With apologies to Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Many modern Bible translations are based on a critical text like the Nestle-Aland 27 (NA27). At John 14:14 such texts read: ἐάν τι αἰτήσητέ με ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου ἐγὼ ποιήσω, "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." (English Standard Version)
New Testament textual scholars consider the Alexandrian text to be generally "the best text and the most faithful in preserving the original." (Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, p. 5) The "me" reading is found in a number of such ancient textual witnesses, including p66 (2nd century).
The Sahidic Coptic text (2nd/3rd century) is also in the Alexandrian text family. Like still other ancient witnesses, it does not have "me" at John 14:14.
Rather, the Sahidic Coptic text reads: ЄΤЄΤΝϢΑΝΑΙΤЄΙ ΝΟΥϨШΒ ϨΜ ΠΑΡΑΝ ΠΑΙ ϯΝΑΑΑϤ, "If you should ask anything in my name, this I will do."
Some scholars think that "ask me" is original because it is the more difficult reading. That is a consideration, but a more important consideration would be if it squares with everything else that Jesus said and did.
"Ask me" would be logical in the immediate context of Jesus' speaking with his disciples while he was still with them. Even the first Christian martyr Stephen implored Jesus as if he were still present. (Acts 7:59) But it is not unusual that Jesus as a living presence would still resonate with Stephen, since Jesus' ministry and resurrection were recent events for Stephen.
However, beyond that context, Jesus directs Christians to pray to "Our Father" (Matthew 6:9), and the apostle Paul said "I bend my knees to the Father." (Ephesians 3:14)
There is no other verse in the New Testament where Jesus requests or directs that prayer as an act of worship should be addressed to him. If the "me" reading is original, it would be an anomaly that is out of character with the whole New Testament.
"Ask me...in my name" is tautological, a needless repetition that is also ambiguous. Further, in the context of the Gospel of John as a whole, "ask me...in my name" is strange doctrine, if it is taken to refer to prayer.
But the Sahidic Coptic reading, ЄΤЄΤΝϢΑΝΑΙΤЄΙ ΝΟΥϨШΒ ϨΜ ΠΑΡΑΝ ΠΑΙ ϯΝΑΑΑϤ, "If you should ask anything in my name, this I will do," harmonizes with the rest of Jesus' teaching. -- John 15:16; 16:23
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Solomon,I believe not to "me" is the answer. So I have to agree with your comments above.
ReplyDeleteA Textual Commentary On The Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger under John 14:14 [me], page 244, I found this statement: "Either the unusual collaction, 'ask me in my name' (yet it is not without parallel, cf. Ps 25:11; 31:3; 79:9, where the psalmist prays to God for his name's sake), or a desire to avoid contradiction with 16:23, seems to have prompted (a) the omission of me in a variety of witnesses (A, D, K, L, II..)or (b) its replacement with ton patera (249, 397). The word me is adequately supported (p66, Aleph, B, W etc).."
Unquestionably,there are manuscripts with "me" and others without it. This fact must be acknowledge. The New World Translation Reference Bible does just that in the footnote. The ESV does the same exact thing.
Further, Bruce Metzger notes the contradiction posed by John 16:23. For the mainstream Trinitarian who believes that the Father and Son are two Different Persons in the One Godhead, it certainly poses a problem: To Which Person in the Trinity do we pray?
By the way, I checked on Bruce Metzger’s quote and I found this update:
”Argument one: “Parallel texts in the book of Psalms…” Metzger listed three verses in the Psalms as parallels to Jn 14:14. In the second edition of Metzger’s textual commentary (1994), this argument is omitted.”
Many people prefer to reject the truth, even though it is right in front of them. How anyone can honestly say that 'Jesus taught us to pray to him,' on the basis of just one verse, stretches the imagination. Such a teaching would have been found consistently over several verses, not just one. And it certainly would not contradict what is written elsewhere in the same Gospel.
Thanks, Nick.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem I have with "me" isn't whether Jesus is telling us to pray to him, but that "ask *me* in *my* name" doesn't make much sense.
ReplyDeleteWe generally ask a person to do something in someone else's name (ie. ask Bob to do X in Billy's name) rather than their own (ie. ask Bob to do X in Bob's name).
Regardless of whether it's proper to pray to Jesus I rather doubt it's here.
Thanks, I agree.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I meant when I said, "'Ask me...in my name' is tautological, a needless repetition that is also ambiguous."
Also, this idea is not corroborated in any other verse of Scripture.
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ReplyDeletePersonally I don't have a problem with "me" being in the main text of Nestle-Aland. It is, after all, in some of the earliest extant manuscripts. The editors were Trinitarian, so who can blame them? But, in light of the fact that the ancient evidence is split, this is something that should always be pointed out to the reader, such as putting "me" in brackets to indicate it may not be original, or at least discussing it in a footnote.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the NET Bible with its 60,000 footnotes doesn't mention any variants. They go to great lengths on ambiguous verses to present their Trinitarian interpretation of the text. But when there is conflicting evidence in John 14:14, they are silent. Their bias shows on that one.
