Wormwood
Chaps
No one taught me this, nor have I seen it anywhere else. Calling me a liar does not avoid the fact that all my personal research for this, which took me a number of years, is available in the links I have given you. Even the first 5 'Lessons,' when carefully examined, show the truth of the matter. There are numerous examples for theos requiring the article to mean "God," and I have listed all of them in the original study.
It wasn't until I finished this study (and several other trinity 'proofs'), that I rejected the trinity. In all it took me nearly ten years (1982) before I was totally convinced. So your constant, insulting comments that I lied and really received this information elsewhere only underlines your ignorance.
There are a number of noted Trinitarian scholars and grammarians who point out the article irregularity with personal names, abstract nouns, mass nouns, and nouns modified by prepositions and genitives! I have given their names and presented a number of examples which show these irregularities for "prepositional" nominative nouns in the links you have ignored.
It's all your own choice. Remain ignorant of the actual intended meaning of John 1:1c if you wish. Just know that I have done exactly what Colwell, Harner, Wallace, et al. have done by examining examples to arrive at a proper conclusion (rule). The only difference is that I removed all the faulty examples and listed all (nearly twenty) the proper examples. So, examine the links, or examine Lesson A. with me step by step, or remain in your willing ignorance. Horse/water/drink.
1. Tigger, I did not call you a liar. I said your arguments sound exactly like what is found on JW sites and is a regular line of argumentation they use. I specifically said that your claims were nonsense that were either derived by you or a JW professor who taught you. Saying you were taught by a JW professor does not mean you didn't do research. I went to a lot of schools and did a lot of research on my own, but also sometimes had guidance by a professor or learned from books written by other scholars. So, I was not calling you a liar, but was saying that we all learn from someone and sometimes we do not even know specifically where we heard or received ideas. Perhaps you completely self-taught yourself Greek and your views on John 1:1 were derived entirely on your own and you never had any JW influences in your life growing up. However, I just find it likely that you learned things from some books or some people...as that is how most of us learn. Again, that does not discount your own personal research and was not intended to imply you were lying about your study. However, I just think you need to take a hard look at this since tens of thousands of Greek scholars who have translated hundreds of English translations, such as NIV, ESV, RSV, ASV, NLT, etc. reject your self-taught claims. At some point, if you are self taught, you may want to stop and think, "Maybe these thousands of people know something I do not know."
2. Your approach makes me HIGHLY skeptical. Why is it that you only want to look at words ending with the sigma? Why is it that you want to eliminate every instance that has a modifier? Why is it you want to only look at John's writings? To me, this just looks like someone who is trying to find a way to see what they want to see. If a person is open and honestly trying to understand a grammatical rule, they look at the language in general and how it works, both in biblical literature and non-biblical literature. That is what Greek scholars do. They don't say, "Lets develop grammatical rules based on author-specific writings on words that only end in sigma." I mean, there is NO difference between Theos and Theon. They are both singular nouns that are translated "God." One is simply in the nominative form and the other in the accusative form. To create a rule for articles and discount accusative nouns, omit nouns with adjectives, omit nouns near prepositional phrases and only look at John's writings seems very strangely contrived. To be frank, it just looks like you are looking for something rather than just making general observances about the Greeks usage of articles.
3. Finally, the thrust behind Cowell's Rule is that he observed multiple variants of different texts where the early scribes would write the same verse using two different structures. One would have the PN before the verb and the other would have it following the verb. When the variant had the verse AFTER the verb, it would have the definite article. When it would precede the verb, the article was dropped. Thus, Colwell was looking at what the early scribes were saying by the way they translated the same verse in different ways. So, it is not just that Colwell observed other places in the NT where the context made it obvious that the PN preceding the verb demanded an article, but he observed how early scribes would translate the same definite noun with both structures and would drop the article if they put the PN before the verb. Anyway, the notion that tens of thousands of translators and Colwell are just cooking up rules in order to push a Trinitarian agenda just doesn't hold water. There are plenty of Greek scholars who aren't even Christian who affirm this fact. In fact, the only group I have ever seen that has attempted to mandate the indefinite article for John 1:1 are JWs who are clearly driven by a theological agenda.
May I ask, are you a Jehovah's Witness?