re: John 1.1c

To: b-greek@virginia.edu
Subject: re: John 1.1c
From: stcdc <stcdc@cais.cais.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 1994 18:21:09 -0500 (EST)
Cc: mondorer@a1.cs.hscsyr.edu
On 25 Nov 94 Robert Mondore wrote:


<There are so many fallacies in Mr. Craig's "a god" translation of John 1:1,
<that I scarcely know where to begin to answer.  I have a choice of either
<
<As a side note, it is very interesting that the Jehovah's Witnesses appeal
<to Harner's article in support of their translation of John 1:1 (The 
<Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, 1985, appendix pg. 1140). It 
<was of no surprise to me (as I have double checked many of their references)
<that Harner's article not only did NOT support their translation, but  
<that it actually refuted their position (I find this to be the case in many of their
<appeals to scholars and reference works).
<
It has also been my observation with Jehovah's Witnesses that they 
grossly misinterpret those scholars they claim support their position. 
For example, on page 28 of their tract <Should you Believe in the 
Trinity?>, they quote E.C.Colwell's *A Definite Rule for the Use of the 
Article in the Greek New Testament (1933, JBL, 12-21). The statement, 
correctly taken from page 13 of Colwell's article, reads "A definite 
predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does 
not have the article when it preceeds the verb". The JW tract immediately 
goes on to say that "by this he (Colwell) meant that a predicate noun 
preceeding the verb should be understood as though it did have the 
definite article in front of it. At John 1:1, the second noun (theos), 
the predicate, preceeds the verb - "and [theos] was the Word". So, 
Colwell claimed, John 1:1 should read "and [the God] was the Word"".

Go figure!

Chuck Arnold
Upper Marlboro, MD