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Five Lessons explaining the usage/grammar of John for John 1:1c.

tigger2

Active Member
C.


John 1:1c in NT Greek (cont.):

But, you may ask, isn’t there a significance to the reversed word order in the Greek of Jn 1:1c (‘god was the word’) which is, in English, ‘the word was god.’?

If you will examine a good NT interlinear, you will find that word order is generally meaningless.

NT Greek authorities, Dr. Alfred Marshall and Prof. J. Gresham Machen tell us in their NT Greek primers that, unlike English, NT Greek does not use word order to convey meanings but instead uses the individual endings on each word (inflections).

“The English translation must be determined by observing the [Greek word] endings, not by observing the [word] order.” - New Testament Greek for Beginners, Machen, p. 27. (cf. New Testament Greek Primer, Marshall, pp. 7, 22 and A. T. Robertson, Grammar, p. 417.) [Emphasis added]

And in a later example illustrating predicate nouns Prof. Machen gave this example: “ho apostolos anthropos estin [word for word translation: ‘the apostle man is’],” and he translated that sentence [which has an anarthrous predicate count noun (anthropos - ‘man’) preceding the verb (estin - “is”) as in John 1:1c] as “the apostle is a man.” - p. 50, New Testament Greek For Beginners, The Macmillan Company, 1951. Notice the proper addition of the English indefinite article (‘a’).

We also find that respected trinitarian scholar the Rev. Alfred Marshall translates phoneus esti (literally, ‘murderer he is’) as “He is a murderer.” - pp. 44 and 153, New Testament Greek Primer, Zondervan Publ., 1962. And John H. Dobson in his Learn New Testament Greek, p. 64, translates prophetes estin (literally, ‘prophet he is’) as “He is a prophet.” - Baker Book House, 1988.

But, since the actual grammar used by John (and all the other Gospel writers) shows John 1:1c to be properly translated as “and the Word was a god,” some Trinitarians attempted to make this perfectly ordinary NT Greek word order into something else. In 1933, Colwell proposed that the word order could make the definite article understood! This way the ‘understood’ ho (‘the’) could make Jn 1:1c say “and the word was [the] god.” And, as we have already found, ho theos (‘the god’) always indicates ‘God’ in English translations of John’s writing.

This need by some trinitarians for a new ‘rule’ is a further admission that theos by itself doesn’t mean “God” in the Gospel of John.

Another new ‘rule’ concerning the word order of John 1:1c has been proposed to make the Word of the same essence as God. These ‘Qualitative’ rules are like Colwell’s rule above except they don’t allow for an understood article (ho) before theos. They say that the word order makes theos ‘qualitative.’

The same method of examining all proper examples that are parallel to John 1:1c in John proves both modern inventions to be wrong.

To Be Continued
 

tigger2

Active Member
D.


John 1:1c in NT Greek (cont.):


It’s been many years since I looked up all the clauses in John’s writing which had predicate nouns (also called predicate nominatives). Then I made a list of all of them which are parallel to John 1:1c (predicate noun coming before the verb). I didn’t have a computer then and had to use a concordance and an interlinear NT Bible. Then I typed it all up into a 50+ page study. Now it’s on my computer and even on some internet sites (you know, the ones to which I keep giving links which everyone ignores).

In addition to examining in detail the steps we’ve looked at already, there is a comprehensive listing of the parallel constructions. When the exceptions (non-count nouns, abstracts, personal names, prepositional modifiers, etc.) are sorted out, we find the following passages to be the only proper examples which are honestly parallel to John 1:1c.

Here, then, are all the proper examples (truly comparable to Jn 1:1c) from the writings of John (Wescott and Hort text) for an honest examination of “Colwell’s Rule” (or any related rules, including Harner’s “qualitative” rule, concerning the simple, unmodified anarthrous ((without the definite article)) predicate count noun coming before the verb and subject after):

H,W 1. John 4:19 - (“a prophet”) - all Bible translations

H,W 2. John 8:48 - (“a Samaritan”) - all translations

H,W 3. John 18:37 (a) - (“a king”) - all

[H,W 4. John 18:37 (b) - (“a king”) - in Received Text and in 1991 Byzantine Text]

H: Also found in Harner’s list of “Colwell Constructions”

W: Also found in Wallace’s list of “Colwell Constructions”

These are all indefinite nouns. All modern trinitarian Bible translations I have examined render them as indefinite!

