The New World Translation of John 1:1 and Colwell's Rule

I have been asked to comment of the interpretation of the third clause of John 1:1 in the light of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation and the Word was a god. To insist that John 1:1c should be translated and the Word was a god on the basis of Greek grammar is incorrect. Likewise, some people, seeking to defend the orthodox Christian translation of the clause, have misguidedly appealed to a grammatical rule called Colwell’s Rule.

Colwell stated that “definite predicate nouns [i.e., definite noun complements] which precede the verb usually lack the article” (E. C. Colwell, “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament,” JBL 52 [1933]: 20), approximately 87% of the time (David Alan Black, It’s Still Greek to Me: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to Intermediate Greek [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998], 79). That may be true for pre-verbal definite noun complements, but others have pointed out that anarthrous (i.e., non-articular) pre-verbal noun complements are usually qualitative.

In the end, the proper translation of such clauses is dependent on the context, but the balance of probability strongly favors the pre-verbal definite noun complement as being qualitative, hence the suggestion by some that John 1:1c is best translated as and the Word was divine. Given the broader context that Jesus and his disciples accepted the Jewish monotheistic idea that God is one, the New World Translation is clearly a case of eisegesis dictating translation. The idea of the Word being divine is that he shares in the divine nature of the one true God.