Which Bible translation is the most accurate?

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Why bother say blessed art thou, for flesh and blood hath not manifest it unto thee but thy father which art in heaven? Was his name Peter before that point or was he suddenly then given the name of Peter?

Peter isn't a name. This is a primarily aramaic speaking community (which is why Paul refers to Peter as Kephas). Jesus calling Simon "Peter" is like someone calling Obama "president" or calling Samuel L. Clemens "Mark Twain" or calling Dwayne Johnson "the rock".

Petros isn't a name. It's literally as much of a name as "the rock" is Dwayne Johnson's name.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Peter isn't a name. This is a primarily aramaic speaking community (which is why Paul refers to Peter as Kephas). Jesus calling Simon "Peter" is like someone calling Obama "president" or calling Samuel L. Clemens "Mark Twain" or calling Dwayne Johnson "the rock".

Petros isn't a name. It's literally as much of a name as "the rock" is Dwayne Johnson's name.

Interesting how from the very beginning Simon was called Peter, he did not suddenly start being called Peter when Christ stated, "upon this rock I will build my church." What is a name? the word someone is referred to as. With this being so Simon's name was Peter.

 

[cataway]

Jesus is the rock . peter is just a stone in the foundation of the early Christian organization

 

[Shiranui117]

It's interesting to note that a large plurality of the Church Fathers consider the "rock" upon which Christ founded His church to be Peter's CONFESSION of Who Christ was--that is, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

It is interesting how many different ways this simple scripture is interpreted.
The rock means

A. Personal Revelation
B. Simon Peter
C. Jesus Christ
D. A confession that Jesus is the Christ the son of the living God.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Interesting how from the very beginning Simon was called Peter, he did not suddenly start being called Peter when Christ stated, "upon this rock I will build my church."

Because by the time the gospels were written, Peter was probably dead, but had certainly had been known by "Rock" for a long time. Paul refers to him as Kephas, which is the transliteration of the word for "Rock" in Aramaic into Greek. So before any gospels were written, Paul was refering to Simon as "Rock".

What is a name?

A lot.
Carolyn Higbie, Heroes' Names, Homeric Identities: Alfred Bates Lord Studies in Oral Tradition. vol. 10. (1995)

Jackson, F. (2011). Language, names, and information (Vol. 8). Wiley-Blackwell.

Anderson, J. M. (2007). The grammar of names. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rösel, M. (2007). The reading and translation of the divine name in the masoretic tradition and the Greek Pentateuch. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 31(4), 411-428.

Wilson, S. (2004). The Means Of Naming: A Social History and Cultural History of Personal Naming in Western Europe. Routledge.



Herzfeld, M. (1982). When exceptions define the rules: Greek baptismal names and the negotiation of identity. Journal of Anthropological Research, 288-302.

A cross-section of various fields (including biblical studies) on "what's in a name".

With this being so Simon's name was Peter.

And who is Paul's kephas?

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

And who is Paul's kephas?

Either
Christ, the Rock of my Salvation, upon whose teachings I build my foundation and do my best follow. "The wise man built his house upon a rock"
or
Peter which name meant rock, but which name is not proven to be a name given by Christ, though Christ did call him by that name.

 

[Gaura Priya]

I like the New Revised Standard Version, because it's the only oecumenical Bible translation that has translated Eastern Orthodox Scriptures as well. And I do like the translation itself, although it is a little dry...

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Either
Christ, the Rock of my Salvation, upon whose teachings I build my foundation and do my best follow. "The wise man built his house upon a rock"

Paul refers to a person he calls "rock" in the Aramaic language but using Greek letters 8 seperate times. It is not used to refer to anything else.

Peter which name meant rock, but which name is not proven to be a name given by Christ, though Christ did call him by that name.

There is a reason that Paul calls Peter Kephas and not Petros. He transliterates the Aramaic, but doesn't translate it. Nowhere does that happen in the gospels or in Acts. However, we have other curious issues. Matthew introduces the Simon twice (4:18 and again when he lists the 12) as follows: Σίμων ὁ λεγόμενος Πέτρος/Simon called "Rock" (or, more "literally," Simon the one being called Rock). He indicates that it isn't a name. We find the same formula in e.g., Josephus, where the James is identified by his brother Jesus, and Jesus is Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ/"Jesus called Christ". For Christians, he wasn't called Christ, he was Christ.