I thought you might be interested in a book published by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, soon to be available in Logos Bible Software:
ReplyDeleteThe Coptic Versions of the Minor Prophets
Your discussion of the Sahidic Coptic translation of John 1:1 raises an important question about the relationship between the Greek text, its ancient Coptic translations, and the theological interpretation of the Logos. You correctly emphasize that the Sahidic text contains an indefinite article before the noun ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ in John 1:1c. You are also correct that an English rendering such as “the Word was a god” represents one grammatically possible interpretation of the construction. These observations deserve acknowledgment rather than dismissal. The difficulty with your argument arises when you move from the presence of an indefinite article to the conclusion that the Coptic necessarily classifies the Logos as a separate divine being, that the traditional translation “the Word was God” is grammatically excluded, and that the ancient translators consequently understood the Logos to be ontologically inferior to the Father. Those conclusions require more than the morphological evidence you present, and several of the grammatical authorities you invoke explicitly undermine the inference.
ReplyDeleteYou begin by drawing attention to the antiquity of the Sahidic translation and its importance as an early witness to the Greek New Testament. On this general point, there is substantial agreement. The Sahidic version is an important source for the history of the New Testament text and its reception in Egypt. Its relationship to the Alexandrian Greek textual tradition makes it particularly relevant to the study of the Fourth Gospel. Nevertheless, an ancient version's textual importance does not mean that every grammatical feature of the target language supplies an unambiguous interpretation of its Greek source. Textual affinity with Codex Vaticanus or Papyrus 75 establishes something about the history of readings and translation; it does not independently establish the semantic value of an indefinite Coptic predicate.
Your proposed late-second-century date for the Sahidic translation should also be presented more cautiously. The precise date and circumstances of the earliest Sahidic New Testament translations remain debated. Horner entertained an early date, but his historical reconstruction was explicitly conjectural. It is important to distinguish the possible date of an underlying translation from the dates of surviving manuscripts and from the time at which a particular grammatical reading can be securely recovered. The existence of an ancient translation tradition does not provide direct access to the individual translators' theological beliefs.
The available manuscript evidence can now be studied more comprehensively than was possible when Horner published his edition of the Sahidic Gospel of John in 1911. Hans Förster, Kerstin Sänger-Böhm, and Matthias H. O. Schulz published a new critical edition in 2021, ‘Kritische Edition der sahidischen Version des Johannesevangeliums: Text und Dokumentation,’ based on 172 surviving Sahidic Johannine manuscript witnesses, many of them fragmentary. This number refers to the edition's overall manuscript basis, not to 172 manuscripts preserving John 1:1. The verse-level apparatus identifies the witnesses relevant to the prologue and records the textual variants at the disputed predicate.
The critical text of John 1:1c reads ⲛⲉⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. The apparatus also documents spellings such as ⲛⲉⲟⲩ- in witnesses 19 and 411L, with additional partially preserved evidence in witness 479. The recorded variation concerns contraction, orthography, and damaged preservation. It does not establish a competing textual tradition in which the divine predicate is consistently definite rather than indefinite.
This is a significant result, and I accept it. The recoverable Sahidic text has an indefinitely determined divine predicate. The question is what that predicate means in the sentence, not whether its indefinite article is genuinely present.
Your suggestion that scholars have largely ignored or suppressed this evidence is much harder to sustain. Horner's edition has certainly become less accessible than popular religious literature, but the Sahidic Gospel of John has continued to receive sustained scholarly attention. Christian Askeland's ‘John's Gospel: The Coptic Translations of Its Greek Text’ appeared in 2012, and the comprehensive critical edition by Förster and his colleagues appeared in 2021. The latter represents precisely the kind of extensive investigation of Sahidic Johannine manuscripts that your argument suggests has been neglected. Brian J. Wright and Tim Ricchuiti also devoted a substantial peer-reviewed article specifically to John 1:1c and its Coptic rendering in ‘The Journal of Theological Studies’ 62 (2011), pp. 494–512.
DeleteYou may disagree with their interpretations, but disagreement is not evidence of concealment. The Sahidic text, its article usage, and the theological controversy surrounding it are well known in the relevant specialist literature. The real dispute concerns the grammatical and semantic interpretation of the evidence, not whether the evidence exists.
You next argue that the Sahidic wording ⲁⲩⲱ ⲛⲉⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ ⲡϣⲁϫⲉ literally means “and a god was the Word.” Your morphological analysis identifies real features of the construction. The element ⲛⲉ- functions as a preterite or past converter, ⲟⲩ- is the singular indefinite article, ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ is the divine noun, ⲡⲉ is the pronominal or nominal-sentence linking element, and ⲡϣⲁϫⲉ is the definite lexical subject, “the Word.” The sequence ⲛⲉ- plus ⲟⲩ- is contracted in the transmitted form ⲛⲉⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ.
But a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss and an idiomatic translation are different operations. An interlinear gloss represents the grammatical components of the source language. A translation must communicate the semantic function of the completed construction. If the presence of a morpheme were sufficient to determine its English equivalent in every context, there would be no need to distinguish morphological analysis from translation.
This distinction is especially important when two languages employ different systems of determination. Greek has a definite article but no corresponding indefinite article. Coptic possesses both definite and indefinite articles and also permits zero determination in certain constructions. English has its own system, which does not correspond perfectly to either language.
Accordingly, the question is not simply whether ⲟⲩ- can be glossed as “a.” It certainly can. The question is whether an indefinitely determined Coptic noun functioning as a predicate must always be translated as an individuated member of a countable class.
Bentley Layton's ‘A Coptic Grammar,’ second edition (2004), directly answers that question. His treatment of the indefinite article in §50 distinguishes the actualization of a specimen of a lexical class from the actualization of an entity characterized by a property associated with that class. In §93, he explains that gendered common nouns can function either denotatively or descriptively. Their semantic function is ordinarily determined through sentence structure, lexical meaning, determination, and context.
