subject: And the Word was a god [print this page] Hundreds of millions of people claim to be Christians and the vast majority of them either believe in a three-in-one Trinity, or they simply believe that Jesus is God. This belief persists in spite of the fact that nowhere in the Bible does it say the Father and the Son and the spirit are one. (Scholars recognize 1 John 5:7 is a fraud perpetrated by an unscrupulous copyist) And neither can the word Trinity be found in the Bible. And when Jesus was on the earth he never once claimed to be God. But what has convinced the multitudes that Jesus is God?
By far the verse most frequently cited by those intent on proving that the Trinity is a Bible teaching is John 1:1. That verse reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
A previously written article discussed the inappropriateness of the expression "in the beginning" applying to God, since God had no beginning. The verse above is describing, not the mere existence of God, but a relationship that exists between the Word and God. After all, it says the Word was with God. Of course, to those steeped in Trinitarian dogma this supposedly explains the dual nature of God. (No mention of a third person in the beginning) But a little knowledge of Greek language structure, the language in which the verse was originally written, can shed light upon the actual meaning of the verse in question.
First it must be understood that sentences are constructed differently in various languages. When it comes to the Bible there is no such thing as a word for word translation. An exact word for word rendering is called a transliteration and often a transliteration is very difficult to understand. The job of the translator is to render the sense and meaning intended in the original language into another language. That can sometimes be a challenge.
When it comes to John 1:1 it is apparent that there are two different entities that are called God. And in the Greek there is a distinction between the two. Unfortunately, most common English translations make no distinction. But in the original Greek the sentence, although constructed differently, says: "In the beginning theWord was with the God and the Word was God."
In the Greek a distinction is made between the first God and the second God by the insertion of the definite article before the first God. In Greek it would read "ho Theos." And that is how the Greek language differentiates between something specific and something nonspecific. But that is not the device used in English. And that should be evident from the fact that no English translation translates "ho" into English in that verse. It is simply omitted. All translators routinely do this.
For example, when Jesus was dying on the stake he cried out to his Father, saying: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The transliteral rendering of the verse states: "The God of me, the God of me, with what left you down in me?" Again, no translator renders the expression with the definite article.
But the Greek language has no indefinite article, as does English. But when translators of John 1:1 drop the definite article (ho) in order to retain the correct sense of the original language it is appropriate to insert the indefinite article before the second God so that it reads: "The Word was with God and the Word was a god."
Jehovah's Witnesses have been accused of having their own Bible and cunningly inserting the dastardly "a" to wrongly make Jesus a lesser god. The fact of the matter is, though, it is perfectly proper that translators do so. In fact, the very same translations that render John 1:1 to say "the Word was God" have translated other similarly worded passages using the indefinite article. For instance, when the apostle Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta and he went picking up a pile of sticks to put on the fire to warm themselves and was bitten by a venomous viper, the Maltese people were expecting Paul to the suddenly die. Acts 28:6 states: "The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god."
Be reminded that the original language did not say that people thought he was "a god." The original Greek did not use what we call an indefinite article. The text says that people thought, "he was God." However, they did not think he was "the God." Acts 28:6 does not use "ho Theos." So, it is perfectly justifiable to insert the indefinite article in order to express the thought intended in the Greek. It is not changing the Bible to do so. It is merely responsible translating.
If translators were not biased in their religious dogma they would have translated John 1:1 the way it is rendered in the New World translation "the Word was a god."