There is also the curious case of Lk 6:14. Here, we have Σίμωνα, ὃν καὶ ὠνόμασεν Πέτρον/"Simon, whom also he named Rock". Who is the "he"?

Finally, there is the issue of names and identity in antiquity. In today's world, most places have lots of names and have both a first and a last name (and often a middle name). Sometimes things like "junior" or "the 3rd" or an additional middle name are added. In other words, unless your name is John Smith, chances are there aren't that many people who have have both your first and last names that you know.

This isn't true in Jesus' day. There were not that many names, in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. You could call out "Simon" or "James" in the town square and get a chorus of responses. So people were identified using other means. The most common was to name the father. But we find nickname, titles, places of origin, etc., as other methods. For Josephus, James is identified by his relationship to his more famous brother, and Josephus makes sure we know which Jesus we're talking about by saying that it's the Jesus people call the Christ. There were not many people called that at all, so it works great as a way to make sure we know which Jesus (and therefore which James) we're dealing with.

This is actually an entire field of study. It's called onomastics. Time was, all the reference material was only available in massive volumes, but the digital age has changed this somewhat. So, for example, the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) is mostly available online, and searchable. The Institut für Papyrologie at Heidelberg University has also put a good deal of material online, including lists of Greek personal names.

We're not so lucky with Jewish names. Tal Ilan's Lexicon (part I) is filled with Jewish names from inscriptions, texts, etc., over a period of almost 700 years in several languages (Greek Jewish names, Hebrew Jewish names, Persian Jewish names, etc.) and just in Palestine.

But thankfully, I have those volumes of papyri, inscriptions, names, etc. And you know what we don't find in almost 7 centuries of Jewish names? The name Cephas/Kephas. We find the word, of course, because it's Aramaic. But it's not a name. And when we look at Greek names, nobody is called "Rock".

The only person who is called both is a guy named Simon, the disciple of Jesus. Paul calls him Kephas/Rock, Matthew says he is "Simon" but is also "called Rock", and Luke even says "Simon, whom also he named Rock". In Greek, the person who "named" Simon cannot grammatically be Simon; it is someone else.

So why do we have a Galilean Jewish individual with a proper Jewish name, known by "Rock"? And in two different languages, neither of which used this as a name?

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

That is interesting; however I don't know if you arguing for or against Peter being "The rock" that Christ chose to build his church upon.

Another thing some people believe is that Christ was referring to the rock they were standing on.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That is interesting; however I don't know if you arguing for or against Peter being "The rock" that Christ chose to build his church upon.

Another thing some people believe is that Christ was referring to the rock they were standing on.

I'm arguing that both Paul and the authors of the gospels identify that Simon was nicknamed "Rock", and that the gospels tell us 1) Jesus gave him this nickname and 2) that (according to Matt 16:18) Jesus did so because Simon was to be the Rock upon which Jesus built his Church.

To argue that when, in Matt. 16:17-18, Jesus uses "rock" twice in two totally different ways, we have to explain what's going on in a way that makes this plausible.
Jesus first says "Μακάριος εἶ,Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ... κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος/"blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah...and indeed I say to you that you are Rock"

Then, right after calling Simon by his Jewish name and patronym, he says emphatically "you are Rock" (kago is the abbreviation/crasis for kai ego/"and I", but the pronoun "I" is not needed here, as lego means "I say"; instead, it indicates an emphatic statement).

Having named Simon by his full, Jewish name, both his first name and his patronymic (which is quite formal), he then says something very strange. He says "you are Rock." If it ended here, it would make no sense. It's extremely odd, until Jesus continues: καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν/"and upon this very Rock I will build my church".
The demonstrative pronoun ταύτῃ/taute is used to indicate continuity. The Greek could read epi te petra and not have that pronoun at all. The only reason for it is to indicate that Jesus is linking the use of "rock" with his statement that Simon is the Rock. Grammatically, there isn't a way to explain why it is there apart from being an explicit statement that "this Rock" is the same Rock Jesus has just said that Simon is.

