# Grammar and Jesus Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533 "2001-04-19T12:35:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![don\_willard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@don\_willard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_willard)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/1 "2001-04-19T12:35:59Z")
Why do people say, “He is risen” instead of, “He has risen”? What is the difference? Or: What kind of tense is it called that uses the past participle with the present verb? What would it mean to say, “The bread is risen”–ie., what is the difference between that and, “The bread has risen”? What about, “The ring is hidden in the cabinet”? That would be different from, “The ring has hidden in the cabinet,” which is impossible… “The man is hidden in the cabinet,” “The man has hidden in the cabinet.” “He has ridden the bicycle,” but not, “He is ridden the bicycle.” “He has eaten the bread,” “He is eaten the bread.” Is the problem cleared up by bringing in the idea that only the past participles of intransitive verbs can be preceded by the present tense of be? But not all of these make sense, as in, “He has abided, no matter what,” but not, “He is abided.” “He is risen” and other sentencesof such forms seem to indicate the passive, as in somebody rose him, so to speak. Signed, wondering ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/2 "2001-04-19T12:38:04Z")
Good question. Dude, even. One possibility: it is said with the intention that it refer to a state of being. I.E., the issue is not that he’s gone from dead to living but that he is living. There’s also the issue of “has” being too in the past, and “is” being a present case verb. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/3 "2001-04-19T12:53:06Z")
**iampunha** makes a good point, but I don’t think it hits all the bases. The Authorized {“King James”) Version of the Holy Bible, from which this expression comes, is written in verse. Verse means poetry. Most people forget that. Like most poetry, it seeks to compress as much possible meaning as it can into the fewest possible words, encouraging the most meaning to be drawn out of any small passage. That being said, I have consulted an online [concordance](http://www.bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp) and searched for the phrase “is risen” in the entire text of the KJV. Number of hits: 18. Number of hits for “has risen”: 0. I think it’s a simple case of “is risen” having been the correct grammatical structure at the time. Keep in mind the Early Modern English was still very much in flux and working out little things like what verbs were going to be used as helpers, etc. Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/4 "2001-04-19T12:54:55Z")
Sorry for the bold. I was trying to preview and hit send. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/5 "2001-04-19T13:02:24Z")
What we may have here is a case of the application of literary license. The word appears in that same usage in some literary works (besides the bible): > [@](#): > > Bullion is risen to six shillings . . . the ounce. --Locke. Isn’t the exact phrase “But now is Christ risen from the dead.”? I know it still sounds like a verb, but I found at least one [cite](http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=risen) where it can be an adjective: > [@](#): > > risen adj : (of e.g. celestial bodies) above the horizon; “the risen sun” I say we alert the Usage Panel of this. ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/6 "2001-04-19T13:36:54Z")
Here are some samples of one particularly verse, Matthew 28:6. > [@](#): > > He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.(King James Version) > [@](#): > > He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come see the place where he lay. (New International Version) > [@](#): > > He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.(New American Standard) > [@](#): > > He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.(Revised Standard Version) > [@](#): > > he is not here, for he rose, as he said; come, see the place where the Lord was lying;(Young’s Literal Translation) The more “modern” versions seem to go with “has risen” rather than “is risen.” In present-day English, these two phrases are slightly different in that in the former “risen” is a verb and in the latter it is an adjective. (Note: I don’t know anything about the Greek language, so take what follows with a grain of salt.) The [Blue Letter Bible](http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/c/987698814.html#6) says that the root for the phrase “he is/has risen” is _egeiro_. (Can’t do Greek letters.) It also lists the tense as “Aorist Passive Indicative”: > [@](#): > > The aorist tense is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action; that is, the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. There is no direct or clear English equivalent for this tense, though it is generally rendered as a simple past tense in most translations. > [@](#): > > The passive voice represents the subject as being the recipient of the action. > [@](#): > > The indicative mood is a simple statement of fact. If an action really occurs or has occurred or will occur, it will be rendered in the indicative mood. If this is accurate, it makes the phrase quite interesting, particularly with the aorist tense not having a specific time reference. The passive points toward “risen” being more properly an adjective (i.e. indicating Jesus’ state, not something he did). The indicative as a statement of fact combines with the other other two tenses to make a theological statement as well as a descriptive one. Again, I don’t know anything about Greek, but “he is risen” seems to be closer to the original than “he has risen.” I see upon preview that **Attrayant** has made the verb/adjective point as well. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/7 "2001-04-19T15:39:08Z")
“He is risen” is perfectly standard seventeenth-century English. Writers from this period tend to use “is” rather than “has” with verbs of motion; e.g. you’d say “they are come,” but “they have spoken.” It’s not, as far as I know, a construction peculiar to literature or poetry. I think modern French makes a similar distinction, but as my French is a bit shaky, I’ll leave this for someone else to confirm or deny. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/8 "2001-04-19T16:16:04Z")
(slight hijack) I saw a cool poster once of Jesus on water skis, with the caption reading “He’s up!” ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-and-jesus-question/62533/9 "2001-04-19T18:31:36Z")
As **Fretful Porpentine** said, this was standard English at the time. This is probably a Germanic thing – even modern German uses the verb for “to be” (_sein_) with verbs denoting motion or a major change of state (like death or resurrection). I believe the German phrase is _Er ist erstanden._ However, there is the matter **JeffB** brought up, that of translation from the Greek. The thing about Greek tenses is that the mode of action is more important than the time. One kind of action you can have is continuing or persistent action. The standard present tense is like this, similar to English progressive (“I am working”). The past imperfect is this kind of action which occurred in the past. Or you have action completed, with the results still in effect. This means something like, “The ozone layer was damaged by CFCs which continue to damage it today.” This tense is called the (present) perfect; you can also have past perfect and even future perfect actions. Future perfect is a little bit like saying, “By 2025, the evil Terminator robots will have killed more than 10 million humans.” There’s also the plain old future tense, which is essentially like English – an action of unspecified kind which will occur in the future. Then you have aorist, which refers to a specific event, or a one-time kind of action. It does not necessarily have to be at one particular point in time, but it is a sort of holistic view of the event (like “the trial occurred”). If it’s in the indicative mood, this means that the event has definitely happened. This is why aorist indicative should usually be translated with a past tense verb in English. **JeffB** , the form egeiro is the infinitive of the verb – blueletterbible gives it that way so you can recognize it and compare, though as you found, they do give you information on what form it’s in. The word as it appears is “egerthae” (the fourth word in their text). And this phrase, over-expanded, means “His raising (resurrection) has taken place.” So “He has risen” is correct. panamajack “If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain” – 1 Cor. 15:17 (de ei christos ouk egegertai … – perfect passive indicative)