Theos and theon

SonoftheTrinity

Oh how dubs will cling to da troof. This guy was trying to get me to agree that theos and theon were different words for God. I tried explaining that other languages have grammatical cases and the difference between calling God Theos and Theon was like the difference between referring to god as He(the subjective case) and Him(the objective case.) It is no more a different word than putting an apostrophe on Jesuswhen talking about Jesus' name. Does the apostrophe make it a different word? It was all in his effort to convince me that the New World Translation is superior. "No, the difference between Theos and theon is the difference between God being referred to as He and Him and that's the only difference. The Strong's concordance proves it." He and my wife went on to claim it was a vast apostate conspiracy when they could no longer rebut my proofs. Momma didn't raise no fool.

Ding

Several years ago, I had a JW make a similar argument to me.

I explained Greek cases and showed him examples in the Kingdom Interlinear.

He didn't like it either...

SonoftheTrinity

Now imagine the offending Witness is Jiminy Glick. A fat little guy overmodulating his voice while failing to listen to my points because they are too inconvenient to his worldview.

opusdei1972

I had to learn some basic Koiné Greek through online courses and books so as to understand controversial verses in the Bible. Therefore, the New World translation is not grammatically incorrect in translating John 1:1 c as "The Word was a god", because the translation depends on how you interpret the anarthrous "theos". It can be definite or indefinite. Both translations "The Word was a god" and "the Word was God" lead to theological problems. This is why its interpretation led to terrible debates from the second to the fifth century.

opusdei1972

It was all in his effort to convince me that the New World Translation is superior.

Honestly, in some verses the NWT is superior, but in others it is dishonest. The English of the Old Testament of the NWT sometimes is horrible. However, there no such a thing as a superior translation. All are biased.

Ding

Who translates it "a god" besides the WT and Johannes Greber?

opusdei1972

Who translates it "a god" besides the WT and Johannes Greber?

No modern translation does it. However, it is not grammatically incorrect. I am not defending this translation as the true one, because no one currently knows the mind of the writer. However, as Origen noticed, many greek readers were confused, because some thought that there were two Gods or only one God in John 1:1.

SonoftheTrinity

Opusdei this guy was just a tool. He kept on wanting me to agree with him that Theos and Theon were as different from each other as God and "a god". I am a serious believer in coequal hypostases though. My baptismal name is Wolde-Selassie (Born of the Trinity). I couldn't agree with him and of course I relish in being labelled by my wife as an opposer. Bad guys are the sexiest.

opusdei1972

of course, theos and theon mean the same thing: "god", however, they have different functions in a sentence, like he and him, as you pointed out.

opusdei1972

I can defend the translation "The Word was God" in the same way as I can defend that of the NWT. This was a great debate in the early church. This is why educated Christians like Tertullian needed to use philosophical terms to avoid Sabelianism in regarding "theos" as definite. He used the latin word "substantia" (being of essence) to do an exegesis to explain how the Son and the Father are the same God.

Theos and theon

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