The topic of Verbal Aspect is confusing. I believe the reason for this is that the topic is not settled and there exists camps of scholars positions on the subject and the terminology that is in use varies among the different camps. Verbal Aspect as a topic is important as verbs in Greek play a huge role in conveying meaning. Plummer asserts that the best modus to understand this topic is to refer to a progressive, wholistic and stative understanding of tense with time playing a very minor role in this modus. He goes on to qualify that these perspectives are respectively referred to as the imperfective, perfective and stative aspects. Confusing. Black and others use another system of terms to refer to the same ideas. Respectively, imperfective, aoristic and perfective. Finally, Plummer presents a table for the Past, Present and the Future and explains that the Past can be represented as progressive, aorist (wholistic) or perfect (stative). The Present "defaults" to a progressive understanding of the state and the Future is presented also as wholistic. I welcome anyones input in refining my understanding of this material as I am a novice student struggling to understand this subject.
- I actually watched a fantastic teacher, pastor Steven, on Youtube that made it a bit simpler. He didn't really speak much on the aspect of aerist (wholistic) or the vocative. However, imperfect vs perfect is now much clearer in my mind. Imperfect is when the action has not been completed, therefore we can think of it as either present or future tense. Perfect is something that has been completed, for example: "Jesus died for our sins," where died is perfect. Here is a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZTpar74J3w&list=PLWuMTt7ZCz-4_pZ8LrrMyk-nC5K6uS5UO