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Religions > Bible |
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"Carl" |
| Date: |
27 May 2007 02:11:05 PM |
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John 1:1 And Meaning And Translation |
John 1:1 Meaning and Translation
by James White (http://aomin.org/)
(This information sheet is divided into two sections - the first explores
the meaning of John 1:1, and the second addresses the more technical subject
of the correct translation of the verse. The second portion will be of
interest to those who are faced with the New World Translation of Jehovah's
Witnesses and its rendering of the last clause of this verse as "the Word
was a god.")
Section I
John 1:1-3, 14, 18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him,
and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being...And
the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as
of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth...No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the
Father, He has explained Him.
The prologue to John's Gospel has long been a center of controversy when
discussing the Deity of Christ, and naturally so. One can hardly read the
above sentences without catching a glimpse of One Who is far beyond the
realm of simply human; even far beyond the realm of the angelic. The logos,
the Word, was in the beginning, was with God, and was God. The Word created
all things, and there is absolutely nothing in existence that the Word did
not create. Remember that the original readers of John's Gospel would not
have already read verse 14, and they would not have the preconceived
knowledge that the Word is identified as Christ. Try to detach yourself from
that knowledge for a moment, and imagine what kind of being you would be
imagining while reading about this Word. Certainly one can hardly conceive
of a higher Being.
To understand what John is saying, we must delve into the verses themselves
and analyze them carefully. We must bear in mind that we are reading only a
translation of what John wrote, and hence some mention will have to be made
of the Greek language.
John's first assertion is that "In the beginning was the Word." Which
beginning? Considering the whole context of the prologue, many have
identified this beginning as the same beginning mentioned in Genesis 1:1.
But most see that the assertion of the Apostle goes far beyond that.
The key element in understanding this, the first phrase of this magnificent
verse, is the form of the word "was," which in the Greek language in which
John was writing, is the word en (the "e" pronounced as a long "a" as in "I
ate the food"). It is a timeless word - that is, it simply points to
existence before the present time without reference to a point of origin.
One can push back the "beginning" as far as you can imagine, and, according
to John, the Word still is. Hence, the Word is eternal, timeless. The Word
is not a creation that came into existence at "the beginning," for He
antedates that beginning.
John is very careful in his language at this point. Throughout this section,
John carefully contrasts the Word, and all other things. He does so by
consistently using en of the Logos, the Word, and by consistently employing
a totally different verb in reference to all other things. This other verb
is "to become" (egeneto). It is used of John the Baptist in verse 6, of the
world in verse 10, and the children of God in verse 12. Only when we come to
verse 14 does John use "to become" of the Word, and that is when the Word
"became flesh." This refers to a specific point in time, the incarnation,
and fully demonstrates John's intentional usage of contrasting verbs.
John is not alone in this. Jesus contrasted Abraham's "becoming" with His
own eternal existence in John 8:58 in the same way. The Psalmist contrasted
the creation of the world with the eternity of God in Psalm 90:2 (LXX) by
using the same verbs found in John 1:1 and 14. Hardly seems coincidental,
does it?
We have seen that the Word is eternal. Much has been said about how John got
the term "Logos," the Word. Some say he borrowed it from Greek philosophy, a
sort of philosophical subterfuge. No one would argue that John just simply
left the Logos as he found it among the philosophers. No, he filled the Word
with personality and identified the Word not as some fuzzy, ethereal essence
that was the guiding principle of all things, (as the Greeks thought), but
as the eternal Son of God, the One Who entered into time, and into man's
experience as Jesus of Nazareth. The "Word" reveals that Jesus is the mind
of God, the thought of God, His full and living revelation. Jesus did not
just come to tell us what God is like - He showed us. He is the revelation
of God.
John did not stop here, however. He did not leave us to simply know the
eternity of the Word. The next phrase says, "and the Word was with God."
Again we find the verb "was" cropping up, again pointing to the timelessness
of the subject at hand. The Word was with God. The preposition John uses
here is quite revealing. It is the Greek word pros. It means "to be in
company with someone" (1) or to be "face-to-face." It speaks of communion,
interaction, fellowship. Remember that this is an eternal fellowship, a
timeless relationship. "Pros with the accusative presents a plane of
equality and intimacy, face to face with each other."(2)
This phrase, if taken completely alone, would be very confusing, since John
has already asserted the eternality of the Word. Now he clearly
distinguishes between the Word and God. He asserts that they are
distinguishable. "God" and "Word" are not interchange-able terms. Then, is
John talking about two "gods?" Can more than one being be fully eternal?
