The New World Translation does not change John 1:1

[EastwardTraveler]

Here is a thread I started on another forum, but wanted to put it up here as well. I am new here, but I am already enjoying this forum much better. Less trolls and better discussion and attitudes.
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This is a response to a tread about John 1:1 and how the New World Translation corrects this mistake about calling the Word "God". The NWT claims to fix this issue by calling the Word "a god". Next the assertion is there are many gods in the Bible and being a god is different than being God, implying that God is not a god. Being a god is said to be more of a title or status, and nothing could be further from the truth.

First there is a word play here does not exist in the Hebrew. There is no capitalization in Hebrew, so in English terms, there is no big or little g. The context of the scripture would have let the reader know which god is being talked about. Even from a grammatical point of view this changes nothing. Here is what I mean. It is grammatically correct and scripturally correct for me to say that "God is a god". God is just a proper pronoun letting us know which god we are talking about. A god is not a status but the nature of something. God is a god because he happens to be a spiritually divine being.

So changing John 1:1 does not change the problem of the Word being called God. You are still left with a big problem of the identity of Jesus if he was by nature an elohim.

The next tactic that will be used to to bring up that there are many gods in the Bible. This is a silly argument, because all of the other gods of the Bible are false gods or men calling themselves gods. Neither of the two pleases God, so I find it odd that this is used to justify the Word being called a god/elohim and he not be God. Lets break it down even further. Just because men made up gods and created images to them, does not make them a real god. Same if a man calls himself or another person a god, it does not make them a true god. Again this does not please God to do so.

Here is my beleif, that God/elohim is the only real god/elohim in the scriptures. All other gods/elohim are false gods/elohim. No where in scripture is it a good thing to be call a god/elohim if the thing being talked about is not God himself.

While I started off mentioning The NWT I am eager to hear from all who do not believe that Jesus is God, not just Jehovahs Witness. I prefer not to hear from Trinitarians and Unitarians on this post, but ultimately am not opposed to it.

My last request is that for those responding, try and keep it short. I do not want a page of verses quoted and a dissertation on each on. Lets try and keep it to a verse or two at a time so we can actually have a discussion that is meaningful.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from all of you out there.

[EastwardTraveler]

I hope this isn't getting off-topic, but I was wondering if you could clarify something for me, please, Eastward Traveler.

Who or what is "a god"? Do you think that's referring to Jesus? If so, are you suggesting there is a pantheon of gods with Jehovah at the top and the other "gods", like Jesus, with a small "g" are lesser ones? Or are you saying Jesus is a false god?

Or if Jesus isn't the "god" referred to in that verse, who is that god? And where does he fit in the scheme of things?

Thanks! O.

This is not off-topic at all. In fact this is exactly where I wanted to conversation to go. When we talk about a god in the scripture, we are talking about a divine spiritual being. That is the context we see in scripture, especially in the old testament. No where in scripture is it good to be called a god and scripture not be talking about Jehovah, no where end of statement. I am not saying there is a pantheon or that Jesus is a false god. When we read John 1:1 and see that Jesus is called a god, we are presented with a problem. By being called a god we are talking about Jesus' nature and only one god/theos/elohim exist. All other gods are false gods. If scripture is referring to something that is a god and is real, and is apart Jehovah's system then we must be talking about Jehovah himself, because he is the only real god in existence.

In short, what other real gods are there?
Psalm 115:5
Psalm 135:16
Deuteronomy 4:28
Daniel 5:23
The above verses make it abundantly clear from Jehovah himself that ALL other gods/Gods are false and do not exist. They are the imaginations of man, and it baffles me that people use the existence of false gods in our minds to justify that it is okay for Jesus to be a god, yet not be God himself.

[JehovahsWitness]

So I agree with you here that God is a god. ...

• If JEHOVAH can be described as "a god" then he shares some characteristics with other "gods" (real or imaginary), or else he would not be able to be described as one of them. In other words the "a" + noun, becomes descriptive of a common characteristic that can also exist outside of the first (otherwise he wouldn't be one of a potential or realized that group

In short,by admitting that YHWH/Jehovah is "A" god you are by necessity also admitting there can exist other gods that are not Him. Thus if another person is also described as "a god" they don't have to be considered him and it is totally irrelevent if they are good or bad, physical or spiritual, real or imaginary.