Most importantly, §292 applies this distinction to nominal-sentence predicates and illustrates it with the very noun on which your argument depends. Layton gives ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ as capable of expressing either “he is a god” or “he is divine.”
You cannot acknowledge that grammatical explanation and then argue as though the indefinite article admits only the first interpretation. Layton's point is precisely that the same morphological construction can support both a denotative and a descriptive reading.
The distinction is not between a literal translation and an artificial theological paraphrase. It is between two recognized semantic functions of an indefinitely determined nominal predicate.
Your claim that Greek indicates the indefiniteness of θεός in John 1:1c by omitting the definite article involves a related error. The Greek reads καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Here θεός is an anarthrous predicate nominative preceding the copular verb, while ὁ λόγος is the articular subject. The absence of the Greek article is a grammatical fact, but anarthrousness is not synonymous with semantic indefiniteness.
DeleteAnarthrous predicate nouns in Greek can be indefinite, definite, or predominantly qualitative, depending upon their lexical and syntactic characteristics and the surrounding context. You are therefore correct that “a god” is grammatically possible in the abstract. You are not justified in claiming that the Greek absence of the article positively establishes that interpretation.
Philip B. Harner examined this phenomenon in “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973), pp. 75–87. His analysis emphasizes the capacity of preverbal predicate nouns to foreground the nature or character of the subject. He interprets John 1:1c as expressing what the Logos is rather than identifying the Logos personally with the one described in the preceding clause.
This distinction explains why the traditional translation “the Word was God” does not require treating θεός as though John had written καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. The latter wording would raise a different question concerning identification. The actual wording permits the divine predicate to characterize the Logos while preserving the personal distinction expressed by πρὸς τὸν θεόν in John 1:1b.
Your argument repeatedly assumes that the alternatives are either identifying the Word as the same person as the God with whom he exists or identifying him as another, lesser god. But these alternatives are not exhaustive. The distinction between personal reference and predication allows John to distinguish the Logos from the Father while predicating deity of the Logos.
The Coptic translators had to represent the Greek predication through the grammatical resources of Coptic. The mere existence of a Coptic indefinite article does not establish that they were required to select a denotative meaning where the Greek source permitted a qualitative one.
Christian Askeland's discussion of Greek–Coptic translation technique is particularly relevant here. On p. 56 of ‘John's Gospel,’ he compares the rendering of Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ at John 1:1a across Coptic dialects. The Sahidic and Classical Bohairic versions employ definite determination, whereas Early Bohairic uses indefinite determination. Askeland distinguishes the functional and formal approaches to the translation of this contextually definite but formally anarthrous Greek expression.
The example demonstrates that the relationship between Greek article usage and Coptic determination is governed by grammatical and translational considerations. The same Greek expression can receive different Coptic determinations without thereby changing the basic referential meaning of the passage. The Bohairic translation of Genesis 1:1, ϧⲉⲛ ⲟⲩⲁⲣⲭⲏ, supplies a related example: an overt Coptic indefinite article occurs in a temporal expression naturally translated “in the beginning.”
Consequently, the claim that Greek anarthrousness and Coptic indefiniteness automatically converge upon the English translation “a god” assumes a one-to-one correspondence that the comparative evidence does not establish.
You also argue that the Coptic translation is necessarily more precise than the Latin Vulgate because Coptic possesses an indefinite article whereas Latin does not. This confuses morphological explicitness with semantic precision. A language may have a grammatical distinction unavailable in another language without resolving every ambiguity associated with that distinction.
The Coptic article makes morphological determination explicit. It does not necessarily make predicate function explicit. Layton's discussion demonstrates that the same indefinitely determined predicate can be interpreted denotatively or descriptively. In this respect, the additional morphological category does not remove the semantic question you wish it to settle.
DeleteYour appeal to the Bohairic translation encounters the same difficulty. Classical Bohairic John 1:1c also employs indefinite divine morphology. This agreement is important evidence for the history of Coptic translation, and it shows that the Sahidic wording is not an isolated or accidental peculiarity. The Fayyumic witness fa15, preserved in P. Berlin 5569, likewise attests an indefinite divine predicate at this location.
These witnesses collectively strengthen the evidence that Coptic versions employed indefinite determination in translating the Greek predicate. They do not establish that the shared grammatical construction was necessarily understood as denoting a created or subordinate deity.
There is also an important textual distinction concerning Proto-Bohairic. In the 2021 critical edition, the divine predicate assigned to Proto-Bohairic John 1:1c appears in a reconstructed passage. The partially preserved beginning of John 1:1 provides valuable evidence for other aspects of the text, but the reconstructed ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩϯ at 1:1c does not possess the same evidential status as a directly preserved predicate. The Sahidic, Fayyumic, and Classical Bohairic evidence should therefore be distinguished from the critical reconstruction of Proto-Bohairic.
Your grammatical argument is not strengthened by treating these different evidential categories as identical.
You next invoke the general rule that the biblical God is ordinarily designated by the definite expression ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. This observation is substantially correct. Layton's §136 explains the definite designation of the unique biblical God, and the corresponding grammatical norm is acknowledged in standard Coptic scholarship.
The crucial distinction, however, is between referring to God as a particular entity and predicating deity of another grammatical subject.
In John 1:1b, ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ functions as a definite referring expression. It designates the one with whom the Logos exists. In John 1:1c, ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ functions as the predicate of the definite subject ⲡϣⲁϫⲉ.
