Re: Jn 2:4, TI EMOI KAI SOI, GUNAI;
Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 06:09:02 -0500
At 11:20 PM -0500 10/16/97, Micheal Palmer wrote:
>At 9:56 PM -0400 10/14/97, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>>On Tue 14 Oct 97 (11:40:48), dixonps@juno.com wrote:
>>> Does anybody have any helpful insights as to the meaning of these words
>>> spoken by Christ to His mother in Jn 2:4, TI EMOI KAI SOI, GUNAI?
>>
>>Zerwick's "Biblical Greek" has another interesting possibility here - if the
>>clause after this, OUPW HKEI hH hWRA MOU, is taken as a question instead of
>>a statement, then it can be interpreted like this:
>>
>>Mary: OINON OUK EXOUSIN. ("they have no wine")
>>Jesus: TI EMOI KAI SOI, GUNAI? OUPW hHKEI hH hWRA MOU? ("What is that to you
>>and me? Is not my hour already come?")
>>Mary: hO TI AN LEGHi hUMIN POIHSATE ("do whatever he says to you")
>>
>>It seems to make sense...
>
>Except that later in John's Gospel the author says that Jesus' hour has
>*not* come. (See 8:20, for example.) The first time Jesus says it *has*
>come is in 12:23 isn't it?
I guess I didn't catch this when Jonathan first posted it, but it also
seems to me that there's no way that OUPW hHKEI hH hWRA MOU could be
seriously taken as a question. The sense of OUPW is essentially "not
yet"--I don't see any use of it as separable into an interrogative particle
in the sense of "Isn't it so that ... already?" And as Micheal notes, there
are recurrent phrases in John's gospel prior to 12:23 where there's an
equivalent statement by Jesus that the "hour" has not yet come: 7:6, 7:8,
7:30. So I would agree that there isn't really a viable option to
understand OUPW hHKEI hH hWRA MOU here seriously as a question.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
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WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/