It’s not as on point as Trudinger, Betz, or Howard, but I’ll quote it for relevance:
Around p. 180:
A special class of elliptical conditional clauses which occurs frequently and needs particular consideration involves the use of ei mê in the sense of ‘except.’
… [But…]
Included in the preceding category are a few examples which are not strictly exceptive. The ei mê protasis does not name the only exception to the negation of the apodosis, but rather it names the only alternative to the apodosis. For example, in Rev 9:4 ei mê tous anthrôpous [“except the men”] does not name the exceptions among ton chorton [etc.] who were not hurt, but rather states another class who, in contrast, were to be hurt. Rev 21:27 tells who will not enter the holy city, then after ei mê it describes a different group who will enter. So also probably Matt 12:4, unless we make the unlikely assumption that the priests mentioned were those who were present in David’s company. There is no difference in the idiom used, and the difference in sense is so obvious[n. 18] that it is almost unnoticed.
…
[n. 18 reads:] Gal. 1:19 is a passage where the difference is of considerable importance, but the issue must be settled on other considerations than the meaning of ei mê.
Boyer thus punts on the question of what Gal. 1:19 means. But he says it’s an “only-alternative” exceptive construction like the others he cites.
He cites Rev. 21:27, for example, which says “and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life,” where clearly the latter category is excluding the former (i.e. those in the second category are not unclean, abominable, or a liar). One might say this is like Gal. 1:19 where the second category (“brother”) excludes the former (which would say those in the that category are never apostles), but Gal. differs in two respects:
Gal. 1:19 says “
another of the apostles” and not “no apostles”; it therefore does not say, as Rev 21:27 does, that the second category wholly excludes the first (so some apostles may yet be brothers, and all Paul is saying is the next person he mentions is simply just not an apostle).
Galatians is using a different construction, correctly identified by Trudinger as the genitive of comparison. Thus, it says “other
than apostles I saw only the brother James.” So Rev. 21:27 is not directly analogous. Paul’s construction is not saying apostles aren’t brothers; it’s just saying
he met someone other than an apostle, someone who happened nevertheless to at least be a brother (and not some outsider or family member of an apostle’s household, etc).
Boyer also cites as an example Rev. 9:4, “they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads,” which again lacks the genitive of comparison and is thus a good parallel for Rev. 21:27 but not, again, Gal. 1:19, except in representing the exceptive force of the idiom (in both cases the second category is supposed in some sense to not include the first, but this construction, not used by Paul, is far stronger in its exclusion than the comparative construction Paul used).
Boyer then cites as an example Matthew 12:4, “it was not lawful for him to eat it, nor for them who were with him, but only for the priests.” This is again not the comparative construction. It could be rendered “it was not lawful for him to eat it, nor for them who were with him, except the priests,” if we imagine David or some among his entourage were priests (which Boyer notes is not a plausible assumption), but that’s still not a grammatical parallel for what Paul is saying in Gal. 1:19.
So though Boyer acknowledges something problematic about the exceptive force of Gal. 1:19 (so much so he is worried about its implications and thus just avoids the question altogether), he doesn’t really analyze its distinctive grammar. Trudinger and Howard do (as do the others cited by Betz).
