The Present of Past Action and John 8:58

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PPA, or Present of Past Action is the construction we find at John 8:58.

From ERNEST DE WITT BURTON
Former Professor at the University of Chicago

MOODS AND TENSES
OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK

17. THE PRESENT OF PAST ACTION STILL IN PROGRESS. The Present Indicative, accompanied by an adverbial expression denoting duration and referring to past time, is sometimes used in Greek, as in German, to describe an action which, beginning in past time, is still in progress at the time of speaking. English idiom requires the use of the Perfect in such cases. HA. 826; G. 1258.

Acts 15:21; MWUSHS GAR EK GENEWN ARCAIWN KATA POLIN TOUS KHRUSSONTAS AUTON, for Moses from generations of old has had in every city them that preached him. See also Luke 13:7, ERCOMAI, 15:29, DOULEUW, John 5:6, ECEI; 2 Tim. 3:15, OIDAS.

This Present is almost always incorrectly rendered in R.V.

Reply - Let us check those examples:

LUKE 13:7 I have come NWT, NASB, NET
I come  RV
I have been coming NJB
I am coming / Concordant

LUKE 15:29 I have slaved NWT, NET, NJB
I have been serving NASB
I serve  RV
Am I slaving / Concordant

JOHN 5:6  had already been NWT
he had been NJB, RV
the man had been NET

2 TIM 3:15
you have known NWT, NJB, NET, RV

Now compare John 8:58:
"I have been" NWT
"I am" RV, NASB, NJB etc.

It seems only the NWT got it right.

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See also: Greek Grammar for Colleges, by Herbert Weir Smyth, New York, 1920, pp. 422-423: “The present, when accompanied by a definite or indefinite expression of past time, is used to express an action begun in the past and continued in the present. The ‘progressive perfect’ is often used in translation. Thus,… I have been long (and am still) wondering.”

A Grammar of New Testament Greek, by J. H. Moulton, Vol. III, by Nigel Turner, Edinburgh, 1963, p. 62, says: “The Present which indicates the continuance of an action during the past and up to the moment of speaking is virtually the same as Perfective, the only difference being that the action is conceived as still in progress . . . It is frequent in the N[ew] T[estament]: Lk 248 137 . . . 1529 . . . Jn 56 858 . . . ”

A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, by Dana and Mantey, MacMillan, 1927, p. 183, says: "Sometimes the progressive present is retroactive in its application, denoting that which has begun in the past and continues into the present. For the want of a better name, we may call it the present of *duration.* This use is generally associated with an adverb of time, and may best be rendered by the English perfect. "Ye have been (present tense) with me from the beginning" John 15:27."

Kenneth L. McKay: "The verb 'to be' is used differently, in what is presumably its basic meaning of 'be in existence', in John 8:58: prin Abraam genesthai ego eimi, which would be most naturally translated 'I have been in existence since before Abraham was born'"