F
Frankk
Guest
This question is for a Koine Greek specialist, if possible. In John 6 Jesus uses two words for ‘eat’. The first is ‘fagw’ which is the aorist of ‘esthiw’ and means eat. At a key point in the narrative he changes to ‘trwgw’ which usually means gnaw or chew, which is far more graphic and could explain why those listening reacted in horror.
However, the LSJ lexicon says that by this time ‘trwgw’ had just come to mean ‘eat’ in the present tense and replaced ‘esthiw’.
If this is correct, why, then, was ‘fagw’ retained in the aorist? Why was the aorist of ‘trwgw’ not used, instead of leaving this ‘mix and match’ of meaning/tense between ‘esthein’ and ‘trwgein’?
However, the LSJ lexicon says that by this time ‘trwgw’ had just come to mean ‘eat’ in the present tense and replaced ‘esthiw’.
If this is correct, why, then, was ‘fagw’ retained in the aorist? Why was the aorist of ‘trwgw’ not used, instead of leaving this ‘mix and match’ of meaning/tense between ‘esthein’ and ‘trwgein’?