John 10:10b understanding the clauses

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dougknighton
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John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by dougknighton »

I'm curious about John 10:10b ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν. Should we construe περισσὸν as a noun in the structure, epexegetical of ζωὴν? This seems as if it might make καὶ mean 'indeed,' rather than 'and.' On the other hand, if καὶ is 'and,' it would be saying that Jesus' sheep would have both life and abundance, meaning that his sheep would not die and would have more than enough, in contrast to the consequences of an encounter with a thief, which would be death and deprivation (10a). But I've never seen anyone construe it this way. If John had meant it to be an attributive adjective, wouldn't he have simply written, ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν περισσὸν ἔχωσιν, or something like this? As it is, most English translations use an adverbial construction to convey the adjectival relationship: "have [it] abundantly" = "have abundant life." But is that normal/reasonable for a structure like this? Clarification would be appreciated.

Doug Knighton
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Stephen Carlson »

περισσόν is a neuter adjective, which can be used like an adverb. I would expect an attributive adjective for ζωή to be feminine.
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by dougknighton »

Stephen, thanks for correcting my attributive adjective construction. But can't περισσὸν also function as a substantive? It seems to in other contexts. In this text it parallels ζωὴν as an object of a verb, and it's linked by the conjunction in what seems to be a separate clause. So while it does sometimes function as an adverb, why should we construe it that way here?
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jonathan Robie »

dougknighton wrote: December 30th, 2021, 12:02 am Stephen, thanks for correcting my attributive adjective construction. But can't περισσὸν also function as a substantive? It seems to in other contexts. In this text it parallels ζωὴν as an object of a verb, and it's linked by the conjunction in what seems to be a separate clause. So while it does sometimes function as an adverb, why should we construe it that way here?
I see one passage, Romans 3:1, where it is used as a substantive, but it is nominalized with an article there - τὸ περισσὸν:

Τί οὖν τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ Ἰουδαίου ἢ τίς ἡ ὠφέλεια τῆς περιτομῆς;

That corresponds to this sense from BDAG:
BDAG wrote:① pert. to that which is not ordinarily encountered, extraordinary, remarkable (Pla., Apol. 20c οὐδὲν τῶν ἄλλων περισσὸν πραγματεύεσθαι; BGU 417, 22 περισσὸν ποιήσω=I am going to do someth. extraordinary; En 102:7) τί περισσὸν ποιεῖτε; what are you doing that is remarkable? Mt 5:47 (cp. Plut., Mor. 233a τί οὖν μέγα ποιεῖς; what, then, are you doing that is so great?—ELombard, L’Ordinaire et l’Extraordinaire [Mt 5:47]: RTP 15, 1927, 169–86). Subst. τὸ περισσόν the advantage (WSchubart, Der Gnomon des Idios Logos 1919, 102 [II A.D.]) τὸ π. τοῦ Ἰουδαίου the advantage of the Judean (Jew) Ro 3:1 (s. Ἰουδαῖο 2a). LCerfaux, Le privilège d’Israël sel. s. Paul: ETL 17, ’40, 5–26.
I looked at a handful of lexicons, they seem to flag substantive use and include the article in these examples. None of them identify this word as a noun.

To function as a substantive in this verse, as Doug suggests, I think it would probably have to at least add an article - here is the verse with the article added:

ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ τὸ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν.

What do people think of the above sentence, which is made-up Greek. Is it natural? Or would it be more natural to use a noun like περισσεία or περίσσευμα? My intuition says it might be correct Greek, but it at least muddies the parallelism that Doug wants to see here.

Compare to:

2 Cor 8:14 ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ τὸ ὑμῶν περίσσευμα εἰς τὸ ἐκείνων ὑστέρημα
Rom 5:17 πολλῷ μᾶλλον οἱ τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος

So I wonder if it wouldn't be more natural to write this, if it were the intended meaning:

ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περίσσευμα ἔχωσιν.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jean Putmans »

Montanari and Mayser have περισσον as Substantive!

I added also Jacobitz-Seiler 1843, he doesn't identify περισσον as noun, but as he explicitely identifies τα περισσα as an adverb, he probabluy didn't think (το) περισσον as an adverb. (Jacobitz can be downloaded here at the Digitizing Centre of the Muenich University, in a great scan-quality! : https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/s ... terbuch%29)
περισσοσ Jacobitz-Seiler 1843.png.pdf
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περισσοσ Montanari.pdf
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Mayser Bd II-1 1926.pdf
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See the three Attachments (I hope, you can read German)
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Can you embed (rather than link) these images for people viewing the forum on their phones or other limited devices?
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jean Putmans »

Embedding scanned-PDF-Pages

1: Might seem a bit stupid: How is that done in this forum?

2: Would the readers be happy viewing a PDF-Scan-Page on a Phone?

Regards

Jean
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote: January 3rd, 2022, 12:46 am Can you embed (rather than link) these images for people viewing the forum on their phones or other limited devices?
One way to do this: take a screenshot of the portion you are interested in and attach it to your post.

Also: can you please look up examples and quote them here? After reading Mayser, I went looking for examples of παρέχει περισσὀν, but didn't find them quickly (I only gave it a few minutes).
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jean Putmans »

Mayser did research on the Greek Papyri in Egypt.
The text he quotes is a Letter of a Maron to a Zenon.
This text is published in the series

Pubblicazioni della Societa italiana per la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto
Volume V (downloadable: https://archive.org/details/papirigreci ... 8/mode/2up) page 81/82, 500
PSI-V-500-1.jpeg
PSI-V-500-1.jpeg (73.51 KiB) Viewed 4123 times
PSI-V-500-2.jpeg
PSI-V-500-2.jpeg (134.6 KiB) Viewed 4123 times
Jean Putmans
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Re: John 10:10b understanding the clauses

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Jean Putmans wrote: January 3rd, 2022, 12:31 pm Mayser did research on the Greek Papyri in Egypt.
The text he quotes is a Letter of a Maron to a Zenon.
So he's looking at this:
Διόδωρος δὲ παρέχει περισσὸν τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν καθ᾽ ἐχάστην ἡμέραν
Mayser says περισσὸν functions as a noun here?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
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