Colwell's Rule and John 1:1c

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From the Never Thirsy website: One should also note that a Greek grammatical rule known as Colwell’s rule states that when a predicate nominative (theos) precedes the verb it cannot be considered indefinite. This means the WBS violated a basic Greek grammar rule. As expected, the WBTS takes exception to the rule, but unsuccessfully. In summary, the NWT has ignored the basics of Greek grammar in order to push their theological viewpoint. 
See https://www.neverthirsty.org/bible-qa/qa-archives/question/how-accurate-is-the-new-world-translation/

Reply: The problem with all of this is that no one uses Colwell's Rule any more...it is uniformly rejected. Oh sure, it was used for decades as a defence for the definiteness of John 1:1c. As Daniel Wallace in his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics writes: “Almost immediately many scholars (especially of a more conservative stripe) misunderstood Colwell’s rule. They saw the benefit of the rule for affirming the deity of Christ in John 1:1.” (p. 257)

Jason Beduhn adds in his book, Truth in Translation, "So Bruce Metzger mistakenly writes that 'Colwell's Rule' 'cessitates the rendering' ... and the Word was God' (Metzger 1953, page 75). Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht, in their book So Many Versions? Twentieth-century English Versions of the Bible, say 'It is true that the Greek does not have the article before 'God' here. However, since in this verse in Greek theos (God) is a predicate noun and precedes the verb and subject, it is definite, since a defmite predicate noun when it precedes the verb never takes an article in Greek" (Kubo and Specht, page 99)....Since many Bible readers rely on the opinions of people like Metzger, Kubo, and Specht, it is easy to understand why the public remains ill-informed about assessing Bible translations."

Two other famous 1970's studies were among the first to attack Colwell's Rule. Philip B. Harner in his “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” (p. 87, published in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 92, 1973.) stated “In John 1:1 I think that the qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun cannot be regarded as definite.” Colwell actually stated, "The absence of the article does not make the predicate indefinite or qualitative when it precedes the verb." The other study was provided by Paul S. Dixon in his “The significance of the Anarthrous Predicate Nominative in John”(1975) write: “Colwell’s rule cannot be applied to [John 1:1] as an argument for definiteness...The rule says nothing about definiteness.”

In other words, "Colwell's rule’ is not a valid rule of Greek grammar." Jason Beduhn. As someone else wrote: "Colwell's Rule is incorrectly articulated (pardon the pun, please)."

But let's take the Never Thirty's website statement "that when a predicate nominative (theos) precedes the verb it cannot be considered indefinite."

Simply looking in the Gospel of John, over half of the pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nominatives (such as in John 1:1c) actually appear to be indefinite. For example:

John 4:19 has PROFHTHS EI SU which translates to: "you are a prophet."

John 6:70 has DIABOLOS ESTIN which translates to: "is a slanderer."

John 8:34 has DOULOS ESTIN which translates to: "is a slave."

John 8:44 has ANQRWPOKTONOS HN which translates to "a murderer."

John 8:44 has EUSTHS ESTIN which translates to "he is a liar."

John 8:48 has SAMARITHS EI SU which translates to "you are a Samaritan."

John 9:8 has PROSAITHS HN which translates to "as a beggar."

John 9:17 has PROFTHS ESTIN which translates to "He is a prophet."

John 9:24 has hAMARTWLOS ESTIN which translates to "is a sinner."

John 9:25 has hAMARTWLOS ESTIN which translates to "he is a sinner."

John 10:1 has KLEPTHS ESTIN which translates to "is a thief"

John 10:13 has MISQWTOS ESTIN which translates to "a hired hand."

John 12:6 has KLEPTHS HN which translates to "he was a thief."

John 18:35 has MHTI EGO IOUDAIOS EIMI which translates to "I am not a Jew, am I?"

John 18:37 has BASILEUS EI SU which translates to "So you are a king?"

John 18:37 also has BASILEUS EIMI EGW which translates to "I am a king."

Notice the indefinite article "a" inserted, in all of these examples. A definite translation would turn John 8:48 to "you are Samaritan" or "you are the Samaritan" which doesn't really work. A qualitative translation would mean that we would translate John 9:25 as "he is sinful", which would work, but most Bibles I have examined don't translate it that way.

In conclusion, the translation "the Word was a god" is a grammatical, proper  and better translation for John 1:1c, despite some fake rules. The acceptance of this Piltdown Man of Greek Grammar should make us question these types of "scholars" and their research methodology.

This Kindle book, And the Word was a god: Conversations on the Most Disputed Text in the New Testament - John 1:1 is available on Amazon by clicking here
Visit a local listing for this book here