[B-Greek] Mk 6:8b EI MH ... MH ... MH ...

George Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sat May 27 19:09:20 EDT 2006


See Blass, Debrunner, Funk _A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature_ § 376.
   
   
  376. (EKTOS) EI [EAN] MH (TI) ‘unless, except (that)’ and EI DE MH ‘otherwise’. EI MH (classical) usually without a finite verb following. EI MH (TI) with a verb e.g. G 1:7 EI MH TINES EISIN = PLHN hOTI (A 20:23) T. E. ‘except that’, 2 C 13:5 EI MH TI ADOKIMOI ESTE ‘unless it were so’, Mk 6:5. EKTOS EI MH (Hellenistic, Nägeli 33; mixture of EI MH and EKTOS EI) with aorist indicative 1 C 15:2, with subjunctive 14:5 EKTOS EI MH DIEERMHNEUHi (-NEUWN D*), cf. §372(3), Homil Clem 11.6.6, 17.16.4; without verb 1 T 5:19, Homil Clem 17.8.6 (ibid. with the optative; 18.6.4, 14.2 with present indicative, 10.9.3 EKTOS EI MH  TIS OU BLEPEI ‘unless 
 not’). EKTOS EI MH: J. Vendryes, Bull. Soc. Ling. 46 (1950) 16f. Just as EI has driven out EAN for the most part in these constructions, EI often appears for the EAN of the sentence in its full form in the elliptical formula EI DE MH(GE) ‘otherwise’ (§439(1)), while EAN DE MH does not appear at all. The situation is comparable in Attic
 (§480(6)); MGr EIDEMH(S) ‘otherwise’. 
       
  Blass, F., Debrunner, A., & Funk, R. W. (1961). A Greek grammar of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (191). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


  
Note that immediately preceding this verse in 6.5 we find 
   
  KAI OUK EDUNATO EKEI POIHSAI OUDEMIAN DUNAMIN, ** EI MH ** OLIGOIS ARRWSTOIS EPIQEIS TAS XEIRAS EQEREPEUSEN
   
  george
  gfsomsel
  _________
  
Oun Kwon <kwonbbl at gmail.com> wrote:
  Hi there,

On journey the disciples are told not to take things (in Mt 10:10 and
in Lk 9:3). Here is the pertinent clause in Mk.

Mk 6:8b

EI MH hRABDON MONON MH ARTON MH PHRAN MH EIS THN ZWNHN CALKON



Now, the problem is that all the translations read this as 'except a
staff' taking parenthetically. This makes the Markan text
contradictory to the rest of the synoptics. What is the grammatical
basis of this rendering (unacceptable to me)? What I can see is
simply 'EI' before the MH hRABDON. If EI has to mean 'except', why it
should govern hRABDON only, not the whole items listed?

Since all the items are listed in a manner of MH ~ MH ~ ...., as for
me, I am tempted to read this as

'not a single staff, nor pouch, no loaf of bread, no coins in their
money-belt';

I am not sure how I should understand the conjunction EI.

Thanks for your help.

Oun Kwon.


george
gfsomsel
_________
		
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