Even if we imagined that the pronoun wasn't there, or there were another explanation for it, we are still left with a big problem. Why on earth would Jesus suddenly address Simon, his disciple, very formally, then call him Rock, and then change topics and yet still talk about a Rock? If Rock were Simon's nickname already, then why first the formal address, and then the emphatic declaration that Simon is Rock? Why is Simon the only person who happens to have a nickname that exists in our records in two different languages (transliterated Aramaic and Greek), unlike any other, that Matthew says Simon is called Rock, that Luke says the name was given to to him by someone else, and that we have no record of a Jewish person in hundreds of years and all kinds of records actually named Rock?

Which makes more sense?
1)That Matthew is making Jesus sound both incoherent and crazy by using a pronoun that connects Simon the Rock to the Rock upon which he builds the church even when he doesn't intend for these to be connected and by oddly addressing his inferior (his follower and disciple) formally and then emphatically declaring him to be a Rock only to break off and start talking about a different Rock leaving everyone to wonder what on Earth he meant by saying "Simon bar-Johnah, you are Rock" and switching subjects to talk about another rock?

2) That Matthew uses the pronoun correctly, and explains why Simon has this odd nickname by having Jesus proclaim Simon is Rock, and that he is the Rock upon which Jesus will build his Church?

When you can explain the grammar, the evidence we have on names and addresses, as well as the narrative itself in a way that makes sense, I'm all ears.

 

[Brickjectivity]

A word about Rocks in the Bible, especially smooth ones. References to this are all over the place in the Bible. I'm a layman, but in layman's terms Rocks symbolize something that a human being cannot make, even today. You can grow a tree, but you cannot make granite. Smooth stones in particular symbolize works that are beyond the abilities of humans. Peter was a fisherman, a person no one expected to be chosen as the disciple by a potential somebody. He spent his day sloshing around in the blood of fish, hence he was continually 'Unclean'. Choosing him was Jesus way (one of many) of illustrating his point, that only God could make a rock; and its only rocks that can be used to build temples. Peter would be I think a bit like Grizzly Adams, not a terrible person but just always too dirty to go to synogogue. Additionally the fact that Jesus, a spiritual man, would enter such a bloody boat is shocking; but he had to go there to find Peter.

In addition to the above my own opinion in layman's terms is that The Rock was the truth that only the Father revealed who Jesus was to Peter. You will note that no where in the NT does Jesus openly make a claim to being anyone special, nor does he permit anyone to go about telling people about him. For us today it emphasizes that only God can made disciples, and that is the Rock upon which an eternal church has to be built. A church built upon anything else is man-made and therefore cannot be permanent. I agree with the comment that somebody made that Jesus probably started calling him 'Rock' as a nickname from the moment that he followed Jesus off of the boat. I hadn't thought of that, but it would make sense in my scheme of things.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

A word about Rocks in the Bible, especially smooth ones. References to this are all over the place in the Bible. I'm a layman, but in layman's terms Rocks symbolize something that a human being cannot make, even today. You can grow a tree, but you cannot make granite.

It's true you can't make granite. But neither can you "make" a tree. You can grow one, and you can shape a granite, marble, etc. Which is more how the Greeks viewed certain words for both. For example:

Smooth stones in particular symbolize works that are beyond the abilities of humans.

The Greeks (and the Greek translation of the Hebrew bible) had various words which might be translated as "stone" or "rock" and so forth. For something like "granite", or a quarry where one might chip away to get building material, the type of "rock" they'd end up with was ἄκρότομος/akrotomos, a stone/rock that had been cut-off from a larger piece and in particular quarried.

Once such a "rock" was obtained, a tool such as a λεία/leia was used to smooth or polish it (λεαίνειν/leainein). After that, one might have an ἄβαξ, or a rock used in building (among other things; it can be translated as a slab of marble or a voting pebble). A related word, ἀβακίσκος, was a small stone (it is literally "smaller ἄβαξ") used in mosaics.

Peter was a fisherman, a person no one expected to be chosen as the disciple by a potential somebody.

The Greek πέτρα or πέτρος (the word used in the Greek NT) was used in Homer to refer to stones one would throw in battle. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, it was never used to mean "throwing stone" but to mean "rock", including the stone material which was shaped. There was a word for "smooth rock", but it was a compound word:λεωπετρία. It is simply that adjective "smooth" tacked onto the beginning of the word rock.