John was a monotheistic Jew. He could never believe in more than one Being
Who can rightly be called "God." How then is this to be understood?
This phrase must be taken with the one that follows. We read, "and the Word
was God." Again, the eternal en. John avoids confusion by telling us that
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus, as we know Him as the
Word, does not constitute everything that is included in the Godhead. In
other words, John is not teaching the ancient heresy known as Sabellianism,
which taught that Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are simply three
different aspects of one person, i.e., Jesus is the Father, the Father is
the Spirit, and so on. Instead, John here asserts the full Deity of Christ,
while informing us that He is not the Father, but that they ("God" and the
"Word") have eternally co-existed.
This last phrase has come under heavy fire throughout the ages. The correct
translation of this passage is here given, and anyone interested in the
technical aspects of the argument are referred to Appendix A. Basically, the
passage teaches that the Word, as to His essential nature, is God. John does
not here call the Word "a divine one," as some polytheistic Greek might say.
He did not use the adjective, theios, which would describe a divine nature,
or a god-like one. Instead, he used theos, the very word John will use
consistently for the Father, the "only true God" (17:3). He uses the term
three times of Jesus in the Gospel, here, in 1:18, and in 20:28. It can not
be doubted that John would never call a creature theos. His upbringing and
Jewish heritage forbad that.
How then are we to undertand these two phrases? Benjamin B. Warfield said:
"And the Word was with God." The language is pregnant. It is not merely
coexistence with God that is asserted, as of two beings standing side by
side, united in local relation, or even in a common conception. What is
suggested is an active relation of intercourse. The distinct personality of
the Word is therefore not obscurely intimated. From all eternity the Word
has been with God as a fellow: He who in the very beginning already "was,"
"was" also in communion with God. Though He was thus in some sense a second
along with God, He was nevertheless not a seperate being from God: "And the
Word was" --still the eternal "was" --"God." In some sense distinguishable
from God, He was in an equally true sense identical with God. There is but
one eternal God; this eternal God, the Word is; in whatever sense we may
distinguish Him from the God whom He is "with," He is yet not another than
this God, but Himself is this God. The predicate "God" occupies the position
of emphasis in this great declaration, and is so placed in the sentence as
to be thrown up in sharp contrast with the phrase "with God," as if to
prevent inadequate inferences as to the nature of the Word being drawn even
momentarily from that phrase. John would have us realize that what the Word
was in eternity was not merely God's coeternal fellow, but the eternal God's
self. (3)
The Beloved Apostle walks a tight line here. By the simple ommission of the
article ("the", or in Greek, ho) before the word for God in the last phrase,
John avoids teaching Sabellianism, while by placing the word where it is in
the clause, he defeats another heresy, Arianism, which denies the true Deity
of the Lord Jesus. A person who accepts the inspiration of the Scriptures
can not help but be thrilled at this passage.
John goes on in verse two to reiterate the eternal fellowship of the Father
and Son, making sure that all understand that "this one," the Word, was
(there it is again) in the beginning pros ton theon, with God. Their
fellowship and relationship precedes all else, and it is timeless.
As icing on the cake, John then precludes anyone from misunderstanding his
claim that Jesus is eternally God by writing verse 3. "All things came into
being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into
being." One can hardly be more inclusive than that. There is simply nothing
that is existent anywhere that was not created by the Word. He created
everything. Obviously, therefore, if one can be described as creating
everything, one must be the Creator, and certainly not a creation. The Word
is the Creator. All people reading John's words would undertand that the
Creator is God, not some lower being created by God to do the work for Him.
By not qualifying his statement, John assured that we could correctly
understand his intention and his teaching concerning Christ, the Word. He is
eternally God, the Creator.
Section II
En arche en ho logos, kai ho logos en pros ton theon, kai theos en ho logos.
