112 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis work on the use of the article in the New Testament was done by Co- lwell which should be considered here.84 He formulated the following rule that subsequently became known as “Colwell’s rule”: “Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article … a predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a ‘qualitative’ noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun”. The strong link between formal grammar and context is clear. Wallace85 points out that many scholars misunderstood this rule as meaning that an anarthrous pre- dicate nominative that precedes a verb is always definite. This is not what Colwell intended although it is often understood that way. It was especially misused when it comes to John 1,1c.86 Dennison87 expresses the same sentiments by indicating that Colwell did say that a definite predicate nominative that precedes the verb is usually anarthrous, but that he did not say the converse, namely, that an anarthrous predicati- ve nominative that precedes the verb is usually definite, although this is how many scholars misunderstood Colwell’s rule. Wallace88 states that the usage of a predicate nominative89 is very com- mon. Since he explains the line of grammatical argumentation for this po- sition thoroughly, I will summarize it here as an example of this position. Although there are exceptions (forming a second type of construction), Wallace remarks that the “equation of subject and predicative nominative does not necessarily or even normally imply complete correspondence (e.g., as in the interchangeability of A=B, B=A in a mathematical for- mula90). Rather, the predicative nominative normally describes a larger category (or State) to which the subject belongs”. In English the subject E.C. Colwell, “A definite rule for the use of the article in the Greek New Testament”, 84 JBL 52 (1933), 12-21. Porter, Idioms, (see n. 8), 109 refers to the work of Colwell’s article and L. C. McGaughy, A Descriptive Analysis of EINAI as a Linking Verb in NT Greek, Missoula (MT: Scholars Press, 1972) in this regard. The latter argued that if two substan- tives stand in appropriate grammatical accord, there are three possibilities for determining the subject. a) “if one substantive is a demonstrative or relative pronoun, it is the subject”; b)” if one of the substantives has an article, it is the subject”; c) “if both have articles, the one first in order is the subject”. See also Keener, John, (see n. 54), 371. Wallace, Syntax, (see n. 9), 257. 85 Wallace, Syntax, (see n. 9), 257-258. 86 J.T. Dennison, “Symmetries of Equivalence: Logos and Theos in John 1,1-2”, Kerux 87 18 (1), (2003), 29-30, 36. Wallace, Syntax, (see n. 9), 40. 88 It is approximately the same as the subject of a sentence with an equative verb. 89 Wallace, Syntax, (see n. 9), 41 remarks that on of the fundamental flaws in the think- 90 ing of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is the assumption that the “grammatical equative verb bears the same force as the mathematical equal sign”.