To illustrate: If someone were to describe you as a nice man. And they only other described two other people as nice men (everyone else being described as rotten men) would you immediately conclude there were part of a trinity? Or could it be that there are seperate individuals, all having the characteristic of being men and coincidently meeting the criteria of being nice? What about only two nice men? Siamese twins? or ... two nice men?

Sure it could be the same individual, but you will need more than the expression "a nice man" to prove it, especially if they both had different names, one was also described as being entirely unique from anyone else in several ways and the relationship between the two explicitly explained in detail.




JW

EXODUS 34:6
And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth - ASV

RELATED POSTS

Are there other gods mentioned in scripture?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 521#907521

[JehovahsWitness]

are these other gods of the Bible real?

That would depend on what you mean by "real". JEHOVAH is "a god" and he's real; Satan is "a god" and he's real, Jesus is another god and he's also real (compare Ex 34:6, 2 Cor 4:4; Isaiah 9:6; John 1:1). That's three. Would you say "Three in one"?


RELATED POSTS

Is everyone described in the bible as "a god" part of a trinity?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 555#907555

[tigger2]

Numerous Trinitarian scholars admit that theos/elohim was also used for angels, kings, and God-appointed men such as judges in Israel. In such cases it is usually rendered into English as ‘gods’ or ‘a god.’ And it was used that way in the Greek in the writings of Christians up to the time of Augustine at least.

Some of these trinitarian sources which admit that the Bible actually describes men who represent God (judges, Israelite kings, etc.) and God's angels as gods include:

1. Young's Analytical Concordance of the Bible, "Hints and Helps...," Eerdmans, 1978 reprint;
2. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, #430, Hebrew and Chaldee Dict., Abingdon, 1974;
3. New Bible Dictionary, p. 1133, Tyndale House Publ., 1984;
4. Today's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 208, Bethany House Publ., 1982;
5. Hastings' A Dictionary of the Bible, p. 217, Vol. 2;
6. The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon, p. 43, Hendrickson publ.,1979;
7. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, #2316 (4.), Thayer, Baker Book House, 1984 printing;
8. The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, p. 132, Vol. 1; & p. 1265, Vol. 2, Eerdmans, 1984;
9. The NIV Study Bible, footnotes for Ps. 45:6; Ps. 82:1, 6; & Jn 10:34; Zondervan, 1985;
10. New American Bible, St. Joseph ed., footnote for Ps. 45:7, 1970 ed.;
11. A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures, Vol. 5, pp. 188-189;
12. William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 1, pp. 317, 324, Nelson Publ., 1980 printing;
13. Murray J. Harris, Jesus As God, p. 202, Baker Book House, 1992;
14. William Barclay, The Gospel of John, V. 2, Daily Study Bible Series, pp. 77, 78, Westminster Press,1975;
15. The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible (John 10:34 and Ps. 82:6);
16. The Fourfold Gospel (Note for John 10:35);
17. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Jamieson, Fausset, Brown (John 10:34-36);
18. Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible (Ps. 82:6-8 and John 10:35);
19. John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible (Ps. 82:1).
20. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament ('Little Kittel'), - p. 328, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985.
21. The Expositor’s Greek Testament, pp. 794-795, Vol. 1, Eerdmans Publishing Co.
22. The Amplified Bible, Ps. 82:1, 6 and John 10:34, 35, Zondervan Publ., 1965.
23. Barnes' Notes on the New Testament, John 10:34, 35.
24. B. W. Johnson's People's New Testament, John 10:34-36.
25. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Zondervan, 1986, Vol. 3, p. 187.
26. Fairbairn’s Imperial Standard Bible Encyclopedia, p. 24, vol. III, Zondervan, 1957 reprint.
27. Theological Dictionary, Rahner and Vorgrimler, p. 20, Herder and Herder, 1965.
(also John 10:34, 35 - CEV: TEV; GodsWord; The Message; NLT; NIRV; David Guzik (John 10:34).

Jesus himself admitted the same - John 10 :34, 35.
And, of course the highly respected and highly popular Jewish writer, Philo, had the same understanding for "God"/"a god" about the same time the NT was written.

And the earliest Christians like the highly respected NT scholar Origen and others - - including Tertullian; Justin Martyr; Hippolytus; Clement of Alexandria; Theophilus; the writer of "The Epistle to Diognetus"; and even super-Trinitarians St. Athanasius and St. Augustine - - also had this understanding for "a god." And, as we saw above, many respected NT scholars of this century agree.