If we wish to supply more examples, we must include some which are slightly less perfect than these three (or four). The best we can do is to include all those constructions (I used the W and H text) which comply with the other qualifications above but which, unlike Jn 1:1c, have the subject before the verb also. Since trinitarian scholars themselves include such examples, they should not object if we also include all such examples.

When we add those constructions to our list, we have:

H 1. John 4:9 (a) - indefinite (“a Jew”) - all translations

H,W 2. John 4:19 - indefinite (“a prophet”) - all

H,W 3. John 6:70 - indefinite (“a devil”/“a slanderer”) - all

H,W 4. John 8:44 (a) - indefinite (“a murderer”/“a manslayer”) - all

H,W 5. John 8:48 - indefinite (“a Samaritan”) - all

H,W 6. John 9:24 - indefinite (“a sinner”) - all

H,W 7. John 10:1 - indefinite (“a thief and a plunderer”) - all


H,W 8. John 10:33 - indefinite (“a man”) - all

H,W 9. John 18:35 - indefinite (“a Jew”) - all

H,W 10. John 18:37 (a) - indefinite (“a king”) - all

[H,W 11. John 18:37 (b) - indefinite (“a king”) - in Received Text and in 1991 Byzantine Text]

These are all indefinite nouns (not definite, not “qualitative”). All trinitarian Bible translations I have examined render them as indefinite! We should have enough examples to satisfy the most critical (but honest) scholar now. (And I wouldn’t resist the use of the “no subject” examples which trinitaian scholars have also accepted which clearly intend the subject as being a pronoun included with the verb, e.g., “[he] is,” which would then bring our total of proper examples to about 20.)

These would include:

H,W 12. Jn 8:44 (b) - indefinite (“a liar”) - all

H,W 13. Jn 9:8 (a) - indefinite (“a beggar”) - all

H,W 14. Jn 9:17 - indefinite (“a prophet”) - all

H,W 15. Jn 9:25 - indefinite (“a sinner”) - all

H,W 16. Jn 10:13 - indefinite (“a hireling/hired hand”) - all

H,W 17. Jn 12:6 - indefinite (“a thief”) - all

18. 1 Jn 4:20 - indefinite (“a liar”) - all

To see more about finding these examples see the Appendix of my original study:

http://examiningthetrinity.blogspot.com/2009/09/def-part-3-appendix.html


To Be Continued
 

tigger2

Active Member
E.

John 1:1c in NT Greek (cont.):


The above lessons show that word order (predicate noun before the verb as found in the NT Greek of John 1:1c) does not change the meaning to an understood article (“the”) as Colwell’s Rule suggests or some nebulous ‘qualitative’ or ‘essence’ meaning as some other trinitarian scholars insist. [However, many of the examples of predicate nouns modified by “prepositions” (which are not proper examples because of uncertain article usage) do have understood definite articles. This does not apply to proper examples truly parallel to John 1:1c.]

Pay particular attention to two of the verses found in the list in D. above: John 6:70 and John 10:1.


John 6:70 “Jesus answered them…. and one of you [Judas] is a devil.” - KJV. Greek word order: “out of you one devil is.”

“One who sins belongs to the devil, like Cain (1 Jn 3:8, 12); or he is a devil himself, like Judas, the betrayer (Jn 6:70). .... Jesus’ enemies are called children [and sons] of the devil, i.e. those who share his nature and behavior (Jn 8:44) [Acts 13:10; 1 Jn 3:10].” - p. 472, vol. 3, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1986, Zondervan.

