Does John 1:1 actually say, "the Word was a god"?

Question:

I got into a conversation with some Jehovah's Witnesses, and they said that according to Greek grammar, John 1:1 should read, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." Is this true?

Answer:

No.

In order for me to explain why that is wrong, I'm going to need to explain a few rules of Greek grammar, which most people will find horribly boring. I apologize, but unfortunately, this is the best way to refute this claim, so if you really want to know why this JW doctrine is wrong, you will need to bear with me. If not, feel free to stop reading now.

The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that Greek only has a definite article ("the"), and does not have an indefinite article ("a"). This is true. They also claim that since Greek normally attaches the definite article ("the") to the noun, any time it does NOT attach the definite article to the noun, it automatically implies the indefinite article ("a"). This is NOT completely true, but the really irritating part is that the Jehovah's Witnesses KNOW this is not completely true, which I shall prove at the end of this post with their own translation.

You can read the Jehovah's Witnesses full argument on this issue here. If anyone is interested, I have the writings of most of the scholars they reference, and it is NOT true that those scholars support their interpretation of John 1:1. Their explanation is, at best, the kind of thing a first year Greek student might come up with before he gets a wider, and much more in depth understanding of Greek beyond the bare basics.

Now, it is true that the only way to imply the indefinite article is to leave off the definite article, and that construction DOES occur in the New Testament, however there are at least ten ways to make a noun definite in Greek, and attaching a definite article to it is only one of the ten ways. This means that an indefinite article is only implied in about 15% of all cases in the New Testament where the definite article is missing. In other words, there are other rules that help us determine if a noun that is missing a definite article is supposed to be indefinite. So what rule applies to John 1:1?

Ok, now comes the really boring Greek grammar stuff. You have been warned.

The first thing you need to know is that Greek is a highly inflected language, meaning the endings on most words, particularly the nouns and verbs, tell us the role they are playing in the sentence (subject, primary verb, object, predicate, etc.). As a result, the word order rules in Greek are much more flexible than in English, and because of that, many Greek words can appear anywhere in the sentence. Greek writers typically used this inherent word order flexibility to emphasize or de-emphasize specifics words and concepts within a given sentence. Most of this is extremely subtle, but it can occasionally have a huge impact on what the writer is trying to say.

The third clause in John 1:1 is normally translated "And the Word was God," which the JW's claim is incorrect because the noun "God" does not have an article, and thus, it should be translated with the indefinite article as "a god."

Here is the clause in question in Greek:

και θεος ην ο λογος

And God was the Word.

Just as in English, a sentence in Greek in which the connecting verb was some form of "to be" (is, was, are) has a subject and predicate (rather than a normal sentence which has a subject and object). In English, the subject is always first, and the predicate is always second, and it is used to equate the predicate to the subject. For example, "John is king," "Jane is black," "Bill is cold," or "Sue is angry" are all this kind of construction. In most cases, it matters which of these is the subject and which is the predicate. In the sentence, "Bill is cold," we are saying that "being cold" is something Bill is experiencing. We are not saying that "being Bill" is something cold is experiencing.

In Greek, we would normally determine which noun is the subject and which is the object from the endings, but in predicate constructions, this is a problem, as both nouns are in the same case, so they have the same ending. Since a Greek writer can put these words in any order, determining which is the subject and which is the predicate could be a problem . . . except that Greek has a rule for this. Here is how the rule works:

If both nouns have the article, or neither noun has the article, then the first noun is the subject and the second noun is the predicate. Thus, in the following sentences (shown in English for ease of understanding), "John" is the subject and "king" is the predicate:

A)   The John was the king.
B)   John was king.

In example (B), since there is no particular reason for leaving off the article, it would be legitimate to translate that sentence, "John was a king," or maybe, if the context was not clear as to who "John" was, it might be translated, "A John was a king."

However, if only one of the nouns had the article, then the rule is that the noun with the article is the subject, while the noun without the article is the predicate. Thus, although they read oddly in English (remember, we are pretending that our English words are actually Greek words), in both of the following sentences, "John" is the subject and "king" is the predicate.

C)   The John was king.
D)   King was the John.