Almost all the controversy surrounding John 1:1 revolves around the fact
that the theos of the last phrase kai theos en ho logos is anarthrous, i.e.,
it has no article. Some have gone so far as to assert that the correct
translation, therefore, is "the Word was a god," basing the argument on the
lack of the definite article ho before theos. What does the lack of the
article indicate? Is it necessary to what John is saying?
I begin with the most quoted scholar on this subject, Dr. A. T. Robertson:
And the Word was God (kai theos en ho logos). By exact and careful language
John denied Sabellianism by not saying ho theos en ho logos. That would mean
that all of God was expressed in ho logos and the terms would be
interchangeable, each having the article. The subject is made plain by the
article (ho logos) and the predicate without it (theos) just as in John 4:24
pneuma ho theos can only mean "God is spirit," not "spirit is God." So in 1
John 4:16 ho theos agape estin can only mean "God is love," not "love is
God" as a so-called Christian scientist would confusedly say. For the
article with the predicate see Robertson, Grammar, pp. 767f. So in John 1:14
ho Logos sarx egeneto, "the Word became flesh," not "the flesh became Word."
Luther argues that here John disposes of Arianism also because the Logos was
eternally God, fellowship of the Father and Son, what Origen called the
Eternal Generation of the Son (each necessary to the other). Thus in the
Trinity we see personal fellowship on an equality. (4)
As Robertson made reference to his voluminous Grammar in the above
quotation, I will include it in its entirety:
The word with the article is then the subject, whatever the order may be. So
in Jo. 1:1, theos an ho logos, the subject is perfectly clear. Cf. ho logos
sarx egeneto (Jo. 1:14). It is true that ho theos an ho logos (convertible
terms) would have been Sabellianism. See also ho theos agape estin (1
Jo.4:16). "God" and "love" are not convertible terms any more than "God" and
"Logos" or "Logos" and "flesh." Cf. also hoi theristai angeloi eisin (Mt.
13:39), ho logos ho sos alatheia estin (Jo. 17:17), ho nomos hamartia; (Ro.
7:7). The absence of the article here is on purpose and essential to the
true idea. (5)
Note that Robertson translates the phrase, "the Word was God." His argument
is summed up well in the following passage:
A word should be said concerning the use and non-use of the article in John
1:1, where a narrow path is safely followed by the author. "The Word was
God." It both God and Word were articular, they would be coextensive and
equally distributed and so interchangeable. But the separate personality of
the Logos is affirmed by the construction used and Sabellianism is denied.
If God were articular and Logos non-articular, the affirmation would be that
God was Logos, but not that the Logos was God. As it is, John asserts that
in the Pre-incarnate state the Logos was God, though the Father was greater
than the Son (John 14:28). The Logos became flesh (1:14), and not the
Father. But the Incarnate Logos was really "God only Begotten in the bosom
of the Father" (1:18 correct text). (6)
In light of Dr. Robertson's comments, it is indeed unbelievable that some
will quote from the above section and try to intimate that Robertson felt
that Jesus was less than the Father because he quoted John 14:28. A quick
look at his comments on John 14:28 in Word Pictures in the New Testament,
volume 5, page 256 refutes this idea.
To recap, Robertson says that 1) the translation of the phrase theos en ho
logos is "the Word was God." 2) That the anarthrous theos is required for
the meaning. If the article were present, this would teach Sabellianism, as
then theos and logos would be convertible terms. 3) That the article before
logos serves to point out the subject of the clause.
H. E. Dana and Julius Mantey utilize John 1:1 to illustrate the usage of the
article to determine the subject in a copulative sentence:
The article sometimes distinguishes the subject from the predicate in a
copulative sentence. In Xenophon's Anabasis, 1:4:6, emporion d' en to
korion, and the place was a market, we have a parallel case to what we have
in John 1:1, kai theos en ho logos, and the word was deity. The article
points out the subject in these examples. Neither was the place the only
market, nor was the word all of God, as it would mean if the article were
also used with theos. As it stands, the other persons of the Trinity may be
implied in theos. (7)
Again, these scholars are pointing out the use of the article to show the
subject against the predicate in a clause. They, like Robertson, point out
that since theos is anarthrous, it shows that it is not convertible with
logos and vice versa.