So a man who is from [literally “out of,” ek] the Devil (1 Jn 3:8), and is a ‘son of the Devil’ (Acts 13:10), and who is “with the Devil (whether physically or figuratively) may also be called “a devil” (Jn 6:70)! So Judas, for example, could be described in NT terms: “Judas was with ho diabolos [the Devil], and diabolos was Judas.” And no matter how anyone wants to interpret it, it would be incredibly wrong to insist (as many trinitarians do about Jn 1:1c) that this meant Judas was literally, equally the Devil himself! Whether you translate it literally (“Judas was with the Devil, and Judas was a devil”) or ‘qualitatively’ (“Judas was with the Devil, and Judas had the ‘nature’ of the Devil”), it would mean essentially the same thing: Judas simply shared to some degree some (or one) of the qualities of the Devil, but he is not equally the Devil with Satan himself! No reasonable person would accept this as evidence for some mysterious ‘Satanity’! Compare this with John 1:1c.

John 10:1 John 10:1 has this word order, “that (one) thief is and robber” [the first predicate noun is before the verb and the second is after the verb!]. This is always translated as, “that one [or ‘he’] is a thief and a robber” (both indefinite!). It is never rendered, “that one is the Thief and a robber” [Colwell]. And it is never “qualitatively” rendered as “that one has the full essence of thiefness and is a robber.”

The word order does not change the meaning. The predicate noun is still indefinite.

The John 1:1c predicate noun (and its parallels), according to John's (and the other Gospel writers) grammar and usage turns out to be as indefinite as his other anarthrous predicate nouns (found after the verb).

When John wishes to show a count noun predicate noun which comes before its verb is the most superior person in that category, he adds the definite article. For example, John 1:21 is speaking of the prophet above all other prophets. At John 1:21 we see John the Baptist being asked "the prophet are you." We see that the predicate noun not only comes before the verb and the subject is after the verb as in John 1:1c. And how did John show this was intended to be The Prophet? Well, even though it comes before the verb, John added the definite article before it! "Ho prophetes ei su." Otherwise we would have understood it to mean "a prophet" just as it is in John 4:19 where "prophetes ei su" is rendered in English Bibles as "you are a prophet."

IF John had intended John 1:1c to mean "The Word was God," he would do the same thing to avoid any ambiguity: "Ho theos en ho Logos." The fact that he didn't is very significant.

Unfortunately, in spite of all the other parallels to John 1:1c which we have seen above in Lesson D, none of them in the writings of John include the predicate noun for "God/god." To see a parallel which uses theos we must go to the ancient Greek OT Septuagint.

3 Kings 18:27 in the ancient Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (1 Kings 18:27 in English Bibles) has a parallel construction to John 1:1c. It has theos as a predicate noun without a definite article (anarthrous) and coming before the verb: “for God [or ‘a god’] he is.” But the Septuagint translation by Sir Lancelot Brenton (Zondervan Publishing) says “for he is a god.”!! Compare other translations of 1 Kings 18:27: “a god” is obviously intended here just as it is in John 1:1c.

I realize this is not from the writings of John, but it is the only way we'll find a similar use of the pre-verbal anarthrous predicate noun theos. But the many parallel uses of other predicate nouns by John prove the point anyway.
 

tigger2

Active Member
The trinitarian NT Greek expert, W. E. Vine, (although, for obvious reasons, he chooses not to accept it as the proper interpretation) admits that the literal translation of John 1:1c is: “a god was the Word”. - p. 490, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1983 printing.
 
