In "The New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures" Should JOHN 1:1 Say That The WORD Was "A" GOD, OR "GOD"?

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This is an important question. Here are two translations.

John 1:1 "In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god". New World Translation

John 1:1 1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". New International Version

the facts are on the side of the New World Translation. It is very interesting that the ancient Coptic translations of John 1:1 do not render it “the Word was God,” as is common in many English versions, but “the Word was a god,”, just as found in the New World Translation by Jehovah's Witnesses. The Coptic versions precede the New World Translation by some 1,700 years, and were produced at a time when the Koine Greek of the Christian Greek Scriptures was still a living language....Show more

In Koine Greek, there is no indefinite article ("a"); in the absence of a definite article ("the") an indefinite article is often rightly assumed, but while there is no definite article in front of "God" in John 1:1, we shouldn't assume an indefinite article. The text reads literally: "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος." In beginning was the word and the word was with the God, and God was the word. John has done a good job of constructing this sentence so that he both declares Christ to be God while also affirming that Christ and the Father are not the same person. Had he said that the word was THE God, with a definite article, he would have called Jesus and the Father completely the same, which we know is not the case. But if they aren't the same, why not call "the word" (Jesus) another god? Look at the second clause specifically (καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. - and God was the word.) Note that John has put God, not the word, at the beginning of the clause. This is how a speaker of Koine added emphasis to a word, as if to underline it. So John is emphasizing Jesus' Godhood while still separating his personhood from the father, not creating a polytheistic plurality of Gods. Had he switched the order and put "a god" at the end of the clause, then the indefinite article assumption might have been a little more reasonable. The context of the whole of scripture should be an adequate guide to answer the question however, as there is only one God, and there could be no legitimate "a god." The NWT also makes many obvious interpretive errors and should not be trusted in general. For example, it erroneously inserts Jehovah every time the Greek clearly says "lord." This demonstrates the obvious biases of the translators in favor of a certain theological view....Show more

For Jay Smithereens:

Actually, there is no anarthrous nominative noun in John chapter 1 which lacks the article but is translated with a definite meaning in the NWT. The NWT translators were not inconsistent.

You seem to be working with the assumption that all five Greek noun cases handle the use of the article the same way. They do not. Because of the nature of the nominative case, it almost always requires the article to be considered definite in meaning. As for your example, the word "god" in John 1:6 is in the genitive case, which freely dispenses with the article, even when definite in meaning. John's usage of the article is consistent with other first century Koine Greek writers.

As for the Sahidic Coptic translation, the translators did not "drop the article," they "added" the Coptic indefinite article - a - just like the NWT translators did.

It is irrelevant what the Coptic church believes today, since they didn't translate the Sahidic NT, nor do they still use it. The Copts who translated the Sahidic Coptic NT obviously didn't believe in the Trinity. Their translation was made before the Council of Nicea - at least 100 years before - long before "orthodox" Trinitarianism had taken hold. This is shown in other Sahidic Coptic texts. For example, John 8:58, John 10:33, Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, are actually more similar to the NWT than to other leading English translations of today....Show more

John 1:1, 2:
RS reads: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” (KJ, Dy, JB, NAB use similar wording.) However, NW reads: “In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god. This one was in the beginning with God.”
Which translation of John 1:1, 2 agrees with the context? John 1:18 says: “No one has ever seen God.” Verse 14 clearly says that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . we have beheld his glory.” Also, verses 1, 2 say that in the beginning he was “with God.” Can one be with someone and at the same time be that person? At John 17:3, Jesus addresses the Father as “the only true God”; so, Jesus as “a god” merely reflects his Father’s divine qualities.—Heb. 1:3.
Is the rendering “a god” consistent with the rules of Greek grammar? Some reference books argue strongly that the Greek text must be translated, “The Word was God.” But not all agree. In his article “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” Philip B. Harner said that such clauses as the one in John 1:1, “with an anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are primarily qualitative in meaning. They indicate that the logos has the nature of theos.” He suggests: “Perhaps the clause could be translated, ‘the Word had the same nature as God.’” (Journal of Biblical Literature, 1973, pp. 85, 87) Thus, in this text, the fact that the word the‧os′ in its second occurrence is without the definite article (ho) and is placed before the verb in the sentence in Greek is significant. Interestingly, translators that insist on rendering John 1:1, “The Word was God,” do not hesitate to use the indefinite article (a, an) in their rendering of other passages where a singular anarthrous predicate noun occurs before the verb. Thus at John 6:70, JB and KJ both refer to Judas Iscariot as “a devil,” and at John 9:17 they describe Jesus as “a prophet.”
John J. McKenzie, S.J., in his Dictionary of the Bible, says: “Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated ‘the word was with the God [= the Father], and the word was a divine being.’”—(Brackets are his. Published with nihil obstat and imprimatur.) (New York, 1965), p. 317.
In harmony with the above, AT reads: “the Word was divine”; Mo, “the Logos was divine”; NTIV, “the word was a god.” In his German translation Ludwig Thimme expresses it in this way: “God of a sort the Word was.” Referring to the Word (who became Jesus Christ) as “a god” is consistent with the use of that term in the rest of the Scriptures. For example, at Psalm 82:1-6 human judges in Israel were referred to as “gods” (Hebrew, ’elo‧him′; Greek, the‧oi′, at John 10:34) because they were representatives of Jehovah and were to speak his law....Show more

Jay S asks about John 1:6 --

God in that sentence does not stand alone as "God". But the word referred to is "of God".

Compare John 1:12 where the same word is translated "God's" or "of God".

But I would like to point out several translations of John 1:18 which don't match the Greek -

Greek - God no one has seen at any time; only-begotten god the (one) being into the bosom of the Father that (one) explained.

King James - No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

New International Version - No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

NOW THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION -

No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the bosom position with the Father is the one that has explained him.

Why did the King James substitute Son for god? Why not do that in John 1:1?

And the New International Version - it honestly does NOT MAKE sense.

But the New World Translation was very true to the translation of the Greek.

Which is what an honest-hearted person will find when they examine the NWT....Show more