Colwell's rule and John 1:1

A closer look at John 1:1 and the application of Colwell's rule.

...και θεος ην ο λογος - John 1:1

"...and the Word was ___" …God, divine, or a god?

Colwell's rule is used to insist the translation should be the definite "God". In his 1933 article entitled A definite rule for the use of the article in the Greek New Testament he proposes this rule:

"A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb, it does not have the article when it precedes the verb". 

Let's first define what these terms mean: 

The predicate is the part of a sentence which describes or modifies the subject. For example John 1:5 begins "And the light shines in the darkness" - the light is the subject of the sentence, and shines in the darkness is the predicate. The function of the predicate therefore is to tell us something about the subject and almost always contains a verb plus anything following that verb. The subject + predicate is the simplest way to break down any sentence.

The nominative is a grammatical case of a noun which usually indicates that the noun is the subject within a sentence. English does not modify nouns unlike Greek, making this unfamiliar to us. For example, the word λογος ('word') taken from the topic verse is in the nominative case. In the accusative case, which means the noun is the recipient of the action performed by the verb, it would be written as λογον. And in the genitive case, which is usually preceded by the word 'of', it would be written as λογου (of the word). The grammatical case tells us where in relation to the verb and nouns the word should be placed or understood within the sentence.

So combining these two pieces of information, we can see that Colwell's rule applies to a very specific type of noun; one that is in the nominative case but is actually not the subject of the sentence, instead it acts as the predicate...the predicate nominative. 

The article is a word used before a noun which tells us the definiteness of that noun. In English we use "a" or "the" - the former is the indefinite article while the latter is the definite article; 'the word' implies a particular or specific word from the author, whereas "a word" is unspecific and relates to any word. This becomes important later in understanding the verse in question (a god vs the god), and while the Greek language has a definite article it does not have an indefinite article (there is no word for "a" in Greek). So when a Greek noun has the article before it, it's understood as definite. But when a Greek noun does not have an article before it, it can be either definite, indefinite or qualitative. And it is left for contextual argumentation as to whether that noun should be translated into English with a definite or indefinite article. In Greek, we call a noun that has the definite article arthrous, and one that does not contain the article anarthrous.

Before we revisit the verse, two points need to be made on the capitalization of the noun God:
1) In English, we differentiate between common and proper nouns by capitalizing the first letter of the word. Proper nouns refer to names or specific places, such as Jerusalem or John. Common nouns refer to generic names, such as the town or a man. What's important to understand is that we don't use any articles for proper nouns in English, whereas we require the article for common nouns. So regardless of the Greek article, we always capitalize God if we believe the text is speaking about the God of the Bible, the person that is God, and we do the same for the opposite; using the lowercase god if we believe the text is not referring to the God of the Bible regardless of whether it contains the definite article or not¹.
2) The earliest Greek manuscripts for the New Testament are written in the majuscule script, that is, all capital letters. The minuscule script, which is all lowercase letters, was introduced around the 9th century. So whenever the word god is used in scripture it was originally written as θεος without any inherent difference between the proper noun God and the common noun god. That decision is left to the translator.

Now that we've defined the terms, let's look at John 1:1 again and break down the sentence:

"...and God was the Word"  

"... και θεος  ην  ο   λογος"

The Word is the subject nominative, given that it's in the nominative case and given the context of the verse². In English, and in most translations of this verse, we rearrange the subject to the beginning of the sentence so that it reads "and the Word was...". The definite article ο means we understand it as the word and not a. The verb was is a linking verb which predicate nominatives are usually found following. And here the predicate nominative is God or god and lacks the definite article in Greek. This lack of a definite article is the sole reason that allows for "a god" or "divine" to be a viable translation instead of the more common "God". 

Now with Colwell's rule the application is regarding his second statement; That because the anarthrous predicate nominative θεος precedes the verb in its Greek construction it should be understood as if it had the definite article, and therefore be translated as 'God' and not 'a god' or 'divine'. Colwell is making a specific claim regarding word order. Within his paper Colwell provided a good number of supporting verses to introduce his new rule, but can word order really be a basis for any rule in Greek? Does this rule hold up to scriptural usage? And how many exceptions can a rule take before it no longer exists as a rule?

Colwell was already aware of some of the verses which contradict his rule. Within his paper from the 1930s he made this comment regarding one of them;

"In the field of textual criticism the rule here advocated has an equally definite contribution to make. It shows in certain specific cases what the probabilities are as to the author’s use or non-use of the article. A fine example of this is 2 Peter 1:17, cited as an exception to the rule since Wescott and Hort follow Codex Vaticanus in reading the predicate with the article before the verb ο υιος μου ο αγαπητος μου ουτος εστιν. The evidence given in this study as to the extreme rarity of this construction in the New Testament reinforces Tischendorf’s judgment that the variant read by practically all the rest of the MSS is to be preferred. They read the predicate after the verb with the article, ουτος εστιν ο υιος μου ο αγαπητος μου, the usual Greek construction."

Colwell discounted this exception as an obscure manuscript variation of this Greek construction. This is because if Codex Vaticanus is the original construction of 2 Peter 1:17 with the predicate placed before the verb, then this verse would become another exception against his rule as there shouldn't be a definite article before υιος (son) according to it. However, a couple of decades after Colwell waved this away as a doubtful variation, the oldest surviving manuscript of 2 Peter was discovered in the 1950s (see below) matching the Codex Vaticanus reading and providing further evidence that the original Greek text did not hold to his rule.