These expressions occupy different semantic and syntactic positions.
The normal use of a definite article in referring to the unique biblical God does not establish that an indefinitely determined predicate cannot describe a subject as divine. Indeed, Layton's own §292 expressly demonstrates that the divine common noun can perform that descriptive function.
You therefore cannot turn his generalization about the naming of God into a prohibition against precisely the nominal predicate he identifies as capable of meaning “he is divine.”
Nor does the Coptic distinction between ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ and ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ establish an ontological distinction between Almighty God and a lesser god. It establishes a distinction in determination and grammatical function. Any claim of ontological inferiority requires a further argument from lexical semantics and context.
Your citation of J. Martin Plumley presents a genuine feature of Coptic grammar but does not justify your conclusion. Plumley recognizes that the indefinite article commonly corresponds to English “a” with ordinary count nouns, while abstract nouns and substance nouns frequently require different idiomatic treatment. It is perfectly natural to translate ⲟⲩⲣⲱⲙⲉ as “a man” and ⲟⲩⲥϩⲓⲙⲉ as “a woman” in their usual denotative contexts.
DeleteBut it does not follow that count nouns are incapable of descriptive predication. That conclusion would contradict Layton's explicit discussion of gendered common nouns.
The important question is not whether ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ belongs to the lexical category of countable common nouns. It does. The question is whether a countable common noun can characterize its subject by a property associated with the noun's lexical class.
Layton answers that question affirmatively and chooses ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ itself as an illustration.
Your insistence that ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ denotes an entity rather than a quality confuses the lexical category of a noun with its semantic function in predication. The word remains a noun whether its predicate use is denotative or descriptive. It does not have to become a lexical adjective or abstract noun in order to characterize its subject.
Thomas O. Lambdin independently documents this feature of Sahidic nominal predication. In ‘Introduction to Sahidic Coptic’ (1983), §15.2, he explains that adjectival predicates take indefinite determination in the relevant constructions. His examples include ⲟⲩⲁⲅⲁⲑⲟⲥ ⲡⲉ, naturally rendered “he is good,” and ⲟⲩⲛⲟϭ ⲧⲉ ⲧⲉⲓⲡⲟⲗⲓⲥ, “this city is large.”
The indefinite article remains present, but the predicates attribute qualities. These examples demonstrate that the presence of ⲟⲩ- is not restricted to presenting the subject as an individual member of a countable class.
Chris H. Reintges, in ‘Coptic Egyptian (Sahidic Dialect): A Learner's Grammar’ (2004), similarly distinguishes classificational nominal sentences from ascriptive nominal sentences. The former assign their subjects to a class; the latter attribute properties or characteristics. These functions can occur in closely related syntactic structures, so surface determination alone does not settle the distinction.
Your comparison with John 18:40, where Barabbas is called a robber, therefore proves less than you suggest.
The Sahidic construction is indeed comparable to that of John 1:1c. The noun describing Barabbas is indefinitely determined, and English naturally renders the statement “Barabbas was a robber.” No objection is needed to that translation.
But the semantic function of a predicate depends upon more than the morphological pattern shared with another sentence. The noun “robber” identifies a kind of human role or conduct. The context classifies Barabbas accordingly. The noun “god” in the theological discourse of John 1:1 occurs in a markedly different lexical and literary environment.
The existence of one denotative predicate does not establish that every predicate with the same grammatical structure must be denotative.
You reinforce the same argument by citing John 8:44, where the devil is called a murderer, and John 12:6, where Judas is called a thief. Again, these are legitimate examples of indefinite nominal predication. They establish that the construction can classify its subject by conduct or role.
DeleteBut they do not establish that classification is its only function.
A particularly revealing comparison occurs elsewhere in the same Sahidic Gospel, at John 19:31:
ⲛⲉⲩⲛⲟϭ ⲅⲁⲣ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲉϩⲟⲟⲩ ⲙ̄ⲡⲥⲁⲃⲃⲁⲧⲟⲛ.
The sense is that the Sabbath day was great or especially significant. As in John 1:1c, the construction contains preterite conversion, an indefinitely determined predicate, the nominal-sentence element ⲡⲉ, and a definite lexical subject. The explanatory particle ⲅⲁⲣ occurs within the construction.
Here the predicate ⲛⲉⲩⲛⲟϭ characterizes the subject by greatness. It does not identify the Sabbath day as one individual belonging to a separate class of great beings. The example is recorded in Förster, Sänger-Böhm, and Schulz's critical edition, p. 106.
This is especially significant because your argument relies upon comparisons with other preterite nominal predicates in the Sahidic Gospel of John. John 19:31 demonstrates that the same fundamental grammatical frame is capable of descriptive predication.
The predicate ⲛⲟϭ is adjectival in character, whereas ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ is a common noun. That lexical difference matters. But it is precisely why Layton's additional example with ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ is so important: the grammar independently establishes descriptive interpretation for the exact noun in dispute.
A structural comparison and a lexically exact grammatical example thus converge upon the same conclusion. The indefinite predicate construction is not restricted to the denotative function illustrated by “robber,” “thief,” and “murderer.”
There are further internal Johannine controls.
John 3:33 contains the Sahidic expression ⲟⲩⲙⲉ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. The indefinitely determined predicate ⲟⲩⲙⲉ characterizes the definite divine subject as true or as truth. The expression does not introduce the biblical God as one individuated instance within a class of separate truths.
