G5055

• {"n":"John 19:30","s":"It is finished. One word, in a tense that means done and still in force.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=john-19-30","r":"John 19:30","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads it is finished or it is completed. None can carry the tense, and none tries."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**I locked the door.** That tells you about a moment. **The door is locked.** That tells you about now. Imagine one verb form that says both at once, and imagine it being the last thing someone says."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Tetelestai is perfect tense, passive voice, third person singular. The Greek perfect describes a completed action whose result stands in the present. A popular preaching tradition also holds that tetelestai was written across settled commercial accounts of the period, meaning paid in full; that specific claim traces to a misreading of ancient tax receipts, whose actual abbreviation is a different word, tetelonetai, toll or tax paid, and current papyrological work treats paid in full as a popular legend rather than established usage."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"There's no single English word for a completed act with a standing result. It is finished is a present statement about a past act, which is nearer than most languages get, and still two ideas stapled together."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"Greek perfect tense is the one aspect English genuinely cannot carry. When a verse feels like it is saying more than the words do, check whether the verb is perfect."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"The grammar itself is not in question; every version makes the same perfect-tense compromise. The popular commercial paid in full gloss, often used to make that compromise vivid, is itself disputed and probably should not be leaned on."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c9 teleo \u00b7 G5055"}],"src":["The Greek perfect described in Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek","teleo and telos share a root; compare eis telos at John 13:1","The 'paid in full' commercial-receipt claim reassessed against the actual papyri, which read tetelonetai (toll\/tax paid), not tetelestai"]}