Q:

John 2:4 Translation

I was wondering if anyone had some insight on the translation of John 2:4. The verse seems to be rendered in a variety of ways, usually either that Jesus says the lack of wine is of no concern to Him, or to both Him and Mary.
All the Greek texts I found seem to contain the same phrase "Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί", so I don't suppose the difference in translation has to do with textual variants. My limited understanding of Greek suggests that both "ἐμοὶ" and "σοί" are in the dative case, if that's of any significance. The same phrase is found a few times in the Septuagint as well as the New Testament (e.g. Judges 11:12 & Mark 5:7), where it seems to have the sense, "What conflict is there between  us?" or "What do you have against me?"

SBLGNT:
καὶ λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι; οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου.

A literal translation of the Greek seems a bit ambiguous in meaning:

YLT:
Jesus saith to her, 'What -- to me and to thee, woman? not yet is mine hour come.'

Some popular translations include:

KJV:
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
ESV:
And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come."
NASB:
And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come."

Could someone explain the phrase "Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί" for me? And also, if you could help me understand the translation in the context of the narrative, that would be much appreciated.

A:

This is a typically terse Koine Greek conversation.  The Greek phrase in question is:

Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι

We note the following facts:

ἐμοὶ is dative and thus, "to me"
σοί is dative and thus, "to you/thee" (singular)
γύναι is vocative and thus, "Woman", or, "Ma'am" and is the person to whom the question is addressed.  Thus, in English, this must be placed first, perhaps with a "Dear" or equivalent in front to make it clear we are translating the vocative.
καὶ in this case acts as a cumulative coordinating conjunction.  Thus, technically, ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί could be rendered "us".
Τί is the terse tricky part that is simply "what?"  This is simply an interrogative.

Thus we might fairly literally translate: "Well Ma'am, what to me and to thee?"  Most versions will add an extra word to render finished product something like:

Dear Woman, What is that to me and to thee? (or "you" in more modern
speech)

Now, what is the significance of this remark?
Jesus repeatedly asked the beneficiaries of His miracles not to tell anyone (eg, Matt 8:4, 16:20, 17:9, Mark 1:44, 7:36, 8:30, Luke 5:14, 8:56, etc) because His hour had not yet come.  The same was true at this wedding in John 2:4 when Jesus says, "My hour has not yet come."  Jesus did not wish to make too much of His miracles because people would follow Him for the wrong reasons
It was much later, very near the end of His ministry that Jesus finally said, "The hour is come" (John 12:23, 17:1, etc)
Thus, Jesus was forced to turn the water into wine in such a way that nobody knew what had happened (John 2:9) except the servants.  Jesus wanted people to follow Him for the beauty and truth of His teaching, and to love Him as their savior, and not as a celestial Santa Claus that works miracles on demand.
We see what happened at the feeding of the 5000 - the crowd wanted to make Jesus king by force so He vanished up the mountain (John 6:14, 15).  Had He not done this, His ministry would have been crippled.