John 4:24 likewise reads, in normalized form, ⲟⲩⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ ⲡⲉ ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. The corresponding Greek statement is πνεῦμα ὁ θεός. The Sahidic predicate bears indefinite morphology, yet the sentence characterizes what God is. Its ordinary theological and literary force is not that God is one spirit among numerous beings of the same rank.
These examples involve different lexical classes and do not automatically determine the interpretation of ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. Their significance is that the Sahidic Gospel itself employs indefinitely determined nominal predicates to describe a definite subject.
Your broader claim that the Coptic New Testament provides no evidence for descriptive indefinite predication is therefore untenable. The relevant grammatical function is attested, including within John.
The presence of abstract nouns and other lexical types does not make these examples irrelevant. On the contrary, their differences demonstrate why semantic interpretation requires attention to lexical class and discourse rather than simple counting of indefinite articles.
This is also why your appeal to the frequency of English “a” in Horner's translation is insufficient. You show that a large number of Coptic indefinite nouns are naturally translated with an English indefinite article. That is unsurprising. Ordinary narrative discourse frequently introduces persons, objects, events, and roles through indefinite noun phrases.
John 1:6 introduces John the Baptist as a man sent from God. John 1:30 refers to a man coming after the Baptist. The dove in John 1:32 occurs within a comparison. These are typical environments in which English indefinite articles are appropriate.
DeleteBut the fact that an indefinite article is idiomatic in those environments does not establish that a divine predicate applied to the pre-existent Logos must be rendered in the same way. The cases differ in syntactic function, lexical semantics, and discourse.
A persuasive frequency argument would require a defined corpus of genuinely comparable predicates, consistent semantic classification criteria, and sufficient attention to lexical category and context. Your illustrative examples do not provide that analysis. More importantly, even a statistical predominance of denotative predicates would not eliminate the descriptive interpretation independently licensed by Coptic grammar.
You criticize Horner for placing the English indefinite article in square brackets at John 1:1c while leaving it unbracketed at John 18:40. But his editorial convention supplies a straightforward explanation.
In his Sahidic edition, Horner explains that square brackets indicate words represented in Coptic but unnecessary in idiomatic English. His rendering of John 1:1c as “and [a] God was the Word” therefore acknowledges the Coptic indefinite article while distinguishing its morphological presence from the necessity of reproducing an English indefinite article.
At John 18:40, English naturally requires “a robber” in the ordinary denotative reading. Horner therefore had no reason to bracket the article there. His different treatment of the two passages reflects a distinction between the demands of English translation in different contexts.
You are free to disagree with his judgment about John 1:1c. But the difference between the two translations is not evidence that his bracket convention was arbitrary or that theology rather than grammar dictated his decision.
Horner's own Bohairic edition makes the point still more clearly. At John 1:1c, he renders the predicate as “God (indef. art.),” expressly identifying the Coptic morphological determination without placing an English indefinite article before God in the running translation.
Thus, the Coptic grammarian and editor whom you invoke as a witness for the obligatory translation “a god” himself distinguished the grammatical category of the Coptic predicate from its idiomatic English representation.
Your criticism of Horner also overlooks examples elsewhere in John where he uses bracketed articles with nouns that English does not ordinarily treat as countable individuals. John 1:16 provides examples involving life and grace, while John 3:6 illustrates the same broader issue with flesh and spirit. At John 19:34, the Sahidic uses indefinite forms with blood and water.
These cases do not prove the descriptive meaning of ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. They demonstrate that the relationship between ⲟⲩ- and English article usage is not mechanically uniform.
Your proposed translation must therefore be justified as a contextual interpretation, not simply as the automatic output of the source-language article.
The same applies to the English rendering attributed to Lance Jenott and to the alternative rendering “the Word was a divine being.” Such translations demonstrate that scholars and translators can choose a denotative or broadly descriptive English expression for the Coptic predicate. They do not establish that the source construction excludes the traditional rendering.
Indeed, “a divine being” introduces its own interpretive commitments. It presents the subject as a distinct member of a class of divine beings. That classification may be defensible in a particular context, but it is not supplied uniquely by the morpheme ⲟⲩ-. An interpreter who selects it must justify the class-membership reading rather than simply appeal to morphological indefiniteness.
DeleteWhen you move from grammatical translation to the supposed theological neutrality of the early Coptic translators, you introduce a further unproved assumption.
You argue that the Sahidic version may have originated before the fourth-century councils and therefore escaped the influence of developed Trinitarian theology. Even if an early pre-Nicene date were established for the relevant translation, that would prove only that the wording preceded the formal doctrinal formulations of those councils. It would not establish what the translators believed about the Logos or whether they understood the predicate denotatively rather than descriptively.
A translator working before Nicaea could understand the Logos as fully divine without using the later terminology of consubstantiality. Conversely, a translator working after Nicaea could preserve inherited indefinite morphology without treating it as a denial of that doctrine.
Chronology and grammar answer different questions.
Your suggestion that the later Coptic Church disregards its own Bible by confessing the full deity of Christ is likewise based on a misunderstanding of Coptic nominal predication. The later Bohairic Christian tradition can employ indefinitely determined divine language while explicitly affirming Christ's uncreatedness and unity of essence with the Father.
The received Bohairic Creed, for example, uses divine terminology with indefinite morphology within a confession that identifies Christ as true God from true God, denies that he was created, and affirms his consubstantiality with the Father.
This later usage does not establish the private theology of the earliest Sahidic translators. It does, however, show that indefinitely determined divine language is compatible with full deity and that the indefinite article does not intrinsically communicate inferior or created status.