Oldest surviving manuscript of 2 Peter, papyrus 72, showing the verb placed at the end of the sentence in 1:17. Between the red markers: ο υιος μου ο αγαπητος μου ουτος εστιν, "the son of me, the beloved of me, this is". You can read the manuscript here

Prior to this point, Colwell created another exception to satisfy his rule:

"Five of the seven put the predicate not only before the verb, but also before the subject, e.g., 1 Corinthians 9:1 ου το εργον μου υμεις εστε εν κυριω. Thus the order in these five Corinthian passages is predicate-subject-verb. This is obviously a stylism temporarily affected by the Apostle to the Gentiles, possibly for the sake of greater emphasis"

As these verses break his rule, Colwell explained away these exceptions based on another claim on word order and brushed aside these verses as simply stylistic affect. In total, Colwell listed 41 verses which he considered to be exceptions to his rule, 15 of which refer to his second statement and to this topic. I will go into what is actually a much larger list of verses which he was either unaware of or had decided not to mention. The verses below lack the definite article and are understood as indefinite³:

List of predicate nominative nouns preceding the verb which have a pronominal subject (pronoun functioning as the subject):

Matthew 5:9, 12:50, 23:8, Mark 3:35, Luke 7:8, 19:9, John 4:19, 8:44, 9:24, 27, 28, 10:1, 33, 15:14, 18:35, 37, Acts 9:15, 2 Corinthians 6:16, 1 Thessalonians 1:6, 2:14, 1 John 2:4, Revelation 2:9

List of predicate nominative nouns preceding the verb with the verb functioning as the subject:

Matthew 14:26, 22:42, 45, Mark 6:49, 11:32, Luke 7:39, 20:27, 38, 44, 22:25, John 5:10, 8:44, 9:8, 17, 25, 10:13, 34, 12:6, 36, 13:35, 18:26, 37, Romans 2:28, 7:3, 13:4, 1 Corinthians 4:9, 6:7, 11:14, 15, 15:12, Galatians 5:3, Hebrews 5:13, 10:33, James 2:23, 4:14, 17, 1 John 2:18, 3:2, 4:20, Revelation 10:6, 18:7, 19:10, 22:9


List of predicate nominative nouns preceding the verb with a subject noun:

Matthew 13:39, Mark 11:17, John 8:34, 10:8, Acts 22:26, 28:4, Romans 1:9, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 7:22, 10:16, Galatians 4:1, Ephesians 5:23, 1 Timothy 6:10, James 3:5, 1 John 2:4, 3:15, Revelation 17:15


All these verses counter Colwell's rule. It is not simply a style of a single author, as the gospel writers, James and the apostle Paul all have placed an anarthrous predicate nominative noun before the verb with an indefinite meaning. But to solidify the point further, the verses below are the most notable examples which match precisely the word order of John 1:1 (predicate-verb-subject), which are neither names nor qualitative in their understanding. Beginning with the topic verse as reference; 

Color code:
Predicate noun 
Verb 
Subject noun 


και θεος ην ο λογος - John 1:1
and a god - was - the word

φονευς εστιν ο ανθρωπος ουτος - Acts 28:4
a murderer - is - the man

ουκουν βασιλευς ει συ - John 18:37
then a king - are - you

ριζα γαρ παντων των κακων εστιν η φιλαργυρια  - 1 Timothy 6:10⁴
for a root of all kinds of evil - is - the love of money

οτι προφητης ει συ - John 4:19
that a prophet - are - you

οτι σκευος εκλογης εστιν μοι ουτος - Acts 9:15
that a vessel of choice - is - to me this [man]


We can see that Colwell's rule is ineffective in insisting that the definite God must be the translation of John 1:1 simply because of word order. The grammatically similar examples above are enough to, at the very least, make one consider the indefinite understanding as a valid reading of the Greek text. Whether the verse should be understood as definite, indefinite, or qualitative, is left to arguments outside the Greek construction. As in Colwell's introduction, I stick with Walter Bauer that "hard and fast rules for the use of the article in Hellenistic Greek are an impossibility". 

But for those that continue to use Colwell's rule to insist on the definite reading, adding exception after exception to the exceptions above, then I am reminded of this;

The rule is always right and you always follow the rule. Except when you don’t. For every rule, there is an exception. So you always follow the rule, except when there is an exception, in which case you follow a new rule based on that exception. Following this pattern always guarantees that you come to the right decision. Except when it doesn’t. There are exceptions to every exception. So the rule is always right, unless there is an exception to that rule, in which case you take the course of action prescribed by the exception, unless there is an exception to that exception, in which case, you follow the course of action prescribed by the exception to the exception.

 

--------------------

1) Some examples of this in scripture are Acts 7:43, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Philippians 3:19.
2) John begins "In [the] beginning was the Word" - in the beginning is the predicate given its in the dative case following the preposition, making the Word the subject of the verse.
3) Some anarthrous plurals have been included in the list where the indefinite is understood. For example "you also became imitators of us" 1 Thessalonians 1:6. If the group are imitators of Paul and Christ, then each person is an imitator within that group. "For they will be called sons of God" Matthew 5:9, each one then is called a son of God.
4) Colwell lists this verse as an example in support of his rule, and some translations do insert the definite article in English. But consider, if the "love of money" is the root of "all evil" (literal translation), would it make sense for the Devil to be motivated by the "love of money"? So it seems the indefinite understanding is preferred. "root" used metaphorically as in Deuteronomy 29:18.