One of the most general terms for rock or stone was λίθος/lithos, which was used to translate Hebrew words meaning things like precious stones or jewels, marble, bricks, millstones, stone images of gods (a sacriledge), etc.

Basically, the Greek language (in classical Greek, in the Greek LXX, in the Greek Christian texts, etc.), had a lot of words for things relating to or meaning something like "rock", although not to the extent of English (English tends to create new words, adopt words from other languages, or alter old words rather than extend the meaning, ending up with distinctions between pebble, rock, jewel, diamond, brick, slab, stone, etc.).

He spent his day sloshing around in the blood of fish, hence he was continually 'Unclean'. Choosing him was Jesus way (one of many) of illustrating his point, that only God could make a rock; and its only rocks that can be used to build temples.

I can see your point, but the issue here is that the Greek language had words for rocks that were "polished" or "cleaned", and they were not the rocks used to build temples. This is reflected in Hebrew as well. The idea of cleanliness was (as you seem to know) important. After all, baptism was basically being washed in water, but in a ritual bathing carrying religious connotations. The idea of a "clean rock" would be one that was polished for use in art or a jewelry. The building material (including rocks) used to make the temple didn't have that connotation.

 

[Brickjectivity]

It's true you can't make granite. But neither can you "make" a tree. You can grow one, and you can shape a granite, marble, etc. Which is more how the Greeks viewed certain words for both. For example:

That is a great point, and I appreciate it. I would like to refine what I said to make it more clear and to avoid trying to say anything about the Greek language, since I don't know Greek beyond the alphabet and a few basic concepts about it. All my life I have thought it inexcusable for Christians to not learn Greek but I've never actually done it. Seriously I'm turning Green with envy, but I'm not dangerous. My first interest in Greek was from a very text-book-like book, and I learned the alpha bet easily enough but then got bored. I was a pre-teen. Then I obtained a copy of Greek to Me fully intending to read it....about twenty years ago.

The Greeks (and the Greek translation of the Hebrew bible) had various words which might be translated as "stone" or "rock" and so forth. For something like "granite", or a quarry where one might chip away to get building material, the type of "rock" they'd end up with was ἄκρότομος/akrotomos, a stone/rock that had been cut-off from a larger piece and in particular quarried.

Once such a "rock" was obtained, a tool such as a λεία/leia was used to smooth or polish it (λεαίνειν/leainein). After that, one might have an ἄβαξ, or a rock used in building (among other things; it can be translated as a slab of marble or a voting pebble). A related word, ἀβακίσκος, was a small stone (it is literally "smaller ἄβαξ") used in mosaics.

That is interesting and could be very helpful to me as I process it. You know I did hear someone once talk about Peter being a 'Chip off the old block', but I think it was just a minister speaking informally about it.

The Greek πέτρα or πέτρος (the word used in the Greek NT) was used in Homer to refer to stones one would throw in battle. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, it was never used to mean "throwing stone" but to mean "rock", including the stone material which was shaped. There was a word for "smooth rock", but it was a compound word:λεωπετρία. It is simply that adjective "smooth" tacked onto the beginning of the word rock.

One of the most general terms for rock or stone was λίθος/lithos, which was used to translate Hebrew words meaning things like precious stones or jewels, marble, bricks, millstones, stone images of gods (a sacriledge), etc.

Basically, the Greek language (in classical Greek, in the Greek LXX, in the Greek Christian texts, etc.), had a lot of words for things relating to or meaning something like "rock", although not to the extent of English (English tends to create new words, adopt words from other languages, or alter old words rather than extend the meaning, ending up with distinctions between pebble, rock, jewel, diamond, brick, slab, stone, etc.).

So then the Greek Koine would use words as overloaded operators (computing term) more often than English, but still they did use different words for different categories of rocks is that right? I have heard about 'The Four Loves' that CS Lewis wrote about and how the Greeks have four words to our one when it comes to that. English already has many words for 'Internet'.

He spent his day sloshing around in the blood of fish, hence he was continually 'Unclean'. Choosing him was Jesus way (one of many) of illustrating his point, that only God could make a rock; and its only rocks that can be used to build temples.

