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Jehovah Witnesses and John 1 verse 1
Have the Jehovah Witnesses translated John one verse 1 correctly?
Picture is of Papyrus 66 (also referred to as 𝔓66) is a near complete codex of the Gospel of John, and part of the collection known as the Bodmer Papyri.
The Watchtower organisation claims that they and they only have translated correctly John 1:1.
To be precise we are referring to the third part of that verse – namely “and the Word was God. Nearly every translation of this verse into English says exactly the same [1], but JWs say it should be translated as “and the word was a god”.
Now of course being the only one that does something does not necessarily make you wrong – science is full of examples of when someone went against the tide and proved to be right, but is this one of those? The answer is not only no it isn’t but we will see that in fact the choice of words used in the Greek actually add to clarity of what the Holy Spirit was saying through John.
Their reason that they give for translating it as “a god” is that the definite article which is the word “the” in English is not used in the Greek original. This is of course very true but as we will see there is more to this in fact. Greek does not have an indefinite article which in English is the letter “a” but it is common to translate Greek passages without an article as the indefinite article. This is what the Watchtower organisation has tried to claim should be done with this passage and at first view it looks like a strong case. That is until we go deeper into Greek grammar and then the picture changes dramically.
Now what follows is what Dr Daniel B Wallace had to say on the verse. If you are not aware, Dan Wallace is a leading Ancient Greek Scholar whose list of achievements is too long to go into here but check out his bio at https://danielbwallace.com/cv/ What I quote below is from his book Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, published by Zondervan and also available for the Logos Bible Software suite.
The nominative case is the case that the subject is in. When the subject takes an equative verb like “is” (i.e., a verb that equates the subject with something else), then another noun also appears in the nominative case—the predicate nominative. In the sentence, “John is a man,” “John” is the subject and “man” is the predicate nominative. In English the subject and predicate nominative are distinguished by word order (the subject comes first). Not so in Greek. Since word order in Greek is quite flexible and is used for emphasis rather than for strict grammatical function, other means are used to distinguish subject from predicate nominative. For example, if one of the two nouns has the definite article, it is the subject.
As we have said, word order is employed especially for the sake of emphasis. Generally speaking, when a word is thrown to the front of the clause it is done so for emphasis. When a predicate nominative is thrown in front of the verb, by virtue of word order it takes on emphasis. A good illustration of this is John 1:1 c. The English versions typically have, “and the Word was God.” But in Greek, the word order has been reversed. It reads,
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
and God was the Word.
We know that “the Word” is the subject because it has the definite article, and we translate it accordingly: “and the Word was God.” Two questions, both of theological import, should come to mind: (1) why was θεός thrown forward? and (2) why does it lack the article?
In brief, its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: “What God was, the Word was” is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the person of the Word (Jesus Christ) with the person of “God” (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John’s wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism []; the word order is against Arianism [].
To state this another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν ὁ θεός
“and the Word was the God”
(i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεός
“and the Word was a god” (Arianism)
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
“and the Word was God” (Orthodoxy).
Jesus Christ is God and has all the attributes that the Father has. But he is not the first person of the Trinity. All this is concisely affirmed in καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
Daniel B. Wallace
How to shoot yourself in the foot
It is often the way that when an individual or organisation goes astray from the truth that they will shoot themselves in the foot by something they have said or done elsewhere. We have a classic example here with the Watchtower organisation because later in the same chapter of John they translate John 1:6, 12, 13, and 18 (which does not contain the definite article in the Greek) with God (capital G). Question is how can they translate these verses differently to John 1:1c. Are they being deceptive?!
Donal and Conal meet the JWs
This Youtube video discusses this subject. It is satire so be warned it could cause offence to JWs. But it is funny though.
By Kevin Hargreaves
Notes
[1] https://biblehub.com/john/1-1.htm
[2] Sabellianism is a heresy of the early church that said God the Father himself (the first person of the trinity) left the throne and came to earth.
[3] Arianism is an early Christian theological teaching that denies the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. It holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but was created by God the Father out of nothing. Because of this, Arians believe Jesus is distinct from and subordinate to God, rather than coeternal or fully divine. This is the same position as JWs but they go on to say that Jesus was actually the Archangel Michael.
I can not leave it like this!
The purpose of this website is not about exposing the lies and deceit of your particular belief and then leave with no hope and nothing to believe in and no purpose in your life. While it may be a good thing to realise it if you have been lied to too or deceived, this does not mean there is no truth out there.
There is truth and something that you can believe in and commit to and it will change your life – not just for now but for all eternity. Now I am not saying all your problems and troubles will disappear while you are alive in this present world but what you can have is a peace that is greater than your worldly problems. I want to be clear on this – for some people, becoming a Christian could make your life a lot harder. But despite all this, you can have a purpose in your life despite what circumstances you find yourself in. You can have a real fellowship with the living God and actually have God himself dwelling inside you by His Holy Spirit. No one ever regrets becoming a Christian. In the end we will spend eternity with Jesus in paradise. As Paul said “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17). If you read the book of Acts and see what Paul went through, it is remarkable that he would describe them as “light and momentary troubles.”
The good news is that free and available to all of mankind. You don’t have to be clever or rich or gifted or be from a certain family or country. Anyone can receive it.
The Bible tells you all you have to do is “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” That is taken from Acts 16:31. One of the most famous verses from the Bible has the same message, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
There are actually a lot of Bible verses that have the same message about salvation being free and simple but I will quote just one more on this which is Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
It is a very important principle to grasp that we can bring nothing to our salvation. It is a gift from God by His grace and we can not add any of our own works to it.
So what to do now?
Of course you can simply just commit your life to Jesus by asking him to forgive all your sins, and asking Him into your life as your Lord. Making Him your Lord will mean that you allow Him to be the Lord of all your life, which means you seek his will in all you do. On occassions you will fail to obey him, but "If we confess our sins,he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1John1:9)." If you feel you are not ready to take that step but would like to know more, I would recommend getting hold or download the Bible and start reading it. I would suggest starting in the New Testament but all of the Bible is good for you. It would also be helpful for you to find a good church and go along and ask all those questions that you would love to get answers to.
Also you are very welcome to contact me on my email gospeljohn14verse6@gmail.com and I will help in anyway that I can.
God Bless. Kevin.