YHWH is the God of gods.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 6 by onewithhim]

You are absolutely right. I am so used to going into the Old Testament that I should have made that clear. Elohim isn't in but theos/theon is and that makes it just as bad because theos/theon is not defined as a person of authority, but a divine spiritual being and that is exactly how an ancient Hebrew or pagan for that matter would have used the word el/elohim. The author of John would have very familiar with this.

Would you respond to #3?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by EastwardTraveler]

This is a response to a tread about John 1:1 and how the New World Translation corrects this mistake about calling the Word "God". The NWT claims to fix this issue by calling the Word "a god". Next the assertion is there are many gods in the Bible and being a god is different than being God, implying that God is not a god. Being a god is said to be more of a title or status, and nothing could be further from the truth.

First there is a word play here does not exist in the Hebrew. There is no capitalization in Hebrew, so in English terms, there is no big or little g.

And John is written in Greek; so, what are we talking about?

[EastwardTraveler]

Thanks and look forward to hearing from all of you out there.[/quote]
First of all, "elohim" is not a title reserved for the one true God. Angels are referred to as "elohim," and pagan gods are called elohim---even gods that are not trinities, like Dagon of the Philistines.

In Greek, proper nouns are shown to be either one of a kind, or one of many, by using ARTICLES. There is no article in Greek for indefinite adjectives like "a" or "an." So when, in English, a translator wants to say "a cat," he sees that the word "cat" is alone and has no article there, and thus to be true to the way Greek has to be translated into English, he includes the qualifier "a." But when he wants to say that something is the only one, the translator sees the DEFINITE ARTICLE in front of the word and translates it as unique. For instance, if "cat" would have a definite article in front of it, the translator would know that it was special, and it would be "THE cat." There are no others. The second "god" in John 1:1 has no article and therefore is one of many.

Just because you put the indefinite article in front of something does not mean that there are automatically more than one. By doing so you can be talking about the nature of something. That is hard for us to grasp sometimes because much of what we know in our reality, there are multiple of. Here is a good example of what I mean.
If I say to you that, "I live in a universe." I am telling you the what I live in and its' nature. Does not mean there are multiple universes and last I checked scripture and science shows us there is only one universe.

This is the case with John 1:1. The first "god" mentioned is THE god. So to be honest, the translator would render it that way. The second "god" mentioned does not have the qualifying definite article, indeed, and no article at all. The translator knows that this "god" is NOT "THE" god, and since it has no article, it is to receive, in English, the qualifier "a." That is the way translators translate everywhere else in the Bible, except at John 1:1, except for a few honest translators, one of which is the Emphatic Diaglott by Benjamin Wilson.

I am not arguing the validity of NWT I stated that at the beginning, I am accepting the translation. If you want to go that direction in what the author supposedly knew, then why are the Aramaic translations so specific in say that God was the Word.

The New World Translation is true to the way Greek is supposed to be translated[/quote]

[EastwardTraveler]

[Replying to post 16 by liamconnor]

I stated earlier that I was not specific in what I meant and jumped the gun. In the past when I have talked about this subject I always ended up talking about what the Hebrew meant when they talked about the word god/elohim. I have no problem with Greek, so don't take it that way. As a matter of fact I like the Greek, because it lets you know exactly what they mean when calling the Word a god. The author uses a specific word that means a divine spiritual being. If the author wanted you to know that he meant power and authority, there are plenty of words the author could have used to convey that message. So when I went straight to Hebrew my thought process was just getting ahead of itself in heading into a Hebrew context.

Sorry if jumbled up my thought pattern on you guys.

[EastwardTraveler]

[Replying to post 14 by tigger2]

So I am going to respond in length, but I do not know if I will do this in one or two post. I should have it done in a few hours, but that is if work and kids do not hang me up.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 14 by tigger2]

So I am going to respond in length, but I do not know if I will do this in one or two post. I should have it done in a few hours, but that is if work and kids do not hang me up.

It might be a wiser use of time if you would give up the idea of arguing with tigger, because it will get you nowhere. He knows what he's talking about, and if you would read his posts carefully you would see the sense of it all. He and JW and timothy and I have explained John 1:1 ad nauseum, and just because you do not understand it you go on spending vast amounts of time arguing against the facts.

Spend time with your work and kids. That would be a better use of your time.