[B-Greek] some lingustic questions on Jn 7:8
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Wed Jan 28 07:57:45 EST 2004
> 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.].
<snip>
> 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.
Is that certain for Koine? I don't have resources to check the texts outside
the NT, but all the occurrences in the GNT are contextually supported to
mean "not yet". And John is the one who uses it most - 14 out of 26 NT
occurrences are in Johannine writings, so there is ample evidence to
ascertain the sense John is familiar with. (OUDEPW has to mean "not until
now" in John 20:9, and could well mean the same in John 19:41 and Acts 8:16,
but not so easily in John 7:39 - but that is another question.)
To me, OUK bears the mark of being original, because OUPW superficially
seems to fit the context better. But OUK fits better when a more careful
analysis is made, IMO. Jesus is saying to his brothers - who do not believe
he is the Messiah - that he is not going with them (and all the other
pilgrims in the group travelling together) to the feast, because a public
appearance would be too dangerous ("the world hates me" v.7). He might be
caught by soldiers checking the pilgrim convoy arriving from Galilee, and
therefore not able to fulfill his mission in the way it should be fulfilled.
Furthermore, OUK means "not" rather than "never". Jesus says: "YOU, you can
go to feast, but I, I am not going to the feast". In the phrase EIS THN
hEORTHN TAUTNH the word "this" is in the non-emphatic position after the
head of the noun phrase which means that it does not focus on THIS
particular feast in contrast to the next or another feast, but it is a
simple back reference to the feast being talked about, and this nuance is
more accurately represented in English by "the feast" than "this feast".
There is a somewhat similar incident in John 2:4 where the mother of Jesus
asks him to help out with the wine problem. His first response looks very
much like a refusal ("stay away from me, mother") on the grounds that "my
'hour' has not yet come". But soon after he does the miracle anyway. The
refusal is not meant in the sense that he would not do it, but he would not
do it in a way that was imposed on him and at a time and in a manner that
was not right. Jesus' mother understood that principle of Jesus, but the
scribes who changed OUK to OUPW did not. But then, Mary knew Jesus better
than the scribes.
My thoughts,
Iver Larsen
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