From: KevLAnder@aol.com
Date: Fri Aug 18 1995 - 15:11:15 EDT
It is truly unfortunate that so much misunderstanding and misuse of Colwell's
Rule has been propogated for the cause of orthodoxy--and all this revolving
around one verse of Scripture, J 1:1. Why, even in the recent Greek grammar
authored by David Alan Black (Broadman, 1993, on p 182) Colwell's Rule is
incorrectly articulated (pardon the pun, please). But, then again, now I am
not so sure about that either.
Paul Dixon in a recent post has cited E.C. Colwell himself as employing his
"Rule" in a circular fashion.
> "Loosely speaking, this study may be said to have increased the
definiteness
> of a predicate noun before the verb without the article, and to have
decreased the
> definiteness of a predicate noun after the verb without the article" (E.
C. Colwell, "A
> Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek Testament," JBL 52
(1933):13).
If I had doubts before about Colwell's Rule, or discomfort about talking of
an 87% probability that a definite predicate noun preceding an equative verb
will be anarthrous, I am woefully uncertain now. If Colwell himself played
fast and loose with his own Rule, then what can be said concerning the
soundness of his research methodology as a whole on this matter? Perhaps I
had better go back and read Colwell's 1933 article. Or better yet, I ought to
take a look at the raw data of the Greek Testament and discover for myself
whether Colwell was really on to something or not.
I would like to thank Paul Dixon for such an informative post, although I
would have liked to have read more of what he has to say upon this head.
Hence, I am curious to ask him the same question that I have asked myself:
So what becomes of Colwell's Rule?
Kevin L. Anderson
Concord, CA
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