Dr. Kenneth Wuest, long time professor of Greek at the Moody Bible Institute
in Chicago, commented on this verse:
The Word was God. Here the word "God" is without the article in the
original. When it is used in this way, it refers to the divine essence.
Emphasis is upon the quality or character. Thus, John teaches us here that
our Lord is essentially Deity. He possesses the same essence as God the
Father, is one with Him in nature and attributes. Jesus of Nazareth, the
carpenter, the teacher, is Very God. (8)
Wuest in his Expanded Translation, renders 1:1:
In the beginning the Word was existing. And the Word was in fellowship with
God the Father. And the Word was as to His essence absolute deity. (9)
That Wuest brings in the idea that the anarthrous predicate noun has a
characterizing effect, and that it refers more to the nature of the subject
of the clause than to an identification of it. This is right in line with
what Robertson said - that the Logos is not all of God, and that you cannot
say "the God was the Logos." The very context (kai ho logos en pros ton
theon) demonstrates this fully. Those who would assert that the Logos is to
be identified with all of God (i.e., Jesus is the Father and the Father is
Jesus - Sabellianism) find an insuperable problem here.
It is good to note Vincent's comment that here "John is not trying to show
who is God, but who is the Word." (10) The Logos is the central character
here. Hence, when we see that the Word was, as to His nature God, we can
understand exactly how He can be with God and yet be God.
F. F. Bruce's comments on this passage are valuable:
The structure of the third clause in verse 1, theos en ho logos, demands the
translation "The Word was God." Since logos has the article preceding it, it
is marked out as the subject. The fact that theos is the first word after
the conjunction kai (and) shows that the main emphasis of the clause lies on
it. Had theos as well as logos been preceded by the article the meaning
would have been that the Word was completely identical with God, which is
impossible if the Word was also "with God". What is meant is that the Word
shared the nature and being of God, or (to use a piece of modern jargon) was
an extension of the personality of God. The NEB paraphrase "what God was,
the Word was", brings out the meaning of the clause as successfully as a
paraphrase can...So, when heaven and earth were created, there was the Word
of God, already existing in the closest association with God and partaking
of the essence of God. No matter how far back we may try to push our
imagination, we can never reach a point at which we could say of the Divine
Word, as Arius did, "There was once when he was not." (11)
Another scholarly source along this line is found in the Expositor's Greek
Testament:
The Word is distinguishable from God and yet Theos en ho logos, the Word was
God, of Divine nature; not "a God," which to a Jewish ear would have been
abominable; nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the
article would have been inserted...(12)
A slightly different tact is taken by another group of scholars. These
scholars refer to what is known as Colwell's rule, named after E. C.
Colwell, who first enunciated his rule in the Journal of Biblical Literature
in 1933. (13) The rule says, "The absence of the article does not make the
predicate indefinite or qualitative when it precedes the verb; it is
indefinite in this position only when the context demands it. The context
makes no such demand in the Gospel of John." (14) This is the view taken by
Morris, Metzger, Griffith and others. Though Colwell's rule is not
exceptionless, it is a valuable guide. At the very least, it is a good guide
to translation in this case. Those scholars who see the verse in this light
are not necessarily in contradiction with the others already cited. First it
should be noted that Robertson and Nicoll had passed away before the work of
Colwell, and their comments reflect this. Also, both approaches lead to the
same conclusion - the passage teaches the Deity of Jesus Christ. Some
scholars see the anarthrous theos as emphasizing the nature of the Word, and
all agree that it is not simply an adjectival type of description, saying
that Christ is merely a "god-like one." A more recent authors work (March
1973) bears on this issue as well. Philip B. Harner did an extensive study
of anarthrous predicate nouns which was published in the Journal of Biblical
Literature as well (15). His research led to some realignment in viewing
Colwell's rule, it is true. It should also be noted that his article has
been used extensively by those who would deny the Deity of Christ and
mistranslate this passage. Sufficent at this point is a quotation from
Harner's article itself:
In all of these cases the English reader might not understand exactly what
John was trying to express. Perhaps the clause could be translated, "the
Word had the same nature as God." This would be one way of representing
John's thought, which is, as I understand it, that ho logos, no less than ho
theos, had the nature of theos. (16)
The authoritative reference source, Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the
New Testament, is quite direct on John 1:1:
A similar ascription is more common in the Johannine writings, and for the
most part incontestable. Jn. 1:1 says of the Pre-existent: kai theos en ho
logos...The lack of the article, which is grammatically necessary in 1:1, is
striking here, and reminds us of Philonic usage. The Logos who became flesh
and revealed the invisible God was a divine being, God by nature. The man
born blind has some sense of this when, after his healing, he falls down in
believing adoration before Christ, who addresses him with the divine "I"
(Jn. 9:38f). The final veil is removed, however, when the Risen Lord
discloses Himself to Thomas and the astonished disciple exclaims: ho kurios
mou kai ho theos mou (Jn. 20:28). In Jn. 1:1 we have Christology: He is God
in Himself. Here we have the revelation of Christ: He is God for believers.
