The regular uses of the article in the Greek

Whenever a definite article occurs with a noun in the Greek it denotes an individual, or secondly, it denotes secondly previous reference, or thirdly, it simply is used to indicate an abstract noun developing an abstract principle. This is how we have the article with a)lhqeia which is used for truth or doctrine. The definite article there indicates an abstract principle. It is also used with proper names to indicate a person well-known to the reader. That is why we have so many times, o( Xristoj, ‘the Christ.’ Fifthly, it is used generically to denote a category. In addition to these five the definite article is often used for a personal pronoun, a possessive pronoun, or demonstrative pronoun. These are special uses of the definite article and they came down to us from Attic Greek. The Attic Greek used the article as a pronoun and the definite article distinguishes the subject from the predicate in a copulative sentence. Sometimes it is impossible to know. For example, in John 1:1 Qeoj and Logoj are used and they are separated by a verb, h)n, which is the imperfect of e)imi. How does one know which is which. It is kai qeoj o( logoj, so we know that even though it says literally, “And God was the Word,” we know that “the Word” is the subject because of the definite article. So it is “the Word was God.” “God” is the predicate nominative and not the subject. This is very important in interpretation of the Word of God. How do we know which is which? Because the definite article denotes the subject as over against the predicate nominative. Every time the definite article occurs in the Word of God it has a meaning and sometimes even the interpretation of a passage is dependant upon understanding that.