ABSTRACT
I became intrigued with Johannine theology when I noticed that the standard English translations of John 8:44 obscure the Greek, which reads: ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ. With the article preceding πατρὸς, the phrase τοῦ διαβόλου is a genitive phrase modifying the nominal phrase ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς. Thus: “You are from the father of the Devil.” If the statement were to mean, as the standard English translation renders it, “You are of the father, the Devil,” then the article preceding πατρὸς would not be present. In this case the phrase, “father” would be in the predicate position and could be expanded with an appositional phrase τοῦ διαβόλου, a grammatical choice that the author of John makes a few verses later in 8:56 when referencing Abraham: ᾽Αβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ὐμῶν, “Abraham, your father.”1