I can see your point, but the issue here is that the Greek language had words for rocks that were "polished" or "cleaned", and they were not the rocks used to build temples. This is reflected in Hebrew as well. The idea of cleanliness was (as you seem to know) important. After all, baptism was basically being washed in water, but in a ritual bathing carrying religious connotations. The idea of a "clean rock" would be one that was polished for use in art or a jewelry. The building material (including rocks) used to make the temple didn't have that connotation.

I want to clarify what point I'm trying to make if any. I don't really understand enough to make statements about the etymologies of the words for stone, though my curiosity is piqued. What I'm really getting at is that 'Rock' is a heavily used Biblical symbol in the Tanach which is hugely important when you get to the conversation between Jesus and Peter in the gospels (which are not in the Tanach Bible). That Jesus calls him 'Rock' 'Stone' or 'Pebble' all carry I think an undeniable symbolism. The fact that Jesus calls him Peter and simultaneously converses with him about direct revelation from the Father -- that is more than enough to confirm a connection. Yes, I would have preferred a Greek work for a smooth stone, but any stone is more than enough. My preference for 'Smooth' comes from Tanach Bible references: David's smooth stones, Nebuchadnezzars Vision, and from stones such as the ones that the Israelites piled up such as in Genesis 31:46. (Unless the stone holds some special meaning, why would they have bothered putting up a pile of rocks and why write about it?) A stone could be broken but not made, just like only God could breath life into Adam. Adam was stone made alive, but Lots Wife was a living stone made dead. Stones represent this aspect of people, and you and I are considered equal to stone without the spirit of life breathed into us. This was behind the emphatic phrases in John 1:13 "children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" Thus childbearing was not optional for males, because it was not good for them to interfere with God's choices. (I am actually not sure about this just interpolating.) A stone represented a creation without hands, and that is the symbolism of import in Peter's conversation with Jesus. Now a tree you could plant, but a tree came from another seed and so shared something in common with a stone in that nobody knew where it all really came from. I think both the stone and the tree could be thought of as being Ouroboros-like in this respect, something whose beginning was before anyone can remember. The result of this is that the church is founded not upon Peter, the man, but upon Peter the concept.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So then the Greek Koine would use words as overloaded operators (computing term) more often than English, but still they did use different words for different categories of rocks is that right?

I wouldn't restrict your analogy to operator overloading. In fact, programming languages which ignore certain changes in variable or object names (esp. case, e.g., defining a class/object/whatever "client_US" as equivalent to "client_us") are probably more similar. But the problem with computer analogies is that even before Turing and von Neumann (from Liebniz to Frege), and even before computers themselves, the entirety of computer science has been fundamentally based on logic and mathematics, which are formal languages. And the entire point (or at least a main point) of formal languages is the removal of ambiguity and semantic content.

So if, in a given language, certain overloading is allowed, it is only allowed in a very specific way. If a programming language uses the same operator for string concatenation and for integers (long, short, double, etc.), but you use & instead of +, the compiler or intepreter will simply fail.

Language works very differently. Novel usage is common, meanings are extended, and in some ways the generalizations possible in formal languages, such as the use of + to add vectors, scalars, matrices, strings, and in programming to violate the equation notation by expressions such as x=x+1, are not possible in natural language. For example, saying "MATLAB beats SPSS hands down" is completely different from "MATLAB defeats SPSS palm faced towards ground". That's because "hands down" is idiomatic.

On the other hand, I can say "the limitations of HTML drive me cazy/insane/mad/up the wall/out of my mind/etc.", and not only can all those words/phrases following "drive" make sense easily, but the fact that "drive" almost always implies movement in a vehicle like a car doesn't matter.

The basic unit of language is not really the word. For one thing, many languages make determing what a word is problematic. To illustrate, we naturally think that despite apparent differences, child and children are the same word. One is just plural. Likewise, the fact that I can use a form of a verb like "to program" as a subject (programming would be great if I didn't have to remember every single semi-colon) doesn't confuse people. However, "program" is also a noun. So is the verb "program" ("I program", "I will program", "I have programmed", etc) the same word as "program" in "Your comments and variable names in your program make is impossible to follow" ?

