Coptic John 1:1c: What Conclusions Can Be Drawn?

Relative to Coptic John 1:1c, what conclusions can be drawn from a multi-year
study of the Sahidic Coptic language, including a detailed study of the entire
Sahidic Coptic New Testament?

1- That the translation of Coptic neunoute pe pSaje into standard English as "the
Word was a god" is literal, accurate, and unassailable. It is simple, but not
simplistic. It is what the Coptic text actually says and literally conveys. Any
other translation of it amounts to interpretation or paraphrase.

2- That rendering a Sahidic Coptic common ("count") noun, like noute, god, when
bound to the Coptic indefinite article, ou, into English as "a" + noun is so
prevalent, as for example in Coptic scholar George Horner's 1911 English
translation of the Sahidic Coptic New Testament, that this is beyond dispute.

As just the nearest example of this, after John 1:1c itself, is John 1:6. Here we
have the Coptic indefinite article, ou, bound to the Coptic common noun rwme, man:
aFSwpe nCi ourwme eautnnoouF ebol Hitm pnoute . In Horner's English translation we
read: "There was a man having been sent from God." That is the simple, literal,
and accurate translation. Likewise, "a god" is the simple, literal, and accurate
translation of ou.noute at John 1:1c, the same Coptic indefinite article + common
noun construction as found in John 1:6 and elsewhere. Only with respect to Coptic
"mass" or abstract nouns is there no need to translate the indefinite article into
English, but this is not the situation at Coptic John 1:1c, because noute, god, is
a Coptic common or "count" noun.

3 - That, whereas some Coptic grammarians hold that ou.noute may also be
translated into English adjectivally as "divine," they give no examples favoring
this usage in the Sahidic Coptic New Testament itself. The published works of
these scholars have been heavily invested in the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Coptic
"gospels" like Thomas, Philip, and Judas. Perhaps translating ou.noute as "divine"
fits the esoteric or philosophical context of the Gnostic "gospels." But there are
no examples in the canonical Coptic New Testament that justify an adjectival
translation of ou.noute as "divine," whereas a literal translation of ou.noute as
"a god" works just fine. Although "divine" is not altogether objectionable, since
a god is divine by definition, a paraphrase is unnecessary when an adequate,
understandable literal translation is available.

4- That all the primarily Trinitarian-based objections to translating ou.noute as

"a god" at Coptic John 1:1c amount to little more than presupposition or special
pleading. Though such faulty, superficial objections have been cut and pasted
frequently on the Internet, they are poorly researched and often misleading. The
Coptic text of John 1:1c was made prior to the adoption of the Trinity doctrine by
Egyptian and other churches, and it is poor scholarship to attempt to "read back"
a translation such as "the Word was God" into any exegesis of the Coptic text.
Such a rendering is foreign to Coptic John 1:1c, which clearly and literally says,
"the Word was a god."

5- That, stated succinctly, translating Sahidic Coptic's neunoute pe pSaje

literally into standard English as "the Word was a god" stands on solid
grammatical and contextual ground.