[B-Greek] some lingustic questions on Jn 7:8

Jody Barnard jbnard at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Jan 27 14:39:49 EST 2004


Porphyry certainly considers OUK an inconsistency so
this would seem to rule out the possibility of OUK
meaning 'not yet.' Also if the original did read OUPW
why would anyone change it to OUK?

Personally I do not see any inconsistency with the OUK
reading and verse 10. The key, i think, is that Jesus
doesn't just refuse to up, but he refuses to go up ON
HIS BROTHERS TERMS. Besides, Jesus goes on to explain
that his time had not yet come. Presumably it had come
by verse 10.

Jody Barnard

 --- "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 at comcast.net>
wrote: > Some questions of both a linguistic and --
apologies
> -- a text critical
> nature.
> 
> I've been asked by some members of some other lists
> and usenet groups to
> adjudicate a dispute going on there about  which of
> the variant readings
> of Jn 7:8a is the original.
> 
> Sinaticus D Syr C Syr S the old Latin other
> witnesses as well as  many
> fathers, both in the east and in the west,  testify
> that the text read
> 
>            EGW OUK ANABAINW EIS THS hEORTHN TAUTHN
> 
> where as P 66 P 75 Vaticanus W Theta and some other
> witnesses and a few
> fathers (Basil, Nonnus) testify that it read
> 
>            EGW OUPW ANABAINW EIS THS hEORTHN TAUTHN
> 
> Most – but not all – modern NT text critics and
> Johannine commentators
> (both ancient and modern -- though see Kasemann)
> take the reading with
> OUK as original. Their justification for doing so,
> despite the fact that
> OUPW is attested relatively early and in Vaticanus,
> is usually that
> scribes changed OUK to OUPW (= "not yet")  in order
> to alleviate or
> avoid the "inconsistency" that apparently exists
> when the OUK reading is
> set alongside Jn 7:10, where Jesus is noted as
> actually having gone up
> to "the feast" mentioned in vs 7  (though in
> secret). [See, e.g. p. 216
> of the UBS editorial committee's Textual Commentary
> on the GNT,
> Schnackenborg, _John_, etc.].
> 
> But I wonder whether the explanation assumes
> something that might not be
> the case and is therefore wholly unnecessary,
> namely, that the OUPW of P
> 66 etc. must be seen as bearing the meaning "not
> yet" and that, even if
> it does, that  **that** meaning cannot be seen,
> given the context in
> which it appears,  in the OUK of Sinaticus etc. ?
> 
> My question arises from the fact that LSJ and
> Moulton & Milligan note
> that while OUPW is used to signify "not yet", it is
> also "sometimes" –
> and certainly in Koine -- used as an even stronger
> negative than ouk
> that bears no temporal significance.
> 
> This being the case, that is, that OUPW was also
> used to mean "not", as
> well as "not yet", is it possible that the usual
> understanding of what
> the reading of Jn 7:8 witnessed to in P 66 etc. is
> wrong? That it
> actually is saying exactly the same thing as what
> the reading in
> Sinaticus etc., is usually taken as saying  -- "I am
> not going up to the
> feast", rather than "I am **not yet** going up to
> the feast"?
> 
> Since the witnesses that read oupO are third century
> and later, and, at
> least in a number of cases,  in what appear to be
> Byzantine MSS, perhaps
> the deciding factor is what OUPW was used to signify
> in later Koine
> and/or in those areas from which the MSS which
> contain the reading came.
> 
> Can anyone help me with determining this? I don't
> have Lampe to hand or
> any grammar of Byzantine Greek.
> 
> And what about OUK?  Are their instances in which it
> was used with the
> meaning of "not yet"? If so, do their contexts look
> anything like the
> context in which John has Jesus utter EGW OUK
> ANABAINW EIS THS hEORTHN
> TAUTHN – one that has a reference to time?
> 
> Any and all help with these questions will be
> greatly appreciated.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Jeffrey Gibson
> 
> --
> 
> Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
> 
> 1500 W. Pratt Blvd. #1
> Chicago, IL 60626
> 
> jgibson000 at comcast.net
> 
> 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek 

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