Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 5:27
Because he is the Son of man. No article, and John never does this anywhere else.
John 5:27, in every translation this tool compares.
He is the manager. He is manager. The second one sounds like a job rather than a person, and English feels the difference even though it is one small word.
Because the phrase appears without the definite article only here in the New Testament, which turns a title into a description and links it to Daniel 7 rather than to the usual self-designation.
Every version reads the Son of Man. None marks the missing article.
υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου huios anthropou
Huios anthropou without the article, against ho huios tou anthropou everywhere else in the Gospels. Daniel 7:13 in Greek is also anarthrous, one like a son of man, which is the argument that John is pointing at that passage specifically.
English requires an article or none, and none sounds ungrammatical with a title, so every version supplies the.
When an article is missing in Greek where a writer always uses it elsewhere, the omission is deliberate.
The Son of Man is universal; the anarthrous form is noted in commentaries and in no translation.
- The articular form throughout the Gospels: Matthew 8:20; Mark 2:10; John 1:51
- Daniel 7:13 anarthrous in the Septuagint and Theodotion
- Revelation 1:13 and 14:14 also anarthrous