English doesn't use much inflection anynmore. It is primarily order that distinguishes sentences like "the girl gave the boy a gift", "the boy gave a gift to the girl", and "the boy gave the girl a gift" involve no changes to the "shape" of the words (i.e., we don't have "boys" instead of "boy", or "give.plural.past." instead of "gave").

In some languages, like Navajo, almost everything is a verb. The way that English turns the verb "explode" into "explosion" is basically how the entire language works. In general, the more inflection/morphology you have, the fewer words you need. One reason Greek requires few words is because it has a middle voice. In English, the active voice is when the subject does the action: "You only think I guessed wrong! I switched glasses when your back was turned!" Passive turns the object into the subject: "The glasses were switched when your back was turned". Greek not only differentiates both by morphology (i.e., changes in word shape like the difference between "switch" and "switched"), but has a whole different category called the "middle voice" which English does not.

That is but one of many ways in which Greek uses grammatical methods to convey semantic content. English uses additional words. However, even for languages which tend to use little inflection and use words instead, English is exceptional in the number of words with very related meanings it has.

I have heard about 'The Four Loves' that CS Lewis wrote about and how the Greeks have four words to our one when it comes to that.

I am a huge fan of Lewis, although I like Tolkien more (Lewis' friend from their days in at college and their club). He's probably the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century. However, his linguistic abilities aren't as good. He once praised tolkein in old english (if memory serves), but his grammar was just a bit off.

Eros, philos, and other words for "love" the Greeks have are nothing compared to the English. The word philos is probably the most common. However, it can be translated in many cases as "friend" or other related notions. English has like, love, admire, infatuated, drawn to, adore, lust after, appreciate, fancy, esteem, cherish, fond, etc.

I am vaguely aware that ritual cleanness was a social status symbol that Peter could not afford or rejected for the money that fishing could bring him; but I really want to clarify what point I'm trying to make if any.

The whole point of ritual cleanliness in a social-religious environment is that if it is vital than everyone can do it. Recall that John the baptis was a loner in the desert and baptised for free.

What I'm really getting at is that 'Rock' is a Biblical symbol in the Tanach which is hugely important when you get to the conversation between Jesus and Peter. That Jesus calls him 'Rock' 'Stone' or 'Pebble' all carry the symbolism, though I would have preferred a Greek word indicating a smooth stone.

This is why translations are such problems when you get to a certain level. Distinctions between constructions and words (or word forms) make all the difference in the world. In Greek, the word "to write" means more like "to draw shapes/make images", but in context it means more or less "to write". What grapho signifies, then, depends greatly upon context and the form of the verb.

My emphasis upon 'Smooth' comes from David's smooth stones, from other stones such as the ones that the Israelites piled up such as in Genesis 31:46.

Stone heaps were a very specific thing, quite apart from Hebrew. The word in the line you reference is lithos, not petros.

 

[BornAgain]

I think the New World Translation. The explanation for this is extended and can be found in the reference edition of the NWT, available from Jehovah's witnesses.

Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

[Shermana]

Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

"A god" or "A divine being", or even as Extreme Trinitarian David Wallace says, "Divine".

70-John-1-1-Truths

 

[BornAgain]

"A god" or "A divine being", or even as Extreme Trinitarian David Wallace says, "Divine".

70-John-1-1-Truths

You again! LOL!

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος/en arche ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos/at the origin point in time the logos was, and the logos was near God, and divine/god/ was the logos.

Or "at the beginning was the logos, and this logos was with god, and the logos was god.

These are two of many ways the Greek can be rendered. You quoted a translation. Can you explain why it is more accurate than another?

 

[BornAgain]

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος/en arche ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos/at the origin point in time the logos was, and the logos was near God, and divine/god/ was the logos.

Or "at the beginning was the logos, and this logos was with god, and the logos was god.

These are two of many ways the Greek can be rendered. You quoted a translation. Can you explain why it is more accurate than another?

Jn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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 determine 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, KAI THEOS EN HO LOGOS -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 THEOS 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:

KAI HO LOGOS EN HO THEOS “and the Word was the God” (i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

KAI HO LOGOS EN THEOS “and the Word was a god” (Arianism)

KAI THEOS EN HO LOGOS “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 KAI THEOS EN HO LOGOS.