(17)
To summarize: The phrase kai theos en ho logos is most literally translated
as "and the Word was God." (Robertson, Bruce). The reason that theos is
anarthrous is both that it is the predicate nominative (Robertson, Dana and
Mantey) and that it is demanded by the fact that if it had the article, it
would be then interchangeable with logos, which is contextually impossible.
(Robertson, Dana and Mantey, Bruce, Nicoll) Colwell's rule also comes into
play at this point. We have seen that the majority of scholarship sees the
theos as indicating the nature of the Word, that He is God as to His nature.
The noun form is here used, not the adjectival theios, which would be
required to simply classify the Word as "god-like."
Hence, John 1:1 teaches that the Word is eternal (the imperfect form of
eimi, en), that He has always been in communion with God (pros ton theon),
and hence is an individual and recognizable as such, and that, as to His
essential nature, He is God. Anything less departs from the teaching of
John, and is not Biblical.
What about "a god?"
Until 1950, an extra section dealing with a translation of John 1:1 as "the
Word was a god" would not have been necessary. No one would dare publish
such a "translation." However, in 1950, the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society published its own translation of the Bible, The New World
Translation of the Greek Scriptures. This version translates John 1:1 in
this way. A number of appendices have appeared in the NWT attempting to
defend this translation by making reference to many of the same scholars
that have already been quoted. Aside from the comment of The Expositor's
Greek Testament above, the following from F.
F. Bruce sums up the truth pretty well:
It is nowhere more sadly true than in the acquisition of Greek that "a
little learning is a dangerous thing". The uses of the Greek article, the
functions of Greek prepositions, and the fine distinctions between Greek
tenses are confidently expounded in public at times by men who find
considerable difficulty in using these parts of speech accurately in their
native tongue. (18)
A footnote appears after the comment on the article, and it says:
Those people who emphasize that the true rendering of the last clause of
John 1:1 is "the word was a god", prove nothing thereby save their ignorance
of Greek grammar.
This translation violates the following principles:
Monotheism in the Bible - certainly it can not be argued that John would use
the very word he always uses of the one true God, theos, of one who is
simply a "god-like" one or a lesser "god." The Scriptures do not teach that
there is a whole host of intermediate beings that can be called "gods." That
is gnosticism.
If one is to dogmatically assert that any anarthrous noun must be indefinite
and translated with an indefinite article, one must be able to do the same
with the 282 other times theos appears anarthrously. For an example of the
chaos that would create, try translating the anarthrous theos at 2
Corinthians 5:19. There is simply no warrant in the language to do this.
It ignores the position of theos in the clause - it comes first, and is
emphatic.
It ignores a basic tenet of translation: if you are going to insist on a
translation, you must be prepared to defend it in such a way as to provide a
way for the author to have expressed the alternate translation. In other
words, if theos en ho logos is "a god," how could John have said "the Word
was God?" We have already seen that if John had employed the article before
theos, he would have made the terms theos and logos interchangeable,
amounting to Sabellianism.
The translation tears the phrase from the immediately preceding context,
leaving it alone and useless. Can He who is eternal (first clause) and who
has always been with God (second clause), and who created all things (verse
3) be "a god?"
