Greetings
again, my friends:
Today’s post
was suggested by something which happened to me this past week. Among others I do subscribe to a periodical
letter which goes out by e-mail from a certain scholar who takes a similar view
as mine that we really need to understand the Bible from a Hebraic point of
view instead of a Western/Greek view. He
has written a book about the Gospel of John from a Hebraic view. I noticed, though, that he apparently accepts
the common translation used for its first book as authoritative. So I wrote the author to point out the error
to him.
His answer
was to send me a PDF copy of the article from a scholarly journal from 1933
where Dr. Colwell outlined what has come to be known as Colwell’s Rule,
a rule of Greek grammar often pointed to by people who are not current on
matters of Greek Grammar to justify a misleading translation for John 1.1c. The purpose of this post is to try and examine
the issue and where the scholarship on the matter is right now as well as other
evidence.
The Background
John 1:1 is
a key scripture because it is often the very first verse cited by apologist for
the Trinity doctrine as proof for the trinity.
Most translations since the beginning of vernacular translations in the
Protestant Era translate it almost word for word like this:
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
It seems straightforward
enough, doesn’t it? And this is the
standard translation used by the translators of the Bible for the most part to
this day. However, as the printing press
made books so much cheaper and affordable to the masses they began to acquire
New Testaments in the koine Greek they were passed down in along with Greek
Grammar books, lexicons, and shortly after concordances. As that happened some problems regarding how
the translators handled various texts of the bible began to emerge. Top of the list was John 1:1. Why?
Εν αρχη ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον, και θεος ην ο λογος.
In beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with the God, and god was the Word.
That is John
1:1 according to all the ancient Greek manuscripts I’ve been able to get
pictures, facsimiles or whatever of, they all read the same. I’ve also added a word for word translation
without the benefit of English word order.
My capitalization, or lack thereof, is deliberate by reason of Greek
grammar. The first thing to note is that
both the “Word” and the first occurrence of “God” are capitalized and the
second occurrence of “god” is not. There
is a reason for that.
First of all,
Koine Greek preserves some Hebraisms in the Greek such as an interesting device
when referring to the God of the Bible in the case of a word which could be
cause confusion of adding the definite article, the word the in
English to the word. So we often find
sprinkled throughout the Old Testament the word god with the definite
article added to it to make it clear that it is talking about the God, Jehovah
of Israel. In practice because the
indefinite article would be awkward in the English we simply capitalize the
word God because it serves as a proper noun, a name.
The same
construction occurs in the New Testament and the general practice in those instances
is the same. We see that in the first
instance of the word God in John 1:1 and the Word on all instances,
but it is lacking in the second occurrence of the word god. If we followed general practice, we should
spell the last occurrence of god with the g in lower case since
it is referring to a generic god instead of the God. The meaning of the Greek as written becomes
clearer if we insert what the ancient Greek language didn’t have to indicate
the indefinite or generic, the indefinite article, thus translating the final
clause as “and the Word was a god.” In order for the verse to read as most often
translated the Greek definite article has to be with the second occurrence of
the word god, it’s as simple as that.
Colwell’s rule is all about that problem.
Colwell’s Rule
In 1933 a
Greek scholar named Ernest Cadmen Colwell published the article A Definite
Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament in a journal of
the time in which he outlined a rule which essentially puts the definite article
into the text of John 1:1 as being understood even though it doesn’t
appear there. To quote the scholar DonaldHartley of Southeastern Bible College, who quotes Colwell himself, the rule
basically says that “Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually
lack the article.” In other words, in
copulative clauses the definite article can be understood in the case of predicate
nouns which precede the verb. That’s
what we find in the case of John 1:1. For sixty years that rule stood as holy
writ for justifying the common translation of the final clause of John 1:1 in a
Trinitarian manner.
Colwell’s Rule Reexamined
In time a
scholar named Phillip Harner put the rule to the test and reexamined Colwell’s
methodology, which he found weak. As a
result, he published the article “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark
15:39 and John 1:1,” which found the application of Colwell’s rule to John 1:1
flawed. In its stead he proposed that
the second god in the verse should be understood as qualitative,
functioning more or less as an adjective.
That would mean the clause should be translated along the lines of “and
the Word was godlike.” However,
translators generally avoid that one and instead either stand by the old, or as
in several cases recently, translate it as “and the Word was Divine”
capitalizing the word divine to once again make an association which isn’t in
the Greek.
The point is
that these guys would rather swallow razor blades than admit that the verse isn’t
the Trinitarian mainstay it is used as.
For many years mainstream theologians have condemned the Jehovah’s Witnesses
for translating the clause in their New World Translation as “and the Word was
a god,” thus removing any support for the Trinity doctrine in the verse. To admit in the slightest that translation is
the correct one for the clause is a career killer so they keep on seeking to
justify anything but that. So right now
the current scholarly stand is that the word there is qualitative, much like
the similar construction in 1 John 4:8 “God is love.”
Conclusion
In speaking
of the “last days,” Daniel the prophet was told that “But you, Daniel, shut up
the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and
fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Dan. 12:4, ESV) We believe this was a
prophecy of what happened starting in the 1800s, when knowledge became so
widely available, cheaply available along with an education. Back then those in the high school grades were
often expected to learn at least the basics to biblical Greek as well as Latin. That increase in knowledge led to the wonderful
standard of living we enjoy today made possible by advancing technology.
That very
increase in knowledge made a very big problem for nominal religious leaders in
Christendom because now the masses ad access to the bible in its original
languages as well as various aids which could help anyone who wanted to
understand what it’s message was better.
One of those problems was the discovery that the bible didn’t really
teach in John 1:1 that Jesus is God almighty in the flesh. In 1933 Dr. Colwell published what seemed to
be the perfect answer to the problem, a way to insert the definite article into
the text where it didn’t appear in the first place and solve the problem by
making the text say what nominal Christians leaders say it says.
However,
recent scholars have reexamined the rule and have tossed it aside altogether in
respects to John 1:1 as a misuse of the rule.
Instead they propose in its place to assert the passage speaks qualitatively. Okay, as long as we keep in mind that being
divine, or godlike is not the same as being God himself in a triune
relationship we have no trouble with seeing it that way. But the bottom line is to realize that even
with that nuance the verse does not say what it is often alleged to say. John consciously separated the Word, Jesus,
from God as a separate being with godlike qualities.
Until next
time!