I have read all of what you have said, and while I will admit that the more I have talked with you, the more I have become convinced of the insufficiency of reading John 1:1c as the Word was God, I am still not convinced that we should read it as the Word was a god. One must take into account the audience to which John was writing (Greek gentiles). Keeping this in mind, it seems then unlikely that he intended a Jewish meaning in his anarthrous use of θεὸς, even in view of Psalm 82:6, with which the intended audience would have been unfamiliar; no doubt, if the Greeks read a god they would have interpreted it in light of their own polytheistic beliefs. Moreover, had John written ὁ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, that is, the Word was [the] God, then this may have resulted in readers confusing the logos with the Father in terms of personhood (cf. John 10:30), as some had done even in spite of this. He therefore left θεὸς anarthrous to convey the same sense as the Nicene Creed conveys in saying θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ θεοῦ (I use this merely as a linguistic example), that is, very [G]od of very [G]od (a qualitative sense), and placed it at the beginning of the clause so as to indicate its definiteness. Word order in Greek is not entirely meaningless, contrary to what you say. It is only meaningless in that it does not determine the grammatical case of a word, not in that it cannot (in other ways) affect the meaning of a sentence. It seems to me, then, that the best reading is the Word was divine, and what "divine" means can be left to another discussion.
 

tigger2

Active Member
NT Greek has a word for 'divine' and John could have very easily used it as a predicate adjective in John 1:1c: "and the word was divine," if that is what he intended. Instead he chose to use theos in a manner that in all other such constructions by him intends an indefinite noun.


The Word (ho Logos)

A few trinitarians actually attempt to “prove” that John 1:1c should be translated as “and the Word [Logos] was God” rather than “and the Word [Logos] was a god” by appealing to one of the strictly pagan concepts of “The Logos”!

But, as we will see, the best evidence (as a number of trinitarian authorities themselves admit) shows that John is basing his Logos [‘Word’] concept on that of the Jewish teaching of Philo.

Philo (who lived about 20 B.C. - 50 A.D. in Egypt*), the best-known, most-respected Hellenistic Jewish theologian by those living in the first and second centuries, clearly and repeatedly taught that the Logos is a god (one lesser than God) and frequently showed this in his writing by using theos (θεος) without the definite article (“a god”) to refer to the Logos but used theos with the definite article ho theos θεος) when referring to God. Since John obviously based most of his Logos statements on Philo’s concept, we would expect him to use theos without the article (“a god”) to refer to the Logos. And that is exactly what he did at John 1:1c! - see Lesson B.


...........................

*
Not coincidentally, the two oldest manuscripts (p66 and p75) with John 1:1 were found in Egypt.
And the very oldest fragment of the Gospel of John (dated to 100-125 A.D.) was also found in Egypt.

...........................

The outstanding Alexandrian Jew [‘the chief representative of Alexandrian Judaism’ - J. B. Lightfoot’s commentary: Epistle to the Philippians, p. 130] is, of course, Philo Judaeus (20 B.C.-A.D. 50). .... It has been said rightly that the history of Christian philosophy ‘began not with a Christian but a Jew,’ namely Philo of Alexandria.” - p. 35, The Rise of Christianity, W. H. C. Frend (trinitarian), 1985, Fortress Press.

“Philo, the famous Jewish philosopher, .... is the most important example of the Hellenized Jews outside Palestine... he believed wholly in the Mosaic scriptures and in one God whose chief mediator with the world is the Logos” - Philo, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1988.

Philo also (unlike the pagan Greek Stoic philosophers) “gives the Logos the titles of Son of God [John 1:34], paraclete [‘Comforter,’ ‘Advocate,’ ‘Helper’ - 1 John 2:1], and mediator between God and man [1 Tim. 2:5].” - Americana, 1957, v. 21, pp. 766, 767.

Philo also:

“differentiates the Logos from God as his work or image [2 Cor. 4:4].” Philo’s Logos is also “first-born son [Ro. 8:29]....divine [a god - Jn 1:1] but not God, is with God [Jn 1:1], is light [Jn 1:4],...manna [Jn 6:31-51],...and shepherd [Jn 10:11].” - Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 251, vol. 14, 1968. (Cf. Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 8, p. 136.)

And,

“Philo describes the Logos in terms which often bear striking resemblance to NT descriptions of Christ .... Philo distinguishes God as the cause by which [and]..., the Logos as that through which (di’ hou),... the cosmos originated” [Jn 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6] and “even as θεος [‘a god’] in a subordinate sense” [Jn 1:1] and one “from which drawing water one may find eternal life instead of death [Jn 4:14].” - A Dictionary of the Bible, p. 135, vol. 3, Hastings, ed., Hendrickson Publ., 1988 printing.