Later Sahidic anti-Arian Christian texts offer the same kind of semantic control, including the use of the exact construction ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ for Christ within explicitly full-deity theological discourse.
The implication is straightforward. Your claim that the Coptic Church must disregard the grammar of its own language in order to confess Christ's deity is contradicted by the actual range of Coptic Christian usage.
You next cite a translation of the opening chapter of John that renders the Logos as a divine being and acknowledges “the Word was divine” as an alternative. Again, the existence of such translations is not disputed. The question is whether their semantic interpretation is exclusive.
The context supplied in the translation itself raises a difficulty for your preferred interpretation. John 1:3 states that all things came into being through the Logos and that apart from him nothing that came into being came into being. John places the Logos in a unique relation to the entire created order.
If the Logos is himself a created being, he belongs to the totality of things that came into being. Yet the evangelist expressly says that nothing within that totality came into being apart from him.
The natural reading distinguishes the pre-existent Logos from the created things whose existence depends upon his mediation. This context is directly relevant to whether the predicate θεός in John 1:1c classifies the Logos as another divine creature or attributes deity to him in a stronger sense.
Your indefinite translation does not resolve this contextual problem. Nor does describing the Logos as a divine representative or heavenly agent establish that he belongs to the created order. Agency concerns the exercise of action through another; it does not, by itself, determine the agent's ontological nature.
DeleteYou subsequently attempt to explain the definite divine expression in Sahidic John 1:18 by treating it as an anaphoric reference to the “a god” supposedly introduced at John 1:1c. The argument deserves particular attention because it recognizes a significant feature of the Sahidic prologue.
In the textual form represented by Horner and the modern critical tradition, John 1:18 contains the appositional expression ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡϣⲏⲣⲉ ⲛⲟⲩⲱⲧ, conventionally understood as “God, the only Son.”
You are correct that definite articles can participate in anaphoric reference. A previously introduced referent may subsequently be mentioned with definite determination. But the possibility of anaphora does not prove the particular antecedent or semantic interpretation you propose.
Most importantly, anaphoric reference does not encode ontological inferiority. Even if the definite expression refers back to the Logos mentioned earlier, it would establish continuity of reference, not that the Logos was previously identified as a created member of a class of lesser gods.
The internal construction in John 1:18 is appositional. The divine designation and the expression “the only Son” identify the same referent. Layton's treatment of apposition explains how one nominal expression can name, identify, or further characterize the referent of another.
Your suggestion that “the god” means specifically the lesser god previously introduced at John 1:1c inserts a hierarchical interpretation into the definite article. The article itself does not contain that meaning.
Moreover, the literary context of the prologue creates a difficulty for the inference that ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ must refer exclusively to the Father. John 1:1b uses the definite divine expression for the one with whom the Word exists, whereas John 1:18 applies definite divine language to the Son. The same prologue therefore does not support an absolute equation under which definite ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ always designates the Father and indefinite ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ necessarily designates an inferior deity.
John 1:18 is textually complex, and its value must be assessed in light of the relevant Greek and Coptic manuscript evidence. Yet the Sahidic reading you invoke does not yield your proposed ontology merely through its definite article.
You then appeal to Ariel Shisha-Halevy's description of the indefinite article in ‘Coptic Grammatical Chrestomathy’ (1988), emphasizing its association with a specimen or individual belonging to a class. That formulation describes a genuine grammatical function, but you treat it as though it were an exhaustive semantic definition governing every indefinitely determined predicate.
It is not sufficient to establish that conclusion.
The category of indefinite determination must be distinguished from the semantic functions of the noun phrase in a particular construction. Layton's §50 recognizes actualization by class membership and by possession of a quality associated with the class. His §93 explains that gendered common nouns can denote or describe, and §292 illustrates the distinction directly with ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ.
A general definition emphasizing non-specificity or membership in a lexical class therefore cannot override a construction-specific grammatical analysis expressly admitting descriptive predication.
The apparent conflict is resolved by distinguishing the formal determination of the noun phrase from the predicate's function in characterizing its subject.
Your claim that Coptic offers three transparent choices, ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ, ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ, and bare ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ, likewise oversimplifies the actual grammar.
DeleteCoptic possesses definite, indefinite, and zero-determined nominal expressions. But these forms are not freely interchangeable in every construction. The availability of a bare noun depends upon the syntactic environment.
Hans Jakob Polotsky and Layton both identify restrictions on zero determination in various nominal-sentence patterns. Layton's discussion of the nominal sentence shows that different configurations impose different requirements concerning determination.
Consequently, one cannot assume that a bare ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ would have been the expected expression if the translator intended a descriptive predicate. That assumption would require positive grammatical evidence.
Layton's own example provides the opposite evidence: the indefinitely determined ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ can itself express the descriptive meaning “he is divine.”
The choice between definite, indefinite, and zero determination is therefore a grammatical choice, but it is not a simple three-way theological code in which definite means Almighty God, indefinite means a lesser god, and zero means abstract divinity.
When you discuss Layton's correspondence with other interpreters, you quote his observation that the Coptic construction can predicate either a quality or an entity. You then argue that ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ must express an entity because it is a noun referring to a god rather than an abstract noun meaning divinity.
This inference repeats the confusion between lexical category and predicative function.
The noun ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ denotes a divine entity in ordinary referential use. But in a nominal predicate, the same lexical noun can characterize the subject by the property associated with deity. That is exactly why Layton distinguishes denotative and descriptive readings of the same construction.
