wrong and thus giving you the impression that it has to be in the present tense "we believe in You". Otherwise it would mean that we stopped believing. This is absolutely wrong.
Thanks.
@ Remenkimi, the Arabic verb is in the present tense with a future nuance...
Oujai
Ophadece,
If you are referring to the verb "fa' 7ayayna" it is really in the past.
"fa' 7ayayna" must be the present tense because the sentence references time "ila alabad" (forever). Logically, how can someone live forever in the past tense? It's an oxymoron. It's a contradiction. It cannot be the past tense. If it is past tense and you use the word lived, it automatically implies an interruption or a change in the present. If it is the past tense, then he no longer lives. If on the other hand, it is the second present tense, and since we have a reference of time, it is a continuation of the past into the present and the future and it must be the second present.
I gave you referencesof English grammar websites that explain the differences betweent the simple past, the present perfect, the second present and all other tenses. Refer to them . I gave you references in Coptic textbooks, both Sahidic and Bohairic, that explain the difference between simple past and all other Coptic tenses. In Coptic, the second present looks like the simple past but it obviously is the present. Just like many languages, Coptic has some nuances that we can derive from context that show us that the present perfect is intended, not the simple past.
The verses you referenced about the word "believed" are predominately the present perfect, not the simple past. I never said "believed" can't be the simple past. If the context of the sentence describes one single event, it is the simple past. If there is no reference to time, then it is the present perfect. "The atheist once believed in God" uses the verb in the simple past and cannot be the present perfct. "The atheist believed in God" can be simple past but can also be the present perfect. If the context tells us the atheist is no longer an atheist, then we know if it must be the present perfect. If someone "beleived" and continues to believe, and we can derive that information from the context, then it is the present perfect and not the simple past. You seem to argue that I am saying the simple past must include events to the present time I didn't.
Arabic is my first tongue and I have studied Arabic in Egypt till high school. This may not make me an expert in Arabic but at least I can differentiate between what is present and what is past in the Arabic language.
The letter "f" means "so that". The verb "ya7ya" means "To live". The verb "na' 7ya means "we live", the verb "7a' yayna" means "we lived"
If we want to say "so that we [may] live" it would have been "le' na7ya" or "lekay na7ya". The Coptic in this case would have been "hina endanwnkh". But clearly the verbs in both Arabic and Coptic are in the past.
Thanks.
And he [Abraham] believed in the Lord.
How can this be in present perfect?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ??? ??? Give me an example of what you mean. Who made that rule? The event of the verb certainly happened in the past.
If I say: "I believed and I was baptized" the event of the belief must come before being baptized. However, that does not mean that I stopped believing after I was baptized.
Again, you are mixing the verb's event with the effect of the verb's action.
Remenkimi,
However, ....
Arabic is my first tongue and I have studied Arabic in Egypt till high school. This may not make me an expert in Arabic but at least I can differentiate between what is present and what is past in the Arabic language.
I appreciate your greater knowledge of Arabic. However, Ophadece seems to believe it is the present tense. And the Coptic implies the present tense. Even though it looks like the past tense in Arabic (and Coptic and English), the context tesll us it can't be past tense.
How can you live forever in the past? If it is past tense, you no longer live. The only way this makes sense is if it is the second present tense.
This may be harsh but you are making ridiculous claim that "hayayna" is in the present tense. This is absolutely wrong.
Oops, I've lived in Egypt till I was 28 and got that muddled up. Oh my God, I don't think anyone can be more muddled up then... hehe. It is a past tense, and now I'm disappointed in myself for the first time Remenkimi didn't argue with me, but in fact used me as a support to his argument, I'm completely mistaken, sorry.
That shows how Coptic is closer to Arabic than English: anonkh sha anah is exactly like fa7ayayna ela alabad...
Oujai
Yes dzheremi I'm aware of that, but whether the translation was fitted onto the Coptic corrupting proper formal Arabic language (my belief), or that the latter is too weak a language that was shaped up by the environment it settles in, ie gulf Arabic, vs algerian, vs Egyptian, etc...
Oujai
imikail, you wrote, "When we say "we lived forever" in the bioyk hymn, we mean that we were dead and because we took the body and the blood of our Lord we lived forever."
