John 1:1

by Ding 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Ding

  Most The NWT translates John 1:1 as "... and the Word was a god," not "...and the Word was God."

  The reason they give is that the word theos doesn't have the definite article in front of it in the Greek.

  In his 1982 book, "The Jehovah's Witness' New Testament," Greek scholar Robert Countess looked up all such occurrences in the NT (theos without the definite article) and checked the NWT.

  He discovered that the WTS only followed their stated rule 6% of the time.

  94% of the time, they translated it "God" anyway!
• 

  lovelylil

  ding, good post.
• 

  stillajwexelder

  wow - good find
• 

  Joey Jo-Jo

  So in the beggining there was Jesus, that doesn't make any sense.
• 

  sabastious

  So in the beggining there was Jesus, that doesn't make any sense.

  Sure you want to go down that rabbit hole?

  -Sab
• 

  John1one

  Dear Ding,

  Whereas you had stated:

  Most The NWT translates John 1:1 as "... and the Word was a god," not "...and the Word was God."

  The reason they give is that the word theos doesn't have the definite article in front of it in the Greek.

  In his 1982 book, "The Jehovah's Witness' New Testament," Greek scholar Robert Countess looked up all such occurrences in the NT (theos without the definite article) and checked the NWT.

  He discovered that the WTS only followed their stated rule 6% of the time.

  94% of the time, they translated it "God" anyway!

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  This is actually not true. As can be witnessed above, many who take issue with Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation" of 'theos' in John 1:1c (as, "a god") often miss the point that the reason for translating this clause the way they do is because this is 'a singular anarthrous predicate noun *preceding the verb* and subject noun (stated or implied)' - that is, not just that use of the noun 'theos' in the third clause lacks the Greek definite article. (In the Greek language of this period, there was no such thing as an indefinite article; therefore, depending upon the grammar, syntax as well as the imediate, global and cultural context of the phrase, when translating to English, the decision on whether to add an indefinite article or not would be decided by the translator.)

  Now, with regard to some specific examples of Biblical verses which do represent the same, basic, Greek grammatical construction of John 1:1c, please examine the following within your own prefered translation of the Bible and see whether the translators had, themselves, appreciated the need to insert either an "a" or "an" there. At each of the cases below, it has been found that most Bibles consistantly do:

  Mark 6:49; Mark 11:32; John 4:19; John 6:70; John 8:44a; John 8:44b; John 9:17; John 10:1; John 10:13; John 10:33; John 12:6

  As can be easily seen, at each of the above verses, identity of the one being discussed was not at issue; no, but rather, the class of the individual is. Following this same syntactatical pattern as that found within John 1:1c, it should be easy to appreciate how that Jesus ("the Word") can also be properly identified as "a god," but certainly not as "God," the one of whom he was just said to be "with" (1:1b).

  Agape, John1one.
• 

  garyneal

  Ding,

  That was one of the first things I learned when I began examining this religion with a fine tooth comb. They are pretty inconsistent with their rules regarding translation.

  John,

  None of your cited verses referenced 'a god.' Ding's point was that whereever theos was written without the definite article (Ho) the WTS was inconsistent in translating it to 'a god' as it did in John 1:1.
• 

  wobble

  Dear John1one,

  Are you a great supporter of the NWT as a translation ?

  We have had many threads over the years dealing with John1v1 and the plain conclusion was that either rendering is permissable, and either rendering does not prove a trinitarian or non-trinitarian point of view, because of the context of the chapter mainly.

  We have had a number of threads too, of the dis-honesty of the NWT in many places, John 1v1 being not so much an example of dishonesty in translating, as an example of their conveniently going against their claimed rule (In the Introduction) of consistency throughout.

  They change the rule if it does not suit their exegesis, they twist the translation if it does not suit their doctrine.

  They are what we call, in the world of Biblical Scholarship, slippery buggers.

  It is ironic that the ones claiming to be the custodians of the "Truth" feel the need to be so so devious and mendacious.
• 

  Pahpa

  Trinitarians are not above translating Bible passages to suit their

  personal view. One only has to read John 1:18 in some of the

  new translations to demonstrate how this is done. When a

  translator has a choice he will always select the rendering

  that favors his viewpoiint.
• 

  garyneal

  Good point Papha, I've seen renderings of that verse that definitely prove a trinitarian concept where it was not present in the Greek that it was translated from. One rendering in the NIV (1984) could be a bit confusing if one did not take it in context of the trinity.