In fact, Philo even said that

“the Logos is the eldest son [first-born or created] of God.” [Ro. 8:29] - The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (trinitarian), p. 639, vol. 3 (also vol. 1, p. 178), 1986, Zondervan.


“Philo of course conceives of the Logos - which he occasionally calls divine (theos) [literally, ‘a god’], but never ‘God’ (ho theos) - as the highest angel and as the highest idea at the same time....” - p. 126, John 1, Haenchen, Fortress Press, 1984.

After discussing all other trinitarian-proposed origins of John’s concept of the Logos (including, of course, those of the Stoics; the OT Wisdom concept; etc.) and rejecting them all, a highly-respected trinitarian work concludes:

“In the question of the origin of the Logos-concept [by John], pre-eminent significance is therefore to be attributed to Hellenistic Judaism [Philo].” - p. 1117, vol. 3, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1986, Zondervan.

Respected Church historian Cairns (trinitarian) also tells us:

“Multitudes were later mentioned as becoming a part of the Church (Acts 5:14). It is rather interesting that many of these were Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6:1)” - p. 60, Christianity Through The Centuries, Zondervan, 1977.

Even the noted Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics tells us that John must be referring to Philo’s concept of the Logos:

“It is clear from the tone of the Prologue [John 1:1-18] that Philo’s conception of the Logos, or something akin to it, was already familiar to those for whom the Evangelist [John] wrote. No explanation of the word Logos is given [anywhere in the entire Gospel]; and almost every verse in this Prologue might be paralleled from Philo [and only Philo].” - p. 136, vol. 8.

And if John were writing to a group of the “many ... Hellenistic Jews” who had become a part of the Church (or who were at least interested in Christianity), there would be no need to explain the Logos concept which they were already very familiar with from Philo’s Hellenistic Judaism. (The lack of any explanation of his Logos concept by John has been very troubling to many students of the Prologue of the Gospel of John.) And that concept is that the Logos (although the second highest power in the universe, the Son of God, the Mediator between God and Man, the one through whom God created all things) is an intermediate entity who is not the Most High God but is a god! - see Lesson B.

The above are excerpts from my ‘Logos (the Word)’ study - http://examiningthetrinity.blogspot.com/2009/09/logos-word.html
 
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tigger2

Active Member
Professor C. H. Dodd, director of the New English Bible project, also admits this is a proper literal translation:

“A possible translation [for John 1:1c] ... would be, ‘The Word was a god.’ As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted.” - Technical Papers for the Bible Translator, vol. 28, Jan. 1977.

The reason Prof. Dodd rejected “a god” as the actual meaning intended by John is simply because it didn't fit his trinitarian interpretations of John’s Gospel!
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I have read all of what you have said, and while I will admit that the more I have talked with you, the more I have become convinced of the insufficiency of reading John 1:1c as the Word was God, I am still not convinced that we should read it as the Word was a god. One must take into account the audience to which John was writing (Greek gentiles). Keeping this in mind, it seems then unlikely that he intended a Jewish meaning in his anarthrous use of θεὸς, even in view of Psalm 82:6, with which the intended audience would have been unfamiliar; no doubt, if the Greeks read a god they would have interpreted it in light of their own polytheistic beliefs. Moreover, had John written ὁ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, that is, the Word was [the] God, then this may have resulted in readers confusing the logos with the Father in terms of personhood (cf. John 10:30), as some had done even in spite of this. He therefore left θεὸς anarthrous to convey the same sense as the Nicene Creed conveys in saying θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ θεοῦ (I use this merely as a linguistic example), that is, very [G]od of very [G]od (a qualitative sense), and placed it at the beginning of the clause so as to indicate its definiteness. Word order in Greek is not entirely meaningless, contrary to what you say. It is only meaningless in that it does not determine the grammatical case of a word, not in that it cannot (in other ways) affect the meaning of a sentence. It seems to me, then, that the best reading is the Word was divine, and what "divine" means can be left to another discussion.
Word is the active or personal aspect of g-d, JHVH. This is why jesus and JHVH are both called 'Lord'. This is why monotheism doesn't work when you separate the aspects of G-d.

