What's Athanasius Got to Do With It?

Another of the basically irrelevant Trinitarian objections against translating the Sahidic Coptic of John 1:1c as "and the Word was a god" -- which is clearly what it literally says -- is that the Coptic translators could not possibly have "meant" to say that.

The reason given is that the dynamic 4th century Coptic scholar, theologian, bishop and "saint" Athanasius was the staunch adherent of Trinitarianism. And the Coptic Church itself is Trinitarian.

That argument may be of some value in refuting the inaccurate charge that everything Coptic must, by definition, also be Gnostic.

But it has no bearing on positively identifying the theology of the 2nd or 3rd century Sahidic Coptic translators, and no bearing on identifying their possible theological presuppositions while translating John 1:1.

Coptic scholar and translator George W. Horner, in his classic Coptic New Testament English translation, postulates a 2nd century date for the Coptic New Testament. Other scholars, and the Anchor Bible Dictionary give a 3rd century date.

Coptic Church tradition also dates the Coptic New Testament to the 2nd century, "under the supervision of St. Pantaenus [late second century] and St. Clement [160-215]." Therefore, it is quite possible that the Sahidic Coptic translation of the Gospel of John predated Athanasius [300-373] by a couple of generations.

So, what's Athanasius got to do with it?

And as for the Coptic Church, it has not always been a Trinitarian church. Its tradition ascribes its founding the the Gospel writer "Saint" Mark, and there is nothing Trinitarian in Mark's Gospel.

Besides, there was another famous (or infamous, according to one's view) presbyter and theologian in 4th century Alexandria, Egypt. His name was Arius, the noted opponent of Trinitarianism, whose doctrine "was once at least as popular as the doctine that Jesus is God." (Richard Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God, p. 7). Before Nicea (325 CE) many Coptic and other bishops considered Arius' theology to be "orthodox."

So, IF a case could be made for Athanasian Trinitarian influence upon the Sahidic Coptic translators, a similar case could be made for Arian, non-Trinitarian influence.

In point of fact, however, the Sahidic Coptic translators are anonymous. We don't know who they were. Therefore, it is impossible to state dogmatically what their theological presuppositions were, or even if their theological presuppositions influenced their translation of John 1:1.

It is just as likely that they simply made a fair, honest, and accurate translation of John's Greek as they understood it: ne.u.noute pe p.shaje, "And the Word was a god."

Attempts to link Athanasian Trinitarianism to the Sahidic Coptic translators is shown to be just another smokescreen put up by apologists for whom Coptic John 1:1 is extremely unsettling and inconvenient.

"Tertium non video"

A little over a year ago a noted Coptic scholar commented to me about the different ways in which Sahidic Coptic John 1:1c could be rendered appropriately in English. He said that the Coptic supports an indefinite English translation -- "the Word was a god" -- and less literally, an adjectival or "qualitative" one -- "the Word was godly/divine." What about the popular, traditional definite rendering, "the Word was God." Did the Coptic text support that?

"Tertium non video," this respected Coptic scholar replied in Latin. That is, "I do not see a third (possibility)."

Though Bentley Layton includes the traditional "the Word was God" in his latest grammar book, it is obvious that this is not equivalent to what the Coptic text says. Correctly, Dr. Layton renders Sahidic Coptic John 1:1c to read, "and past tense marker-a-god is the Word," or more smoothly, "and a god was the Word." This means the same as "and the Word was a god," as it would normally be expressed in standard English.

But if the indefinite phrase "and the Word was a god" is equivalent to the definite phrase "and the Word was God," then why have Christendom's apologists been accusing the New World Translation of bias all these many years???

Obviously, the Coptic's "and the Word was a god" is not equivalent to "and the Word was God."

The ancient Coptic version's indefinite grammatical syntax at John 1:1c does not support any definite translation like "the Word was God." That is not what those ancient translators saw and understood in their Greek texts.

Indeed, Tertium Non Video.

An Interesting Coptic Resource

Coptic grammarian Bentley Layton has a new book, Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic With Exercises & Vocabularies (Peeters Leuven, 2007)

In this book on page 7, Layton diagrams Coptic John 1:1c literally as:

auw ne. u.noute pe p.Saje
And past tense marker- a-god is the-Word

He also provides the traditional English rendering "And the Word was God." But the traditional English rendering is at variance with the literal Coptic translation, which is clearly "And the Word was a god."

On page 34 of his grammar, Layton observes that Coptic ou.noute pe could signal adjectively "he is divine." But when referring to entities, the translation would be "he is a god."

Therefore, Coptic John 1:1c, auw ne.u.noute pe p.Saje can be rendered authoritatively as "the Word was a god," or "the Word was divine," "the Word was a divine being," or similar, since the Coptic construction here is indefinite.

For the same reason, the Coptic version does not support a definite rendering like "the Word was God," despite this being traditional.