Just because a noun is not preceded by the article does not automatically
justify the insertion of the English indefinite "a". This is a gross
over-simplification of the facts, a practice unfortunately common amongst
those who are not properly trained in the Greek language. I am aware that
this is a serious charge, however, the facts reveal that the Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society has consistently refused to name any of its NWT
translators, and of those who have been discovered, none had any more than
two years of Greek and no formal Hebrew. (19)
Others could be added, but this is sufficient. There is obviously no
scholarly support for the rendering of "a god," and there is massive
scholarly argument against it. It is not a valid translation in any way.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other
Early Christian Literature, 2nd edition edited by F. W. Gingrich and
Frederick Danker, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979) p. 719.
2. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6 vols., (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1932), 5:4
3. Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, The Person and Work of Christ,
(Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1950), p.
53.
4. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. 5, pp. 4-5.
5. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of
Historical Research, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1934) p. 767-768.
6. A. T. Robertson, The Minister and His Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1977) pp. 67-68.
7. H. E. Dana, Julius Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament,
(New York: The MacMillan Company, 1950) pp. 148-149.
8. Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, vol. 3, "Golden
Nuggets," p. 52.
9. Wuest, Word Studies, vol. 4, p. 209.
10. M. R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 1, p. 384.
11. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983),
p. 31.
12. W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Greek Testament, 5 vols,
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 1:684.
13. E. C. Colwell, "A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek
New Testament" (Journal of Biblical Literature, 1933) pages 12-21. See also
discussion in footnote, Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), p. 77.
14. Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 77.
15. Philip B. Harner, "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns Mark 15:39 and
John 1:1" (Journal of Biblical Literature, March 1973), 92:75-87.
16. Harner, pg. 87.
17. Gerhard Kittel, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, 10 vols. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964) vol 3:105-106.
18. F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments, (Old Tappan, New Jersey:
Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), p. 60-61.
19. This information was made available during a trial in Scotland, Douglas
Walsh v. The Right Honorable James Latham Clyde, M.P., P.C., etc., Scotland,
1954. I include this to demonstrate the non-scholarly, non-factual approach
utilized in defending this erroneous translation.
.
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| User: "JohnOneOne" |
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| Title: Re: John 1:1 And Meaning And Translation |
27 May 2007 10:54:11 PM |
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Many who take issue with Jehovah's Witnesses' "New World Translation"
of John 1:1 (as, "a god") often miss the point that the Grammatical
construction there is that this is "a singular anarthrous predicate
noun preceding the verb, and subject noun (implied or stated)"; again,
not just that the noun theos (in the third clause) lacks the Greek
definite article.
For other examples of a similar Greek construction, please examine the
few following verses within your own prefered translation of the Bible
and see whether your own translators had inserted either an "a" or
"an" there:
Mark 6:49
Mark 11:32
John 4:19
John 6:70
John 8:44a
John 8:44b
John 9:17
John 10:1
John 10:13
John 10:33
John 12:6
At each of those verses, identity of the one discussed was not at
issue; no, but rather, the class and/or quality of the individual was.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"What About John 1:1?"
~~~~~~~~~~~
Today, an important part Bible study is the comparison of
translations. Regarding their comparative value, Miles Coverdale (b.
1488-d.1568), who produced the first complete printed translation of
the Bible into English, wrote: "one translation declareth, openeth and
illustrateth another, and ... in many cases one is a plain commentary
unto another.''
The King James Version translators had also appreciated the work of
early translators, for even upon their cover page they explained that
their own work had been, "Translated out of the Original Tongues and
with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised."
Interestingly, even the KJV translators had further advised within
their own, original "Preface": "Therefore as St Augustine saith, 'a
variety of translations is profitable for finding out the sense of
scriptures.'"
For many, John 1:1 plainly declares Jesus (the Word) is God. And yet,
few are aware of the number of other ways in which hundreds of
Biblical Theologians, Scholars and Translators alike have, down thru
the centuries, chosen to render this verse - as something other than,
"and the Word was God."
John 1:1 may be the most discussed, explained and/or debated scripture
of any in the Bible. After 15 years study, there is soon to be
released an Extensive Annotated Bibliography, providing the dedicated
student of the Bible a sampling of what has been offered by many, well
respected Bible scholars, that is, as to the many appropriate,
alternative renditions of this most controversial scripture, John 1:1.
Agape:
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Please visit:
http://www.goodcompanionbooks.com
"Good Companion Books" is dedicated to publishing well researched,
informative books, on certain key Biblical subjects.
~~~~~~~~~~~
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