The above is from Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht's book So Many Versions. My copy of this book is the 1983 revised edition. I have several problems with the above, including where they write about "the Word was a god" that "this is completely in harmony with the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses....He is to them not God but a god." I can see where viewing Jesus (the Word) as "a god" would be problematic for the Witnesses as well, which is why he is rarely if ever referred to as such by them.
Now we come to the crux of this article. They write: "A definite predicate noun when it precedes the verb NEVER takes an article in Greek." They are no doubt referring to Colwell's 1933 work: “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament.” When they use the word "Never" I can't tell if they are sloppy, inept, ignorant or just plain prejudiced against a superior translation. You see, even E.C. Colwell gives FIFTEEN exceptions to his Rule. As he says it: "The exceptions to the rule that definite predicate nouns before the verb omit the article are about fifteen in number."
The FIFTEEN exceptions are: Luke 4:41; John 1:21; 6:51; 15:1; Romans 4:13; 1 Corinthians 9:1,2; 11:3; 11:25; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 3:2; 3:17; 2 Peter 1:17; Revelation 19:8; 20:14.
John 15:1 for instance has hO GEWRGOS ESTIN, translated literally as THE (definite article) VINEDRESSER (predicate noun) IS (verb).
FIFTEEN might actually be conservative, when, even at John 20:15 we have hO KHPOUROS ESTIN (the gardener it-is), or, John 21:7 has hO KURIOS ESTIN (the lord it-is)
If you have FIFTEEN exceptions to a Rule, you don't have a Rule. At best we may conclude as Nigel Turner did in A Grammer of the NT Greek that Colwell's Rule “may reflect a general tendency...not absolute by any means.” (Vol. 3, p. 184, 1963)
Perhaps Kubo & Specht just copied (without checking for accuracy) from Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults where he writes: "In fact, the late New Testament Greek scholar Dr. E. C. Colwell formulated a rule that clearly states that a definite predicate nominative (in this case, theos—God) NEVER takes an article when it precedes the verb (was), as we find in John 1:1."
This is why I don't trust the establishment swamp "scholars" that are continuously trotted out to denounce the New World Translation Bible, and I certainly don't trust their numerous Bible versions.
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