In other words, if you separate the aspects of G-d, you derive a different g-d, from the Tetragrammaton , which, although works for a specific type of trinity idea, [presumably, does not work if you use the the Tetragrammaton singly as a description of G-d.


Therefore, what would be argued, if you follow your argument, is that the name and word, 'g-d' in the New Testament, is both interpretive, and doesn't mean the Tetragrammaton.

Evening
 
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Oeste

Well-Known Member
(Apparently you don't know history as well as you may think.)
1914 is not the reason!

Apparently you don’t know Watchtower history as well as you may think. 1914 was certainly the reason. It’s the date they come up with based on a rather questionable interpretation of scriptural after a bout of bad math:

607-1914.jpg

The bad math was the prior 606 B.C.E date they gave, having forgotten there was no year "zero".

The fact is, we'll trust the Scriptures over any **supposed** understanding of fallible secular historians.

Not exactly….from my perspective JW's will trust the Watchtower’s interpretation over any clear understanding of scripture.

Now, among historians the only undisputed date (what is called an 'absolute date') related to this, that far back, is 539 BCE. when Cyrus entered Babylon. After gaining control and getting his infrastructure organized, he released the Jewish prisoners two years later. Now, count 70 years back. Fulfilling prophecy!

1. Secular historians are correct.

2. Scripture is correct.

3. Watchtower is wrong.

4. This is off thread theme

Or would you rather believe the Scripture is wrong?

It’s pretty clear the WT is wrong. They’re the only folks who adhere to 607 without a shred of evidence. But then prior to 607 they supported 606 without a shred of evidence either, and then simply changed it to 607 later. This was not a matter of a few months but of a full year. The change was immediately accepted by all JW’s as soon as they read it in the Society’s publications. So when the WT changes it again, you’ll accept the change immediately as you do all other changes and wonder how you could have possibly believed anything else.

The problem is not in scripture @HockyCowboy, nor is it in our history books. The problem lies with the Watchtower’s interpretation of scriptural events.

I take scripture as correct.

That’s good! But I’ll tell you, secular historians don’t.

Secular historians have upheld the authenticity of this biblical account. What they don’t uphold is the Watchtower’s aberrant interpretation which arrives at an incorrect date.

So if Cyrus defeated Babylon in 539 BCE (an ABSOLUTE date), how was Jerusalem to “remain desolate for 70 years” to be fulfilled, beginning in 587 BCE?

Read Revelation 12:9, then tell me this world isn’t being misled by Satan.

It’s not a matter of being “misled by Satan”, it’s a matter of being “misled by the Watchtower”…the same folk who brought us the failed prophesy concerning 1914. All world governments were to be destroyed but the year came and went and the governments were still here, so they simply changed it to “the generation that would not pass away”, but the generation did pass away, so now it means something else.

This is interesting but all off thread theme and I don’t want to derail the thread.
 

Oeste

Well-Known Member
We can see that out of at least 47 uses of theos for the only true God

It never ceases to amaze me that after giving lip serve to the belief there is only ONE TRUE God, the Watchtower then argue for other true Gods.

This they explain by claiming the Son of God is lesser deity. A true God that's a little less true than the one true God because he's a junior god pronounced/written with a small "g".

NT Greek does not use word order to convey meanings

Of course it does.

Yes, “dog bites man” and “man bites dog” have completely different meanings in English, but they would be written the same in Greek. So in this respect the word order in Greek is meaningless and we know which subject receives the action by word endings. However this does not mean that word order is meaningless since word order can be used to show emphasis, just as it was used in John 1:1a,c.

