1.3 THE WORK OF GRANVILLE SHARP
THE WORK OF GRANVILLE SHARP Granville Sharp (1735-1813) was an English philanthropist and abolitionist. He was a student of the Scriptures, although he was not a clergyman. He believed strongly in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and in the deity of Jesus Christ. His strong belief in Christ’s deity led him to study the Scriptures in the original in order to defend more ably that precious truth. Through this motivation he became a good linguist, able to handle accurately both the Greek and Hebrew texts of Scripture. One of his publications, written before he dis- covered his "rule," was a defense of the view that "Jehovah" (YHWH) of the OT referred, at times, to each person of the Trinity. As he studied the Scriptures in the original, he noticed a certain pattern, namely, when the construction article-noun- kai<-noun involved per- sonal nouns which were singular and not proper names, they always referred to the same person. He noticed further that this rule applied in several texts to the deity of Jesus Christ. So in 1798 he published a lengthy volume entitled, Remarks on the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament: Containing Many New Proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from Passages Which Are Wrongly Translated in the Common English Version [KJV]. The volume went through four editions (three British and one American).2 2 The contents of this paragraph are from C. Kuehne, "The Greek Article and the Doctrine of Christ’s Deity," Journal of Theology 13 (September, 1973) 15-18.
62GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL In this work Sharp articulated six rules, though what has com- monly become known as "Sharp’s Rule" is the first of these. Sharp articulated this rule as follows: When the copulative kai< connects two nouns of the same case, [viz. nouns (either substantive or adjective, or participles) of personal description, respecting office, dignity, affinity, or connexion, and attri- butes, properties, or qualities, good or ill,] if the article o[, or any of its cases, precedes the first of the said nouns or participles, and is not repeated before the second noun or participle, the latter always relates to the same person that is expressed or described by the first noun or participle: i.e. it denotes a farther description of the first-named person. . .3 To put this simply, in the construction article-noun- kai<-noun, four requirements must be met if the two nouns refer to the same person: (1) both nouns must, of course, be personal; (2) both nouns must be common nouns, i.e., not proper names; (3) both nouns must be in the same case; and (4) both nouns must be singular in number.
Although many today have argued against the validity of this rule, no one has demonstrated its invalidity in the NT.4 The implications of 3 Granville Sharp, Remarks on the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament: Containing Many New Proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from Passages Which Are Wrongly Translated in the Common English Version, 1st American edition (Philadelphia: B. B. Hopkins, 1807), 3.
4 The best modern defense of the validity of Sharp’s rule that I have seen is a seven- part series in the Journal of Theology by C. Kuehne ("The Greek Article and the Doctrine of Christ’s Deity" in JT 13 [September, 1973] 12-28; 13 [December 1973] 14-30; 14 [March 1974] 11-20; 14 [June, 1974] 16-25; 14 [September, 1974] 21-33; 14 [December, 1974] 8-19; 15 [March, 1975] 8-22). Unfortunately, this journal apparently has such a limited circulation that this superb series has hardly been noticed. It may be added here that the primary reason evangelicals have been hesitant to adopt the validity of this rule is the anti-Trinitarian bias of last century’s greatest grammarian of NT Greek, G. B. Winer. A. T. Robertson vividly points out Winer’s influence: A strange timidity seized some of the translators in the Jerusalem Chamber that is reproduced by the American Committee. There is no hesitation in translating John i.l as the text has it. Why boggle over 2 Peter i.1? The explanation is to be found in Winer’s Grammar (Thayer’s Edition, p. 130; W. F. Moulton’s (p. 162), where the author seeks by indirection to break the force of Granville Sharp’s rule by saying that in 2 Peter i. 1 "there is not even a pronoun with swth?roj." That is true, but it is quite beside the point.
There is no pronoun with swth?roj in 2 Peter i. 11, precisely the same idiom, where no one doubts the identity of "Lord and Saviour." Why refuse to apply the same rule to 2 Peter i. 1, that all admit, Winer included, to be true of 2 Peter i. 11? . . . The simple truth is that Winer’s anti-Trinitarian prejudice overruled his grammatical rectitude in his remark about 2 Peter i. 1.
. . . It is plain, therefore, that Winer has exerted a pernicious influence, from the grammatical standpoint, on the interpretation of 2 Peter i. 1, and Titus ii. 13.
THE ARTICLE-NOUN-KAI’-NOUN PLURAL CONSTRUCTION 63 this rule for the deity of Christ in passages such as Titus 2:13 (tou? mega<lou qeou? kai> swth?roj h[mw?n Xristou? ]Ihshou?) and 2 Peter 1:1 (tou? qeou? h[mw?n kai> swth?roj ]Ihsou? Xristou?) are, to say the least, rather significant.