Without any additional information, your sentence means describes multiple actions in the past tense: We were dead (an we are no longer dead), we took the body and blood (and once it is consumed were are no longer in the present tense), and we lived forever (so we must no longer being living forever). If you look at this page under Usage #5 of the Simple past, it says, "The Simple Past can also be used to describe past facts or generalizations which are no longer true." The nuance of the simple past must include an understanding that the event or the action has stopped. If it doesn't, then it is the present tense. And if you choose to ignore the existence of the second present tense, which is well documented in Coptic and English, it's you're choice. But the existence of the second present tense gives weight to my argument that "lived forever" can only be understood in the present tense.
Ophadece: Thanks a lot. >:( The one time I don't argue with you and this is what happens.
Romans 14:9
For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Revelation 20:4 NKJV
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Are those living with Christ died again? Are in they living in the past?
Again, you are missing the context? The tense is in the past but the context is past present future. However that does not mean that the context changes the tense of the verb.
The same is true in Coptic and Arabic. We cannot say "anwnkh" is in the present, nor we could say the same of "fa 7ayana" in Arabic.
Are you not reading what I wrote? I said, "without any additional information". I am discussing linguistics and cultural nuances. Now you are adding spiritual arguments to prove a linguistic discussion. You're mixing apples and oranges. Of course, if you add biblical verses to direct your argument of Pioik, you are directing the context. Of course, there is a spiritual message in Pioik. But I'm only talking about linguistics.
In Romans 14:9, from the information in the sentence the context speaks of past events: Christ died once and it stopped. Christ rose and it stopped when he completed the act of rising. Christ lived again, if the simple pastis intended, will mean he stopped living again. But since we have additional information, both from the remaining part of the text and the Gospel in general, we know that Christ didn't stop living after the Resurrection. And He continues to live now into the present. It has to be the second present tense. We also know the second half of the verse switches to the present tense: that He might be the Lord.
Revelation, as far as we know, describes events in the future as if there were past tense. This is not a good example because you are comparing apples and oranges.
Again, let me repeat myself. The simple past can only apply to an action that was stopped.
Dear Remenkimi, not really sure if I should call myself, or you unlucky. For the only time we don't argue I disappoint you... hehe
Dear dzheremi, I was talking about how Arabic is translated in kholagy books, strictly following the verb tenses in Coptic, and wondering that even though I'm aware they are not related as languages, but probably Arabic lost its formal structure to yield to the translator's idea, and then I added that it may be shaped up by the environment it's in (which in retrospect is close to the point just made), that is to say Egyptian formal Arabic is still structurally different to Algerian, Saudi, etc. NOw I know this argument applies to many other, if not all spoken languages on earth, but something you may not all know, maybe only imikhail does, is that Arabs boast of the language of quran as unchanged both in vocabulary, or grammar, which is so untrue to the well-educated...
Oujai
About Arabic in its national varieties, that's even easier to debunk. Anyone who knows anything about the linguistic history of the Middle East would not make such claims about the Arabic spoken in a given place. It varies, of course, according to the particular area, but it's not exactly hidden knowledge, for instance, that Lebanese Arabic has a noticeable Aramaic/Syriac substrate (this language having been a spoken language in what is now Lebanon at least until the 16th century, and being the source of many "Arabic" vocabulary items to begin with, since it was the majority spoken language of the entire Middle East before the Arab conquests), and that Egyptian Arabic has a Coptic substrate (see, for instance, all of the individual vocabulary words marked as originated from Coptic in Badawi & Hind's "Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic", Librairie Du Liban 1986).
Very interesting dzheremi. I would love to get my hands on the reference you provided, is there an online abstract for example? The only article I read was Georgy Sobhy's Coptic words in colloquial Egyptian Arabic usage, which I maintain is rather far-fetched and only reflects personal opinion rather than true research...
Oujai
The Niloofar Haeri book is one thing that came up in a vain Google search for the Furgeson article. I haven't actually read it myself, but it does sound interesting, and I like her other work that I have read (The Sociolinguistic Market of Cairo, 1996). Here is a review, if you're interested.
Badawi & Hind's Egyptian Arabic dictionary is really excellent, but sadly very expensive ($250 on Amazon). I don't own a copy myself, for that very reason. I would look for it in local university libraries. Maybe try a Worldcat search?
Oujai