The assertion that “god” is not a quality is therefore irrelevant to the grammatical distinction. Layton does not claim that the noun ceases to be a noun or that its dictionary meaning changes into an abstract noun. He explains that the noun can function descriptively in predication.
You also cite Lambdin's rendering of ⲛⲧⲟϥ ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲡⲉ as “he is a god.” This is a legitimate denotative example. But the existence of a grammatical example illustrating one permitted meaning cannot establish that no other permitted meaning exists.
Indeed, Layton directly supplies the descriptive counterpart with the same divine noun.
Your argument would require a grammatical rule stating that every count noun occurring with ⲟⲩ- in a nominal predicate must be interpreted denotatively. The cited grammars provide no such rule.
Your appeal to Bentley Layton's ‘Coptic in 20 Lessons’ creates an even more immediate difficulty.
On p. 7, Layton gives an interlinear analysis of John 1:1c that reflects the indefinite morphology through “a-god.” But his sentence-level translation on that same page is “And the Word was God.”
This is not an accidental inconsistency. The two representations serve different functions. The interlinear displays the morphological components of the source text; the sentence translation expresses the meaning of the construction in idiomatic English.
Layton's discussion on p. 34 then explains the grammatical reason for the distinction by treating the noun ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ as capable of descriptive predication.
Thus, your assertion that no cited scholar has translated Coptic John 1:1c as “the Word was God” is factually incorrect. Layton himself supplies precisely that rendering.
It is certainly possible to disagree with his contextual translation. But you cannot claim that his grammatical exposition requires the translation “a god” while treating his own English rendering of the sentence as irrelevant.
DeleteThe same methodological problem affects your citation of J. Warren Wells and Malcolm Choat.
Wells's acknowledgment that the Coptic can be glossed as “a god was the Word” confirms morphological indefiniteness. It does not demonstrate that the construction is restricted to denotative classification or that the Word must be a created, ontologically inferior deity.
Wells has also drawn attention to the descriptive force of John 4:24, where an indefinitely determined predicate characterizes God. That observation is directly relevant to the distinction between morphological indefiniteness and predicate semantics.
Choat's comments likewise acknowledge the presence of the indefinite article while distinguishing what the Coptic grammar requires from what an English rendering of the Greek may appropriately express.
You emphasize his description of both “a god” and a qualitative rendering as potentially involving special pleading. That criticism deserves fair consideration. But his reservations about particular English translations do not establish the semantic conclusion you derive from them.
The grammatical question remains whether the Coptic construction admits descriptive predication. Layton, Lambdin, Reintges, and other standard descriptions of Coptic nominal syntax demonstrate that it does.
Consequently, neither a specialist's hesitation about translation choices nor an interlinear representation of the indefinite article settles the contextual meaning of John 1:1c.
You suggest that the absence of a second undisputed example of qualitative ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ in the canonical Sahidic New Testament disproves the descriptive interpretation. But this is an argument from the absence of a specific attested token, and its force depends upon the size and composition of the relevant corpus.
The exact construction is not sufficiently frequent to permit a reliable inference that one semantic possibility was excluded from the language. More importantly, Layton explicitly attests the relevant semantic possibility as a matter of Coptic grammar.
There is a fundamental difference between saying that a particular usage is rare or lacks an independently secure second New Testament example and saying that the grammatical system does not permit it.
The first proposition concerns the distribution of surviving examples. The second concerns grammatical competence and constructional meaning. The former cannot automatically establish the latter.
The surrounding Johannine evidence is therefore indispensable.
The Gospel begins by distinguishing the Logos from the God with whom he exists while predicating θεός of the Logos. It immediately attributes the coming into being of all things to the Logos. It later presents the Son through divine terminology and an exceptional relationship with the Father. These are the contextual considerations that bear upon the interpretation of the divine predicate.
Your argument instead treats the indefinite article as though it had already decided the question and then reads the rest of the prologue through that predetermined meaning.
When you compare the traditional rendering with the translation “the Word was divine,” you also assume that “divine” necessarily means something weaker than full deity. But the English adjective is semantically flexible. It can describe what is merely godlike, but it can also express the possession of divine nature.
A qualitative predicate does not automatically communicate partial or inferior divinity. Its strength depends upon what the relevant noun signifies within the discourse and upon the nature of the subject being characterized.
DeleteJohn 1:1c occurs within a monotheistic account of the pre-existent Logos and his relation to all created things. That context provides substantial reasons for understanding the predication as expressing full deity rather than a subordinate degree of godlikeness.
Your objection that the Trinitarian interpretation introduces later philosophical terminology into the text should therefore be distinguished from the actual grammatical claim. The word “homoousios” does not occur in John 1:1c, and the Coptic indefinite article certainly does not mean consubstantiality. The developed terminology of Nicaea belongs to later theological formulation.
But the absence of that terminology does not establish that John could not predicate the divine nature of the Logos. A later theological term may articulate a distinction or relation already implied by earlier statements without being a lexical translation of those statements.
The Trinitarian reading therefore does not require translating ⲟⲩ- as “of one essence.” It requires recognizing that indefinite morphology is compatible with descriptive deity predication and then evaluating the strength of that predication within the Johannine context.
Your suggestion that a qualitative interpretation merely disguises a definite interpretation also overlooks the distinction between semantic quality and definite reference.
A predicate may characterize a subject by divine nature without identifying that subject as the same person previously designated by a definite referring expression. The qualitative interpretation of θεός in John 1:1c does not mean that the Logos is the Father. It means that deity is predicated of the Logos.
