John 1:1c: Is the Word “God” or “a god”?

I had a recent visitor who goes by the name, JohnOneOne. Gee, do you think he has an agenda? Anyway, John left a couple of comments concerning my treatment of John 1:1 in my last post. His first comment was little more than spam so I basically ignored it but his second had a little more substance. John 1:1 was really not the topic of my last post but I get so few comments on my posts dealing with Greek and John 1:1 is certainly worthy of discussion so I was inspired to write a more formal response.

When I write about Greek, I try to do it in such a way that non-Greek readers can still understand the gist of what I'm saying. This subject, though, gets a little complicated so it might be a little more technical than usual. I apologize in advance.

The debate is over the correct translation of John 1:1c, “καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.” Most modern translations render this as, “and the word was God.” John disagrees and defends the NWT translation of, “and the word was a god.” Now, in John's defense, I did characterize the NWT translation as “amateurish”, which was perhaps a bit hasty. Jehovah's Witnesses have gone to great lengths and much research to justify their translation. I still believe it is wrong, notwithstanding.

It's difficult to discuss John 1:1 without Colwell's Rule coming up. Colwell basically said that when a predicate nominative precedes the copula, and which is apparently definite, it usually lacks an article. If θεὸς in John 1:1c is definite, then it certainly fits Colwell's rule. However, if we assume θεὸς is definite then we are assuming the very thing we are trying to determine! In this regard, Colwell's rule is often abused – especially in the case of John 1:1c. Colwell's rule deals with definite nouns being anarthrous yet people cite it as though it's evidence for anarthrous nouns being definite. In other words, they are arguing the inverse of the rule as though it's a rule. Let me give an analogy: suppose I make a rule that says, “all dogs are mammals.” This is absolutely true without any exception. However, the inverse of this rule, namely that “all mammals are dogs,” would not be true. Therefore, we cannot say that the anarthrous θεὸς in John 1;1c is definite according to Colwell's rule.

However, JohnOneOne seems to suggest something completely contrary to Colwell's rule. He would have us believe that since θεὸς is “a singular anarthrous predicate noun (meaning, without the Greek definite article), but one which is also *preceding the verb and subject noun (implied or stated)*” [which is a fairly close paraphrase to Colwell's rule] then it is necessarily indefinite. In my analogy above, this would be akin to arguing that no mammal is ever a dog!

John cited several verses where predicate, nominative, anarthrous nouns are translated in mainstream Bible versions with an indefinite article. I don't have time to discuss all of them but let us consider the first in his list (John 4:19). Here, the Samaritan woman (the woman at the well) says to Jesus:

Κύριε, θεωρῶ ὅτι προφήτης εἶ σύ., “Lord, I see that you are a prophet.”

Because the word for “prophet” (προφήτης) here is anarthrous, it seems to be indefinite and the English translation has been modified by the indefinite article, “a.” Some people might understand this to mean the woman intended to include Jesus in a class of prophets (i.e. he is another of any number of prophets). It would be in the same manner as saying Jesus is “a carpenter.” In this sense, the use of the indefinite article would include Him into a class of people. This isn't really the correct understanding. Rather, the word prophet here is a qualitative noun describing a characteristic of Jesus. She could perceive that He had the gift of prophecy. She could describe Him in this way even if there were no other prophets. This might be hard to grasp so let's look at a another verse from this same passage that might make it easier to understand.

John 4:24 states πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός. This has been translated as “God is a spirit” and also as “God is spirit.” Either way, the meaning is the same. Spirit is a qualitative noun that describes the nature of God. He is spirit or He is a spirit. He is not simply another in a class of spirits. Likewise, the woman saw that Jesus possessed the gift of prophecy. It was something qualitative about Him; not general.

Θεός in John 1:1c is a qualitative noun in the same category. Ironically, I could live with the translation “a god” if it is understood to be qualitative: that is, Jesus is divine. He is not one of a class of gods but instead has the very nature of God. What God is, the Word is also.

Mounce has described this more succinctly. He said concerning John 1:1:

In brief,[1] its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: "What God was, the Word was" is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the PERSON of the Word (Jesus Christ) with the PERSON of "God" (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John's wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.

To state this another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:

καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν ὁ θεός
"and the Word was the God"
(i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεός
"and the Word was a god"
(Arianism)

καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
"and the Word was God"
(Orthodoxy).

What more can I say? Amen!!

Further reading:

Revelation 13:18: What is the Number of the Beast?

What is the Name of God? A Look at the Tetragrammaton