John 1:1c - English translation: “The Word was God [or
‘a god’].”
- NT Greek:
θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
“
god was the word.”
The NT Greek word for “God” and “god” is
theos (θεὸς). In the writings of the Gospel writers (including
John) when an unmodified
theos (the form used for subjects and predicate nouns) is accompanied by the article, “the” (
ὁ [ho] in Greek), and has no added phrases (e.g., “the god
of this world”
), then it always refers to the only true God. - See DEF study.
But Jn 1:1c has an unmodified θεὸς
without the article. Therefore, even some trinitarian scholars are forced to admit that this passage may be literally translated as “the Word was
a god”! This includes W. E. Vine
(An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words); Dr. C. H. Dodd (director of the
New English Bible project); Murray J. Harris
(Jesus as God); Dr. Robert Young
(Young’s Analytical Concordance,
Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, etc.). Of course, being trinitarians, they often insist that the correct
interpretation of such a literal translation must be, somehow, trinitarian.
"In John i.1 (θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος), the article could not have been omitted if John had wished to designate the λόγος as
ὁ θεὸς
, because in such a connexion θεὸς without the article would be ambiguous." -
A treatise on the grammar of New Testament Greek : regarded as a sure basis for New Testament exegesis, p. 151, G. B. Winer.
The usual trinitarian interpretation for John 1:1c (“the Word was
God”) is based on the fact that an unmodified
theos is used as a predicate noun (predicate nominative) without a definite article (anarthrous) and comes
before the verb in the original New Testament (NT) Greek. When you find an anarthrous predicate noun in that position, some trinitarians will say, it is to be interpreted differently (“qualitative” or “definite”: i.e., as though it actually had the definite article with it) from a predicate noun which normally comes
after the verb.
Although such a “reversed” word order is extremely rare in English, it is common in NT Greek because word order within a sentence is not significant in NT Greek!
In fact, one of the first things a beginning student of NT Greek learns is that word order has very little, if any, significance as far as the meaning is concerned. For example, respected NT Greek authorities, Dr. Alfred Marshall and Prof. J. Gresham Machen tell us in their NT Greek primers that, unlike English, NT Greek
does not use word order to convey meanings but instead uses the individual endings on each word (inflections).
“The English translation must be determined by observing the [Greek word]
endings, not by observing the [word] order.” - p. 27,
New Testament Greek For Beginners, Machen, The Macmillan Co. (Cf., pp. 7, 22,
New Testament Greek Primer, Marshall, Zondervan)
Professor Machen, in fact, when giving an example of a predicate nominative in NT Greek, placed the predicate nominative (“man”)
before the verb (“the apostle man is”) and translated it “the apostle is
a man.”! - p. 50, Machen.
In Exercise 8 (p.44) of the Rev. Dr. Alfred Marshall’s
New Testament Greek Primer, the noted trinitarian scholar asks us to translate
(phoneus esti) into English. (Notice that the predicate noun
[phoneus, ‘murderer’] precedes the verb
[esti, ‘he is’].) The answer is given on p. 153 where Dr. Marshall translates it as “He is
a murderer.” – Zondervan Publishing House, 1962.
In
Learn New Testament Greek by John H. Dobson we find on p. 64 two interesting Greek clauses and their translations by Dobson: the clauses are: (1)
προφήτης ἐστίν and (2)
προφήτης ἦν. In both of these the predicate noun
(προφήτης) comes
before the verb (‘he is’ and ‘he was’).
Here is how Dobson has translated these two clauses: “He is
a prophet.” And “He was
a prophet.” – Baker Book House, 1989.
And trinitarian NT Greek experts Dana & Mantey specifically give us an example of “a
parallel case to what we have in John 1:1”! Yes, these prominent trinitarian scholars have translated “market was the place” in the literal ancient Greek as “and the place was
a market.” They even described this example as
a parallel to John 1:1! - p. 148,
A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Macmillan Publ., 1957 printing.
We also find trinitarian NT scholars B. M. Newman and Eugene A Nida using a similar example to describe the usage at John 1:1c - “John Smith is
a teacher.” - p. 9,
A Translator’s Handbook on The Gospel of John, United Bible Societies, 1980. (They
want it to be
understood in a trinitarian “Qualitative” manner, however.)
A proper examination of John's grammar usage shows that he intended "a god" not "God" in John 1:1c.
For those few who care enough to actually examine the truth of this important scripture, here is my personal study of John 1:1c and John's usage:
http://examiningthetrinity.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-11c-primer_21.html
and/or
http://examiningthetrinity.blogspot.com/2013/02/seven-lessons-for-john-11c-a.html 
