DttP
So unless you plan on going all "Narkissos" on this verse, you have some explaining to do using Harner in the context of a John 1:1 "Word was God" anti-NWT rant.
Huh?
The New World Translation is a Mess
by Amazing 144 Replies latest jw friends
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Narkissos
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Death to the Pixies
Um, no disrespect intended. It is slacker Americanism. I simply mean explaining "theos en ho logos" in a way that is not in accord with mine or Amazing's POV. Hyper-gnostic? Perhaps I am wrong, but your interpretation of the pro-logue (and the entire Johanine Lit)would make "the Word was God" correct whilst not agree-ing with Trinitariansm or (neo) arianism. Or am I wrong and would you translate this differently?
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Narkissos
LOL, agreed, except for the qualificative hyper-gnostic... I think Johannine theology is better termed "proto-Gnostic," that is, quite "moderate" and fluid in comparison to the later developed Gnostic systems which cristallised against the symmetrically emerging "orthodoxy".
But, a more dynamic and inclusive concept of divinity, extending to all of God's "children," along with a strict yet asymmetrical dualism opposing the "Father" to the "ruler of the world," certainly.
On edit: as for translation, inasmuch as we are trapped in the traditional differentiation between "God" and "god," a very good way to capture the nuance of the anarthrous theos is reflected in one English version (I think, don't remember which): "what God was the Word was"...
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LovesDubs
The Watchtower Society cant even get their OWN history accurately written. And God didnt even WRITE any of that crap. If they cant get right what actually has happened to them in their own back yard and only within the last 120 years...how in hell can they accurately or truthfully transcribe the bible written in a language they dont themselves even understand? Consider the source...head for the door.
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onacruse
Faulty post...then edited, then decided to not post the edited version.
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Leolaia
Amazing: What Bible translations agree with the NWT on this point? I have found none. There is no credible Bible translation or version that agrees with the NWT on John 1:1.
Death to the Pixies: Actually it easily demonstrable, Harner who you quoted in your list says "the Word was God" is an incorrect translation, but yet notice the list of bibles you quote that translate it "The Word was God"... The NWT also accepts the gloss "The Word was divine" in their appendix which agrees with Goodspeed and Moffatt. Of course Harner as you apparently do not know does so as well.
Harner absolutely does not "agree with the NWT" on John 1:1 or find "The Word was divine" as sufficient. He rejects both renderings as inadequate, along with "the Word was God" which has the incorrect implication that "logos and theos are equivalent and interchangeable" (p. 85). He says that "John evidently wished to say something about the logos that was other than A [logos and theos as equivalent and interchangeable] and more than D [logos as "a god" or a divine being of some kind] and E [logos as "divine" with a possible implication that the logos was only theios and subordinate to theos]." More to the point, he says that "in terms of our analysis it is important that we understand the phrase 'the Word is divine' as an attempt to represent the meaning of clause B [i.e. logos has the nature of theos] rather than D or E ... the Word is 'divine' in the same sense that ho theos is divine" (p. 86), with the specific nuance being that "the logos has the nature of theos (rather than something else)" (p. 85). He also says that rendering it as "the Word was God" is acceptable only when this nuance is kept in mind:
"In terms of analysis that we have proposed, a recognition of the qualitative significance of theos would remove some ambiguity in his interpretation by differentiating between theos, as the nature that the Logos shared with God, and ho theos as the 'person' to whom the Logos stood in relation. Only when this distinction is clear can we say of the Logos that 'he was God' " (pp. 86-87).
Thus Harner suggests as the best translation: "the Word had the same nature as God" (p. 87). This puts the focus on the Word's divine nature without implying that the Word was divine in a lesser sense (i.e. theios), i.e. that he was divine to the "same" extent as God. He writes: "John's thought, as I understand it, is that ho logos, no less than ho theos, had the nature of theos". This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the kind of rendering used in the NWT. Harner finds the NEB rendering "what God was, the Word was" as inadequate for allowing an interpretation that makes logos and theos as interchangeable, but it doesn't have this sense to me (it rather implies that these are two separate beings sharing the same nature) and I regard this as the best way of expressing this sense in English. For example, it works amiably for 1 John 4:8 which has the same syntax as John 1:1; rather than rendering it as "God is love" (which could imply, just like "the Word is God", that "God" and "love" are interchangeable entities, that God literally is "love"), the thought is rather "what love is, God is", i.e. God has the same nature as love.
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onacruse
OK, I've gathered my thoughts (rather, feelings) about this, and so here goes:
Jim:
Furthermore, while various translations have a measure of bias, no one is really able to demonstrate it, except in the case of the NWT, and perhaps the revised Bible by Joseph Smith. The NWT is a deliberate fraud with designed biases built in to prop up a religion, whereas other translations only have minor unintended biases of the translators ... but their work is peer reviewed by other scholars who will contain any extremes.
For the life of me I can't imagine how a man with your obvious intelligence would make such sweeping and contradictory generalizations.
Respectfully (as I hammer my head against the wall),
Craig
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greendawn
I don't agree that john 1:1 should be translated as "the word was God" in the sense that the word was an indivisible part of God. Gramatically "kai theos en o logos" may well be interpreted as: the logos was a god, he was of divine status. On the other hand if we had: "kai o theos en o logos" that would definitely indicate that the Logos was an indivisible part of God. So John describes the Logos as a God but not the absolute God. To the ancients the word god did not necessarily refer to the absolute God. Now if John knew that God created everything through Jesus and what's more for Jesus then he must have thought of him as someone of Divine status.
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bennyk
Vaughan and Gideon's Greek Grammar states (p.79): "An example of the qualitative or characterizing significance of the anarthrous noun is theos in John 1:1." (p.84) [re:John 1:1] "Had the article been used with theos, the suggestion would have been that the Word is identical with the entire essence of the Deity. As it actually stands, theos (without the article) is the predicate, and it is the nature and attributes of Deity that are ascribed to the Word. That is to say, it is the nature of the Word, not the identity of his Person, to which attention is called by the absence of the article."
(To those who would argue that Colwell's "rule" precludes a definite article in the predicate nominative preceding the subject, please see John 15:1b and consider that Greek MS Codex L has a definite article in the predicate nominative at John 1:1c.)
The Zuercher Bibel and Hermann Menge's translation (both German language) have a footnote at John 1:1 noting that the statement signifies that the Word was "goettlichen Wesens" (of the divine essence or nature).
I would be inclined to translate John 1:1bc "and the Word was with God, and the Word was god" because "God" (the definite theos) is construed in English as a proper noun, whereas "god" (the anarthrous theos) is not. (Of course, this is not distinctive when read orally.)
David Bercot (I believe it was he) gave an illustrative parallel using the Hebrew word adam as a proper name (Adam) and qualitatively (adam = human) to illustrate this:
"In the Beginning was Eve, and Eve was with Adam, and Eve was adam (i.e. human)"
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greendawn
Good quotations Bennyk, the NWT contains many errors which are intentional rather than due to sheer incompetence but as it happens they translated this one correctly. Any classical scholar worth his salt knows that in the sentence "kai theos en o logos" the word theos there is in fact a descriptive term of logos.