Tense: Aorist “I went”

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 should always be translated as a simple English past tense. The change of this tense in to present, future, etc. is 'English Smoothing' by the English proofreaders or Publishing companies-- NOT GREEK.

The events described by the aorist tense are classified into a number of categories by grammarians. The most common of these include a view of the action as having begun from a certain point ("inceptive aorist"), or having ended at a certain point ("cumulative aorist"), or merely existing at a certain point ("punctiliar aorist"). The categorization of other cases can be found in Greek reference grammars.

The English reader need not concern himself with most of these finer points concerning the aorist tense, since in most cases they cannot be rendered accurately in English translation, being fine points of Greek exegesis only. The common practice of rendering an aorist by a simple English past tense should suffice in almost all cases. The alternate rendering as a simple perfect tense will help for blending into sentences with multiple tense verbs but the show the extra helper words as "supplied".