[b-greek] Re: theos and ho theos'

From: dixonps@juno.com
Date: Sat Mar 03 2001 - 14:05:51 EST


On Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:00:02 EST Polycarp66@aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 3/1/2001 5:11:42 AM Central Standard Time,
> tremaine@exploremaine.com writes:

> This little discussion jogged a memory from my seminary
> days so I got out and dusted off my venerable copy of C.F.D.
> Moule _An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek_. On pp.
> 115, 16 he discusses this very question. He states,
>
> "7. Much more recently, E.C. Colwell has made important
> observations on the matter. He formulates and supports
> with evidence a rule 'to describe the use of the article with
> definite predicate pronouns in sentences in which the
> verb occurs. (1) Definite predicate nouns here regularly
> take the article.
> (2) The exceptions are for the most part due to a change
> in word-order: (a) definite predicate nouns which follow
> the verb (this is the usual order) usually take the article;
> (b) definite predicate nouns which precede the verb
> usually lack the article; (c) proper names regularly lack
> the article in the predicate; (d) predicate nominatives in
> relative clauses regularly follow the verb whether or not
> they have the article' (p. 20)."
>
> "The bearing of 2 (b) above on certain famous problems
> becomes immediately obvious; for instance (as Colwell
> himself points out) Matt. xxvii. 54 ALHQWS QEOU hUIOS
> HN hOUTOS may, after all mean . . . the Son of God,
> the omission of the article not necessitating the translation
> a Son of God. Similarly it may the demands of this idiom,
> and not any intention to convey a distinction in meaning,
> which create a contrast such as that between Matt. xiii. 37
> hO SPEIRWN . . . ESTIN hO hUIOS TOU ANQRWPOU
> and John v.27 hOTI hUIOS ANQRWPOU ESTIN (cf. under
> 'Semitisms' II. vi.below, p. 177). More striking still is the
> application of this canon to the much debated John i. 1.
> Is the omission of the article in QEOS HN hO LOGOS
> nothing more than a matter of idiom?

I thought Colwell's fallacy, as well as the fallacy of subsequent
scholars, had by now been fairly well documented and read in seminaries.
The fallacy is what motivated my thesis in 1975. Colwell himself and
subsequent scholars, including the venerable C.F.D. Moule above,
committed logical blunder by concluding from Colwell's rule that any
degree of definitenees may be affirmed from an anarthrous predicate
nominative whether it be precopulative or otherwise.

Colwell's rule says that definite predicate nominatives preceding the
verb usually are anarthrous. The rule says nothing about definiteness. It
does not say that anarthrous predicate nominatives preceding the verb
usually are definite. This is the converse of the rule, and as such is
not a valid implication. Colwell considered only definite predicate
nouns in his study. In my study I did what he should have done and
considered all occurrences of the anarthrous predicate nominative in
John's gospel, contextually determined the nuance of each, then drawing
statistical conclusions. Check Wallace's "Advanced Greek Grammar" and
other late grammars for attestation of this.

Besides, if QEOS in 1:1c is definite, does this mean the LOGOS of 1:1c is
to be identified with the TON QEON of 1:1b, so that the LOGOS is both
PROS TON QEON and TON QEON?

Paul Dixon

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