I have several Greek-English Interlinear New Testaments on my bookshelf and while leafing through them I noticed something that shouldn't be there: the indefinite article "a." Now Greek does not have an indefinite article. Greek only has the definite article, 24 forms of the definite article in fact. But, just like the biblehub image above, practically all of my Interlinears include the "a" page after page. This is deceptive as it leads the reader to believe that the indefinite article belongs in places where it is placed in the Greek interlinear translation, and where it is not included the reader then concludes that it is not supposed to be there. For instance, the example above is from John 4:19 where we have a nominative before the verb. The word-for-word English should read: "
I understand that prophet are."
* Now, if you take the same Greek-English interlinears (biblehub, Marshall, George Ricker Berry, Jay P. Green etc) and turn to John 1:1c where it also has a nominative before the verb, the "a" is excluded.
What this means is that your interlinear is making a interpretive theological decision for you.
I only have one interlinear that properly omits the indefinite article "a" at both John 1:1c and John 4:19, and most everywhere else in the word-for-word translation, and that is the
Kingdom Interlinear Translation.
* [A proper
non-interlinear translation would of course include the "a" in such a construction.]
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