So a man who is from [literally “out of,” ek] the Devil (1 Jn 3:8), and is a ‘son of the Devil’ (Acts 13:10), and who is “with the Devil (whether physically or figuratively) may also be called “a devil” (Jn 6:70)! So Judas, for example, could be described in NT terms: “Judas was with ho diabolos [the Devil], and diabolos was Judas.” And no matter how anyone wants to interpret it, it would be incredibly wrong to insist (as many trinitarians do about Jn 1:1c) that this meant Judas was literally, equally the Devil himself! Whether you translate it literally (“Judas was with the Devil, and Judas was a devil”) or ‘qualitatively’ (“Judas was with the Devil, and Judas had the ‘nature’ of the Devil”), it would mean essentially the same thing: Judas simply shared to some degree some (or one) of the qualities of the Devil, but he is not equally the Devil with Satan himself! No reasonable person would accept this as evidence for some mysterious ‘Satanity’! Compare this with John 1:1c.

My goodness! As stated previously we don’t look at John 1:1c as if its in a silo, all by its lonesome. If you want to compare Judas with Jesus as portrayed in John 1:1 you’re going to have to find a verse that has all 3 verse elements together, and not the mashup you did with 1 Jn 3:8, Acts 13:10 and Jn 6:70!

Obviously if “in the beginning” Judas was with Satan, and Satan was with Judas, and Judas was a Satan, then Jesus would never have selected him as a disciple! :confused:

Are these the type of scriptural gymnastics we must go through to arrive at "a god"??? Let's continue:


When we add those constructions to our list, we have:

H 1. John 4:9 (a) - indefinite (“a Jew”) - all translations

H,W 2. John 4:19 - indefinite (“a prophet”) - all

H,W 3. John 6:70 - indefinite (“a devil”/“a slanderer”) - all

H,W 4. John 8:44 (a) - indefinite (“a murderer”/“a manslayer”) - all

H,W 5. John 8:48 - indefinite (“a Samaritan”) - all

H,W 6. John 9:24 - indefinite (“a sinner”) - all

H,W 7. John 10:1 - indefinite (“a thief and a plunderer”) - all

H,W 8. John 10:33 - indefinite (“a man”) - all

H,W 9. John 18:35 - indefinite (“a Jew”) - all

H,W 10. John 18:37 (a) - indefinite (“a king”) - all

[H,W 11. John 18:37 (b) - indefinite (“a king”) - in Received Text and in 1991 Byzantine Text]

Here's the problem I see. Each and every word you gave above requires a definite or indefinite article in English. However the word God does not. It can stand on its own and be rendered, in English, with or without an article.

As such it appears you're using a target language (English), to reverse engineer a rule into the source language of Koine Greek. In other words, you're using English grammar to establish a rule in Greek.

As for John 1:1: I think Wallace says it best:

Emphatic word order

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 as 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 1:1c. The English versions typically have, “and the Word was God.” But in Greek, the word order has been reversed. It reads,

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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 qeovV 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:

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“and the Word was the God” (i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

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“and the Word was a god” (Arianism)

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“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
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Exegetical Insights (Daniel B. Wallace)
 

Oeste

Well-Known Member
BTW, could someone let me know which Greek fonts this web site accepts? For some reason it seems I'm no longer able to post or paste notes using the Teknia Greek font.
 
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Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
Secular historians have upheld the authenticity of this biblical account.

No, they haven’t. Neither do they care to.

And 1914 was an important year. “Beginning of pangs of distress,” fulfilling Jesus’ words Matthew 24:8.
Many historians and world leaders noticed the difference between pre-1914 and post-1914.
 
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Oeste

Well-Known Member
Lastly, and I don't want to keep harping on this point, but the 800 pound gorilla in this room is that "a god" would have been historically impossible. Not improbable, but historically it just didn't happen. Early Christians were NOT polytheists. They claimed no one else "a god" but the true God. If they were able to claim Jesus as "a god" they would have been welcomed into the empire as godly believers, and not considered atheists by the Romans. Ditto for all the other "gods" that JW's consider actual gods.

