Here is how a friend of mine explained John 1:1 to me:
“Now on John 1:1. The problem is that ancient Greek has no indefinite articles (a, or an). For example, they never say ‘there is a tree.’ They would just say, “There is tree.” If they wanted to be specific they would say, ‘There is the tree.’ That’s the general rule anyway. But anyone who has ever studied any language knows that there are always exceptions to the rules. If an ancient Greek was writing about a specific tree, he didn’t have to put ‘the’ in it to make it definite – you just knew by the context that it was definite, i.e., a specific tree. “The way this applies to
John 1:1 is that the Greek literally says: In beginning was the word, and the word was with the God, and God was the word. First, notice that there is no ‘the’ before beginning – and yet the
JW Bible (New World Translation) doesn’t say ‘a beginning’ because the context makes it pretty clear that we are talking about the beginning of creation.
“Second, notice that there is no ‘the’ before the second occurrence of ‘God.’ The Jehovah Witnesses insist that this must be translated ‘a god’ because any word without ‘the’ is indefinite, i.e., a god, a tree, etc. And as a general rule, this would be correct. But there is a grammatical reason that the Greeks could not put ‘the’ before the second reference to God – and it gets complicated. Stay with me.
“Greeks did not do sentences like we do. Take the sentence ‘Spot ran home.’ Spot is the subject, ran is the verb, and home is the direct object. We know that because we generally put subjects first toward the front of sentences and before objects. If we change the order and said ‘Home ran spot’, the sentence would be somewhat confusing because it looks like ‘home’ should be the subject of the verb ran – and that doesn’t make sense.
“Greeks didn’t do subjects and objects with word order – they did it with word endings. Very generally speaking, their subjects often ended in os, as in Logos (Word) or Theos (God). If they wanted to make Logos the object, they would spell it Logon. If they wanted to make Theos the object they would spell it Theon. Then you can put it anywhere in the sentence and still know which the subject is. Pretty straightforward.
“You’ll notice that my translation of John 1:1 above reads: ‘God was the word.’ and nearly all Bible translations translate this as ‘The word was God.’ In Greek there is no question whatsoever that ‘the Word’ is the subject and God is the object of that clause – hence, the English translation. ‘The Word was God is correct (I capitalize God to avoid for now the question of whether it should be god or God). That comes next.
“Unfortunately, there is an exception to this rule of os =subject, on = object (there are also other endings for subjects and objects by the way). The exception is this: If two nouns are connected by a ‘to be’ verb (am, are, is, was, etc.) both the subject and the object end with the same endings. It’s crazy, I know but that’s the way it works! So in the clause ‘Theos han ho logos (God was the word) the subject is ho logos (the Word) because it has the definite article (ho=the) and God is the object because, even though it has a subject ending in accordance with Greek grammar – it does not have a definite article. If the Greeks had put ‘the’ in front of God too, it not only would have been poor grammar – we couldn’t tell whether God was the subject or the object.
“So we know that Word is the subject, how do we then know if God in this verse should be definite (i.e. God) or indefinite (i.e. a god)? Context! First the broader context: In John, God is always the one true Jewish God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To rip this one passage out of this broader context and assume that in this verse it must be ‘a god’ because there was no definite article is absurd. Second, the immediate context - the passage says ‘the Word was with the God’ (Note the ‘the’) and the Word was God. The immediate context – in fact, the exact same sentence – makes it perfectly clear that John is speaking of God and not a god.
“Now, a note on consistency. While JWs insist that Theos (God) in John 1:1 must be translated ‘a god’ because it doesn’t have a definite article (the), it is important to note that
The New World Translation translates Theos as God (capital G) in
John 1:6, 12, 13 and 18 – even though none of those verses put the ‘the’ in front of Theos!
“Finally, even radical liberal Greek scholars who don’t believe in Jesus deity acknowledge that John is calling Jesus God (not a god). The JW’s are simply factually in error on this one. “By the way, Revelation 1:8 in The New World Translation reads ‘I am Alpha and Omega, says Jehovah God…’ This is really interesting, because
Revelation 22:12-16 says ‘Look, I am coming quickly … I am Alpha and Omega, … I Jesus sent my angel to bear witness…’ In other words, chapter 1 of the New World Translation says God is the Alpha and Omega — but chapter 22 says that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. I once heard of a Jehovah Witness who got saved after this was pointed out the him.”