The personal distinction established by John 1:1b therefore remains intact.
This is precisely why the traditional English translation can be appropriate without requiring the Greek or Coptic predicate to carry the definite article. English “the Word was God” can function as a predication of deity rather than an equation of personal identity between the Word and the Father.
You are correct that “the Word was a god” remains a grammatically possible rendering. I would not deny it. But the traditional rendering is not thereby excluded, and its contextual justification cannot be dismissed merely because it does not reproduce the Coptic indefinite article through an English indefinite article.
Your repeated assertion that ancient translators living closer to the period of Koine Greek must have understood John 1:1c more accurately than modern scholars is also too categorical.
Ancient translators may possess valuable linguistic intuitions, but translation remains an interpretive activity governed by the structure of the target language. A translator can choose a grammatical form that admits multiple semantic functions. The historical date of that choice does not remove the ambiguity.
Nor can one establish the translator's precise theological convictions merely by reconstructing an early date for the translation. The earliest recoverable Sahidic reading is an important witness to how the Greek text was represented in Coptic. Its indefinite predicate is an authentic ancient feature. But the further conclusion that its translators intended a created or inferior deity requires contextual and grammatical evidence that the article itself does not provide.
Your conclusion also fails to distinguish an ordinary denotative interpretation from the specifically subordinationist interpretation you defend.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the sentence were translated “the Word was a god.” That English expression would classify the Logos under the noun “god.” But classification alone does not specify whether the being so designated is created or uncreated, whether the predication is literal or representative, or how it relates to the Gospel's monotheistic presentation of God.
DeleteThose are additional semantic and theological questions.
Your conclusion that the Logos was a lesser, created divine being therefore requires propositions that are not contained in the indefinite article and are not secured merely by the English translation “a god.”
Conversely, the descriptive interpretation “the Word was divine” does not, by grammatical force alone, contain the complete Nicene doctrine of the Trinity. The case for full deity is cumulative, drawing upon the kind of predication the grammar permits and the way John presents the Logos throughout the immediate context.
This distinction prevents the argument from becoming a competition between two theological systems that simply assign their preferred doctrines to the Coptic article.
You repeatedly insist that the ordinary grammatical facts are clear. On that point I agree. The Sahidic predicate is morphologically indefinite. Its article is genuine. Its contraction with the preterite element is genuine. The contrast with the definite expression in John 1:1b is genuine. And “a god” is a possible denotative rendering.
What remains unproved is the semantic exclusivity you attach to those facts.
Layton explicitly recognizes descriptive predication for the exact divine noun. Lambdin and Reintges demonstrate the wider grammatical phenomenon. Horner's editorial practice distinguishes morphological determination from idiomatic English. The Sahidic Gospel contains descriptive indefinite predicates, including a close preterite structural parallel in John 19:31. The Coptic versions show that Greek article usage cannot be mapped mechanically onto Coptic determination. John 1:18 applies definite divine terminology to the Son in the Sahidic prologue. And John 1:3 places the Logos in a unique relationship to everything that came into being.
These observations together provide a coherent linguistic and contextual basis for the traditional interpretation without denying any genuine feature of the Sahidic morphology.
The strongest formulation of your argument would therefore be that the Sahidic translator selected an indefinite divine predicate and that a denotative rendering “the Word was a god” is grammatically possible. That proposition is sound and should be acknowledged.
But the stronger assertion that the Coptic SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDES the translation “the Word was God” is not supported by the standard grammars. Nor does the recoverable manuscript evidence establish that the translators understood the Logos to be a created or ontologically subordinate divine being.
DeleteThe distinction between these conclusions is essential. The text's morphology determines that the predicate is indefinite in form. Coptic predicate grammar determines that such a form can be denotative or descriptive. Translation must represent the semantic function of the predicate. Theological interpretation must then evaluate that function within the wider Johannine context.
Your argument repeatedly collapses these separate levels into a single inference from ⲟⲩ- to “a god” and from “a god” to an inferior deity. The first step is a possible translation choice, not a grammatical necessity. The second is a theological interpretation, not a lexical component of the article.
I therefore see no reason to question the authenticity of the Sahidic indefinite article, and no reason to regard its presence as an embarrassment to Trinitarian theology. On the contrary, the construction is entirely compatible with distinguishing the Logos personally from the Father while predicating deity of him.
The Coptic evidence is important precisely because it allows this grammatical question to be studied through an ancient version with overt determination morphology. But the existence of that morphology does not abolish predicate semantics. It is the beginning of the analysis, not its conclusion.
The final question is not whether the Sahidic text contains ⲟⲩⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ. It unquestionably does. Nor is it whether “a god” represents one possible denotative understanding. It does. The question is whether the form requires John to present the Logos as a distinct, created deity inferior to the Father.
Neither Layton's grammar, the surviving manuscript evidence, Horner's translation conventions, nor the Johannine context establishes that conclusion. The descriptive understanding remains linguistically legitimate, and the traditional translation “the Word was God” remains defensible as an idiomatic expression of deity predicated of the Logos without identifying him personally with the Father.
That is why the Sahidic Coptic translation cannot legitimately be presented as an ancient grammatical refutation of Christ's full deity. It preserves a genuine indefinite predicate whose semantic possibilities include the descriptive predication of deity. Once the grammatical evidence is distinguished from the further theological claims imposed upon it, the supposed contradiction between the Coptic text and Trinitarian Christology disappears.