So the argument for a god is simply an intellectual exercise...an attempt to squeeze scripture by ignoring huge amounts of text (and history) until we arrive at the preferred, "correct" Watchtower interpretation using dubious grammatical practices.

The problem when talking with Jehovah Witnesses is that any history that disagrees with Watchtower interpretation is shrugged off as Satan influenced. My discussion with @Hockeycowboy attests to this. Here, both secular historians and Christians scholars agree as to the fall of Jerusalem, but because the date interferes with WT theology and their 1914 timeline, history is wrong and the WT is correct...and when the WT is correct it is only then that scripture is vindicated!

The idea that scripture is, has and will be vindicated regardless of what the Watchtower states seems to have gone missing somewhere. The point is, if they consider our history books and encyclopedias incorrect, you can rest assured that any baseline grammatical, lexical, and contextual knowledge accepted by our scholastic communities are incorrect also, except to the extent that they agree with the Governing Board.

But again, I've stayed up way to late to participate on this forum and I know I'll regret it in the morning (even though I thoroughly enjoy the conversations here).

I'll reply as I can.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
the 800 pound gorilla in this room is that "a god" would have been historically impossible. Not improbable, but historically it just didn't happen.

Not what Paul said @ 1 Corinthians 8:5

Early Christians were NOT polytheists. They claimed no one else "a god" but the true God.
Exactly right! And Who was that? “The Father”, as per 1 Corinthians 8:6; John 17:1-3. Plain as day.

Stop injecting your theology into your Bible reading.
 

tigger2

Active Member
Lastly, and I don't want to keep harping on this point, but the 800 pound gorilla in this room is that "a god" would have been historically impossible. Not improbable, but historically it just didn't happen. Early Christians were NOT polytheists. They claimed no one else "a god" but the true God. If they were able to claim Jesus as "a god" they would have been welcomed into the empire as godly believers, and not considered atheists by the Romans. Ditto for all the other "gods" that JW's consider actual gods.

So the argument for a god is simply an intellectual exercise...an attempt to squeeze scripture by ignoring huge amounts of text (and history) until we arrive at the preferred, "correct" Watchtower interpretation using dubious grammatical practices.

You are very wrong. Please read the last paragraph of Lesson B (post 59 above).
 

tigger2

Active Member
Rev. J. W. Wenham wrote in a footnote in his The Elements of New Testament Greek: “Therefore as far as grammar alone is concerned, such a sentence could be printed: θεὸς ἐστιν ὁ λόγος, which would mean either, ‘The Word is a god, or, ‘The Word is the god’.” - p. 35, Cambridge University Press, 1965.

(Of course if you carefully examine the 'Five Lessons' above, you will find that the grammar really shows that ‘The Word is [or “was” in John 1:1c] a god’ is what John intended.)
 

tigger2

Active Member
Trinitarian NT scholar Prof. Murray J. Harris also admits that grammatically John 1:1c may be properly translated, ‘the Word was a god,’ but his trinitarian bias makes him claim that “John’s monotheism” will not allow such an interpretation. - p. 60, Jesus as God, Baker Book House, 1992.

However, his acknowledgment of the use of “god” for men at John 10:34-36 and the use of “god/gods” for angels, judges, and other men in the Hebrew OT Scriptures contradicts his above excuse for not accepting the literal translation. - p. 202, Jesus as God.
 

tigger2

Active Member
Dr. J. D. BeDuhn in his Truth in Translation states about John 1:1c:

“ ‘And the Word was a god.’ The preponderance of evidence from Greek grammar… supports this translation.” - p. 132, University Press of America, Inc., 2003.
 

tigger2

Active Member
Trinitarian Dr. Robert Young admits that a more literal translation of John 1:1c is “and a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word” - p. 54, (‘New Covenant’ section), Young’s Concise Critical Bible Commentary, Baker Book House, 1977 printing.
 
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