Except it doesn't indicate that. It just indicates that the scribe who copied that manuscript dated the work to that period. The original autograph manuscripts written by the apostles have never been found and probably never will.
In mss. studies, a colophon is just a note by a scribe. It doesn't tell us who wrote the text, only who copied it, and that late scribes gave a work an early date doesn't prove that date. The reason you've never learned about this is because it's nothing new and nothing significant.
I have read all of what you have said, and while I will admit that the more I have talked with you, the more I have become convinced of the insufficiency of reading John 1:1c as the Word was God, I am still not convinced that we should read it as the Word was a god. One must take into account...
As I said, it's impossible do this subject justice by treating each particular issue in isolation. Your lessons may be self-contained, but if we're deconstructing them, we're obviously going to broach other issues.
But they're immediately relevant. This is the problem with examining each issue in isolation.
I would say the more nuanced translation is "the Word was divine." Most would not dispute such a translation, unless they're KJV-onlyists. This fully accounts for the nuance in 1:1c. He does not say ho...
Also, explain the anarthrous Ἰωάννης in 1:6b, 32a, neither of which are contained in a prep. phrase, while Ἰωάννης in other places is preceded by the def. art (see 1:28, 35), as proper names often are in Greek (see Matt. 1). Yet in certain instances, proper names are anarthrous. Should these...
Why should we disregard all the irregular examples? Why is 1:1c not an irregular usage? That it is irregular is clear in itself from context, and Dodd considers the indefinite reading (although it is more literal) as inadmissible on this basis alone.
Then you're just disregarding, for no...
I see no reason why we should disregard all uses of the word in any case other than the nominative, or even why we should disregard other words at all. As I have shown, in Greek the lack of an article does not mean in itself that the noun is indefinite (see ἀρχῇ in John 1:1a and ζωὴ John 1:4a)...
I know many Muslims consider the identity of Dhu'l-Qarnayn as something only God knows, but clearly the people during the time of Muhammad knew who Dhu'l-Qarnayn was. What reason do we have to believe this knowledge was suddenly lost?
At least in the case of the DSS, as Wise et. al. notes in their translation, the Qumranites were actually quite libertine with their handling of the text. They weren't afraid to edit the text for their own purposes or to rewrite and paraphrase the texts to elaborate upon what they saw in them or...
Several examples here Strong's Greek: 2316. θεός (theos) -- God, a god (see no. 3 under Thayer's Lexicon) and many others, as Daniel Wallace notes in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.
I can concede most of what you say, but none of those things prove your case. I have told you before that θεό is used many times in the NT without the definite article to clearly refer to the One God.
My mistake. I wrote this when I didn't have internet and I didn't bother to double check the chapter and verse numbers.
How else should I analyse the Qur'an?
The Qur'an contains a number of pre-Islamic legends. One such legend, which has above all been a source of ridicule, deals with a figure known as 'The Two-Horned One' (Dhu'l-Qarnayn) and is found in Q. 28:83-98. The consensus among Western academics is that Dhu'l-Qarnayn is Alexander the Great...
Are you Jewish? With a reading of the context and the way in which the prophecies of Isaiah 9 are used by the New Testament authors, the issue of this mistranslation seems irrelevant. If I recall correctly, the NT authors did not invoke the people's statements in Isa. 9:6 as a prophecy of Jesus...