3 minutes
Discussing Greek Translation – Is Jesus a god or The God?
Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW), as well as others, do not believe Jesus was God due to the way they approach Greek translation. They agree he was someone special, similar to Islam, which believes Jesus was a great prophet. However, he was not The God who is above all.
However, to believe this, there must be a solution to John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Our Bibles explicitly teach that Jesus was God. It seems clear cut. Except, if you were to read the New World Translation, the JW translation, you would read:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was a god.
JWs believe that since Jesus is only a god, he is not The God. He is created by God, as the archangel Michael, who is not God. By saying Jesus was a god, he is put into the same category as the angels. He was the most exalted and the most special of all other gods but he was not The God.
What a difference the letter “a” makes! Adding one letter changes an entire worldview, and creates a whole new belief system. This is why we must be sure we get this right.
What the Greek Says
Here is the verse in the original Greek:
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
To break this down for those of us who are not Greek experts:
καὶ = kai – and
θεὸς = theos – God or god
ἦν = en – was
ὁ = ho – the
λόγος = logos – Word
So we have “kai theos en ho logos” which translates word for word as “and God was the Word”. So what does it mean? Should this be translated as most English Bibles do and say that Jesus is God or did the JWs get it right by saying he was a god?
The Difficulty of Translation
To get this right, we need to understand definite and indefinite articles, Greek word order, case endings, linking verbs, nominative cases and the predicate nominative. We also need to understand Colwell’s Rule and when to use it.
I suspect only a handful of us actually know any of these things. It is why simply going into the Greek and making sweeping statements is poor exegesis. If you really want to get a taste of how difficult this is, read Colwell’s Rule, even just the first two pages, and you’ll see the depth of Greek translation.
It is of the utmost importance that when we study, we don’t simply read what one person says about something and go with it. Often, we can’t even go with what the great majority says.
We need to make sure we delve deep. We need to understand what experts teach and their basis for their teaching. (BTW – being famous does not make one an expert. Therefore, just because Pastor Philin Theblank says something as if it’s a fact, doesn’t make it true.)
Examples
D.A. Carson in Exegetical Fallacies writes:
One of the most enduring errors, the root fallacy presupposes that every word actually has a meaning bound up with its shape or its components. In this view, meaning is determined by etymology; that is, by the root or roots of a word. How many times have we been told that because the verbal cognate of apostolos (apostle) is apostello (I send), the root meaning of ”apostle” is “one who is sent”? In the preface of the New King James Bible, we are told that the “literal” meaning of monogenes is “only begotten.” Is that true? How often do preachers refer to the verb agapao (to love), contrast it with phileo (to love) and deduce that the text is saying something about a special kind of loving, for no other reason than that agapao is used? All of this is linguistic nonsense.
Moises Silva in Biblical Words and Their Meanings writes:
…one is rather likely to ignore what may look like small differences between the ways the word is used; that is, one may import into a particular passage a meaning discovered elsewhere, without noticing that the word in the latter passage is modified by a particular phrase or by some syntactical feature…
If you haven’t read either of these works, I highly recommend them. It will help take you out of the box many Christians fall into regarding how we listen to the teachings of others. These are not easy reading but they are worth struggling through if you want to learn discernment.
The Point
My point is, uncovering truth is not as easy as turning on Christian radio or going to our favorite Christian websites. Most of these are regurgitating fallacies and we don’t even know it. No wonder the Church in America has become so ineffectual.
Christians need to do the hard work themselves. We can’t expect others to do it for us. When we do, we will find those people have taken short cuts, leading to something other than the truth.
Your Turn
Have you been doing the hard work of studying to present yourself approved to God as a workman accurately handling the truth? Does this post surprise you in any way? Has it inspired you to review the way you gather Biblical truth? Have you ever looked at an interlinear to find the Greek or Hebrew wording for a passage? How about moving forward? Let me know in the comments below.
BTW – You’ll notice I never gave you the answer to the proper translation of John 1:1. You’ll have to do the research yourself! Here is an arbitrary place to start.
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