78 Trent A. Rogers The study of οὖν is especially indebted to Julius Mantey in his disser- tation, The Meaning of Οὖν in John’s Writings10. This work was pivotal for freeing English translations from slavishly interpreting οὖν with an inferential meaning. He proves through a thorough analysis of the papyri available to him that οὖν at the time of the Gospel of John’s composi- tion was used more widely than the inferential use that is more common in Classical Greek. He responds especially to the Revised Version of the Bible and commentators such as Westcott who argued that οὖν should only be translated inferentially11. Commentators, Bible translators, and grammarians now approach οὖν as a more diversified particle. Neverthe- less, Mantey’s work merits revisiting for a number of reasons. First, few scholars read Mantey today. Second, some of his classifications are mis- taken. Third, he fails to recognize several distinguishable uses. Fourth, he devotes little attention to trends of οὖν in larger sections of the Gospel and the Gospel as a whole. Fifth, he works with a constructed text. Sixth, although he studies the use of οὖν especially in non-NT papyri, impor- tant NT papyri were not yet available to him, such as P66 and P75. I. Uses of Οὖν in P6612 That John’s Greek is different from that of other New Testament writ- ers in some peculiarities needs no demonstration, and the debate over the reason for John’s distinctives is well covered in the secondary literature. 10 J. R. Mantey, “The Meaning of Οὖν in John’s Writings”, (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1920). Two shorter studies are especially informative: V. S. Poythress, “The Use of the Intersentence Conjunctions De, Oun, Kai, and Asyndeton in the Gospel of John”, NovT 26 (1984) 312-40, and R. Buth, “Οὖν, Δέ, Καί, and Asyndeton in John’s Gospel”, in D. A. Black - K. G. L. Barnwell - S. H. Levinsohn (ed.), Linguistics and New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Discourse Analysis (Nashville 1992) 144-61. Poythress and Buth, while demonstrating great facility in linguistics, pay little attention to the textual history of John’s Gospel and work primarily with a constructed text. For Matthew’s use of conjunctions, see S. L. Black, Sentence Conjunction in the Gospel of Matthew: καί, δέ, τότε, γάρ, οὖν and Asyndeton in Narrative Discourse (JSNTSup 216; New York 2002). 11 B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (London 1908). Mantey estimated that οὖν was mistranslated in 60 percent of the occurrences in contemporary English translations. E.A. Abbott, Johannine Grammar (London 1906) §§ 2191-2200, also reacts against the use of οὖν in the R.V. 12 With few exceptions, the text of P66 presented here is from Comfort - Barrett, Com- plete Text. A few characteristics of P66 are noted here. First, P66 is fond of iotacism, so that the diphthongs occasionally vary from the Nestle-Aland text. Second, P66 abbreviates common words for Jesus, God, and Lord. Third, P66 displays few grammatical markers. Fourth, the text of P66 is fragmentary at some points, so a reconstruction is offered in this