εἰ δὲ μή John 14:2 and Xen. Oeconomicus 3.12-13

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Stephen Hughes
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εἰ δὲ μή John 14:2 and Xen. Oeconomicus 3.12-13

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Rather than fostering a bulbous outgrowth on Paul's daily devotion's thread, even though it concerns an issue arising from his January 4th selection - let me give Mr Wood's point a discussable life of its own.
Paul-Nitz wrote:04-Jan-15

John 14:2
ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου μοναὶ πολλαί εἰσιν• εἰ δὲ μή, εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν
In my father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you.
εἰ…, …[Past Tense] ἂν. ________ If… would have…
Wes Wood wrote:Also, there is a grammatical structure in John 14:2 that Mr. Hughes may (or may not) be interested in picking up for his Xenophon list of New Testament parrallels. (Ei de mh...this rascal vexed me greatly the other night when the last mh found in this phrase in my reading was not acting to negate the phrase I felt it should have been. If I understood Smyth correctly, it sometimes does this but may still be glossed as "otherwise" without affecting negation of the verb if this occurs. I believe this to be a perfect example of trying to explain things that one does not understand in a way that sails over a child's head...)
Thank you for bringing that to my attention Mr Wood. It seems you making reference to
Xenophon, Oeconomicus, Chapter 3 wrote: [12] πάντως δ᾽, ἔφη, ὦ Κριτόβουλε (φίλοι γάρ ἐσμεν οἱ παρόντες) ἀπαληθεῦσαι δεῖ πρὸς ἡμᾶς. ἔστιν ὅτῳ ἄλλῳ τῶν σπουδαίων πλείω ἐπιτρέπεις ἢ τῇ γυναικί; οὐδενί, ἔφη. ἔστι δὲ ὅτῳ ἐλάττονα διαλέγῃ ἢ τῇ γυναικί; [13] εἰ δὲ μή, οὐ πολλοῖς γε, ἔφη. ἔγημας δὲ αὐτὴν παῖδα νέαν μάλιστα καὶ ὡς ἐδύνατο ἐλάχιστα ἑωρακυῖαν καὶ ἀκηκουῖαν; μάλιστα. οὐκοῦν πολὺ θαυμαστότερον εἴ τι ὧν δεῖ λέγειν ἢ πράττειν ἐπίσταιτο ἢ εἰ ἐξαμαρτάνοι.
In a way it is a parallel, in another way, it is not. But of course, it is good to explore the ground around the campsite before pitching our John 14:2 tent.

The Xenophon passage begins with a "truth or dare" type statement; πάντως δ᾽, ἔφη, ὦ Κριτόβουλε (φίλοι γάρ ἐσμεν οἱ παρόντες C'mon we're all mates here.) ἀπαληθεῦσαι δεῖ πρὸς ἡμᾶς It's okay to tell us the truth. statement, the sense of which flows on to the part that you have brought our attention to, as we will see. , the phrase preceding εἰ δὲ μή reads as ἔστι δὲ {the sense of a τις is to be understood here} ὅτῳ ἐλάττονα διαλέγῃ ἢ τῇ γυναικί; {Tell us if it is the case} that there {anybody} to whom you would speak to less, than {you would speak} to your wife? [13] {He thinks about it, tilts back his head (the Greek gesture for "No." = οὐκ δὲ ἔστι {τις} ὅτῳ ἐλάττονα διαλέγῃ ἢ τῇ γυναικί indicative), then says} εἰ δὲ μή If it were not the case (the truth of the statement (not the content of it) is logically questioned, and an alternative given) that the person I spoke least to was my wife, οὐ πολλοῖς γε there would not be many to whom I would speak to less than I would speak to her, ἔφη. quoth he.