Here are the two really important things to remember: First, Greek uses word order for emphasis, and second, if both words have the article, the FIRST word is the subject, and the SECOND word is the predicate.

Remember that the third clause of John 1:1 follows the pattern of example (D) above, where one noun has the article (ο λογος = "the Word"), and one noun does not have the article (θεος = "God").

So we know that "the Word," although it appears at the end of the clause, is actually the subject, and "God," although it appears at the beginning of the clause, is actually the predicate. From this rule, we know this clause SHOULD be translated, "And the Word was God," NOT "And God was the Word."

Ok, so why did John place θεος ("God") at the beginning of the clause? For emphasis. The effect is something like this, "And the Word was GOD!"

But how do we know it is not supposed to be translated "a god"? Simple, remember that if both words have the article, then the first word is the subject and the second word is the predicate? That means, according to the rules of Greek grammar, you cannot place the predicate at the beginning of the sentence AND also give it the article. So, Greek grammar demands that if you want to place the predicate at the beginning, as John did in this clause, you MUST drop the article (so that your readers will know this is the predicate, NOT the subject).

This means that John could NOT do both. He could EITHER give it the article and leave it without any particular emphasis, OR place it at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis, where he would be required to drop the article. If he chose to place it at the beginning for emphasis, the rules DEMAND that he must drop the article.

When the rules demand that you drop the article, the absence of the article does not, in fact, cannot indicate the indefinite.

Thus, the effect is the exact opposite of what the JW's claim. By placing the predicate θεος at the beginning of the sentence, John is required to drop the article, but in so doing, he is placing extra emphasis on the noun θεος, which gives it extra force in the sentence, and produces the result, "And the Word was GOD."

Now, here is the really underhanded part of this argument from the Jehovah's Witnesses. They actually DO know that the absence of the article only rarely indicates the indefinite, as proven by their own translation, the New World Translation (Available online here).

John 1:6 reads as follows in the New World Translation:

There came a man who was sent as a representative of God; his name was John. [emphasis mine]

Here is how the Greek reads in that verse:

εγενετο ανθρωπος απεσταλμενος παρα θεου ονομα αυτω ιωαννης.

The word θεου ("of God") does not have an article, which according to their claims, means it should be translated, "of a god." But they know their claim is not true, and they demonstrate that in this verse.

How about John 1:12 where the New World Translation reads:

However, to all who did receive him, he gave authority to become God’s children. [emphasis mine]

And the Greek reads:

οσοι δε ελαβον αυτον εδωκεν αυτοις εξουσιαν τεκνα θεου γενεσθαι

Again, θεου ("of God," the Greek literally reads, "the children of God") has no article, so by their rules, it should read, "the children of a god."

Here is the next verse, John 1:13. New Word Translation:

And they were born, not from blood or from a fleshly will or from man’s will, but from God. [emphasis mine]

And the Greek:

οι ουκ εξ αιματων ουδε εκ θεληματος σαρκος ουδε εκ θεληματος ανδρος αλλ εκ θεου εγεννηθησαν.

Again, θεου does not have an article attached to it (εκ is a preposition meaning "from"), so according to their own arguments, this should be translated, "from a god."

These are all from the same writer as John 1:1, in the same chapter.

Just so you can verify this for yourself, because Greek is an inflected language, the article can have 17 different spellings. I will list them all here (in alphabetical order) so you can see that there is no article attached to θεου in any of these sentences: αι, η, ο, οι, τα, ταις, τας, τη, την, της, το, τοις, τον, του, τους, τω, των.

There are numerous other examples directly from their own translation I can give where it is clear they either don't really understand how the article works in Greek, or are being intentionally deceptive about the rules governing its use.

The bottom line is that John 1:1 tells us, to quote preeminent Greek scholar Daniel B. Wallace, "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 confirmed in και θεος ην ο λογος." [Quoted in Basics of Biblical Greek, by William D. Mounce, pages 27-28].

Far from meaning what the JW's claim, this verse, when coupled with verse 14 (and the Word become flesh, and dwelt among us), actually proclaims the deity of Jesus with emphatic boldness that leave no room for doubt about the claims John is making about Jesus: He is the God, He is the creator, He was not created (he was already there in the beginning), and He became flesh to pay for our sins so that we could be saved.