In terms of the dictionary reference, there are two possibilities in LSJ for the phrase, but actually, it seems to fit (or fall) into the gap between them:
LSJ εἰ VII.2 wrote:2. with apodosis suppressed for rhetorical reasons I present that as the tilting back of the head., εἴ περ γάρ κ᾽ ἐθέλῃσιν Ὀλύμπιος . . στυφελίξαι if he wish to thrust him away, [he will do so], Il.1.580; εἰ μὲν δώσουσι γέρας—: εἰ δέ κε μὴ δώωσιν, ἐγὼ δέ κεν αὐτὸς ἕλωμαι if they shall give me a prize, [well and good]; but if they give not, then I will take one for myself, 1.135, cf. 6.150, Ar.Pl.468; καὶ ἢν μὲν ξυμβῇ ἡ πεῖρα—: εἰ δὲ μή . . and if the attempt succeed, [well]; otherwise . . , Th.3.3, cf. Pl.Prt.325d.
LSJ εἰ VII.3.b wrote:b. εἰ δὲ μή but if not, i.e. otherwise, “προηγόρευε τοῖς Λαμψακηνοῖσι μετιέναι Μιλτιάδεα, εἰ δὲ μή, σφέας πίτυος τρόπον ἀπείλεε ἐκτρίψειν” Hdt.6.37, cf. 56; after μάλιστα μέν, Th.1.32,35, etc.:—after a preceding neg One that is not stated, but understood.., μὴ τύπτ᾽: εἰ δὲ μή, σαυτόν ποτ᾽ αἰτιάσει don't beat me; otherwise, you will have yourself to blame, Ar.Nu. 1433; “ὦ Κῦρε, μὴ οὕτω λέγε: εἰ δὲ μή, οὐ θαρροῦντά με ἕξεις” X.Cyr.3.1.35; “οὔτ᾽ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι τὰ ὅπλα ἦν ἔχειν: εἰ δὲ μή” Id.An.4.3.6, cf. Th.1.28, 131, Pl.Phd.91c.
The mood "hidden" in past time reference of εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν is also not really a parallel, but a parallel with discussion required. I think that the Johannine mood would be subjunctive had it been necessary to write in the present tense, while the Xenophontic would be optative had the sense of the οὐ πολλοῖς γε been needed to have been written out in full (I'm not sure whether that ellipsis can rightly be called an example of aposiopesis (ἀποσιώπησις) or not - it could be seen as a situation where despite the parenthetic φίλοι γάρ ἐσμεν οἱ παρόντες, modesty may have gotten the better of him.
______

BTW... The intended outcome of the search for parallels is a list of examples of syntactic parallels from other literature to illustrate New Testament constructions that on the face of them seem to need to analysed word by word, but are actually following a pattern that is not easy to notice with only New Testament reading experience - as in the case of this εἰ δὲ μή. The New Testament is valuable in its own right, and familiar to B-Greek participants, so my parallels are worded from that perspective, but nobody expects that the New Testament is the best way to illustrate passages of Xenophon.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Wes Wood
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Re: εἰ δὲ μή John 14:2 and Xen. Oeconomicus 3.12-13

Post by Wes Wood »

Thanks for this! I was operating under the assumption that you are attempting to help those whose primary exposure with Greek is the New Testament to get into other Koine texts. I know I have read John 14:2 before, but I was unaware of the depth of that particular phrase. For me, seeing the phrase in Xen. helped both ways! (And your explanation was better than anything I could formulate at this point. :) )
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: εἰ δὲ μή John 14:2 and Xen. Oeconomicus 3.12-13

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Wes Wood wrote:Thanks for this! I was operating under the assumption that you are attempting to help those whose primary exposure with Greek is the New Testament to get into other Koine texts.
Motorcycles, cars and buses all carry people places. Buses carry lots of people, so this reading together is not a bus. Motorcycles are pretty bare to the wind, but now you've found that there was something much larger than yourself hidden as we were travelling. The vehicle conceptually closer to our reading, then, is the car, and now you know what is in the boot. It can all be unpacked backwards (FILO) when we arrive at the end of our journey.
Wes Wood wrote: I know I have read John 14:2 before, but I was unaware of the depth of that particular phrase. For me, seeing the phrase in Xen. helped both ways!
Many forms of background knowledge help. If you knew what context words were usually used in, that would help too - like farming, legal, administrative or the like.
Wes Wood wrote:(And your explanation was better than anything I could formulate at this point. :) )
It would have been better if I had quoted the part of Smyth that you alluded to.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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