Jehovah's Witnesses and John 1:1
Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon
In John 1:1, the New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses inserts the word "a" in an attempt to deny Christ’s deity: "In (the) beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." (New World Translation [NWT])
The same verse in the New American Standard Version reads this way: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
The transliterated Greek of this verse looks like this:
En arche en ho logos kai ho logos
In beginning was the Word and the word
en pros ton theon kai theos en ho logos
was toward the God and God was the Word
In essence, the Watchtower Society claims it can translate theos as "a god" because there is no definite article before this usage of theos (God) in the last clause of John 1:1. Note that the first use of the term God (pros ton theon) has the article (ton—the). The second use simply states kai theos ("and God," not "and the God"). Because it does not say "and the God" Jehovah’s Witnesses argue they are free to interpret this second usage of God as figuratively meaning a lesser deity, "a god"—signifying Christ’s exalted status, even though he is still only a creature. Their main concern here is to escape the clear meaning of this passage. Christ is here called theos, God.
The difficulty is that, had the apostle John used the article, he would have declared that "the God was the Word." Had he done so, he would have confused the persons of the Trinity and supported modalism (in the early church known as the heresy of Sabellianism1). In other words, to declare that "the God was the word [Jesus]" would have stated that all of God—i.e., the whole trinity—was Jesus. This would have supported modalistic belief that there is only one Person in the Godhead (i.e., Jesus) and that the terms Father, Son and Spirit in Scripture only refer to modes or offices of the one God who exists as one person.
The apostle John had to make a finer distinction and, on the one hand, clearly declare that the person of Jesus was deity, but, on the other, not make it seem as if all three persons in the Godhead were to be considered the same as the person of Jesus. To make this fine distinction he had to use the exact wording he used.
We should also note that the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Interlinear (p. 1158-1159) utilizes both Julius Mantey’s Manual Grammer and A. T. Robertson’s Grammar in defense of their John 1:1 translation. However, Mantey observes:
Since my name is used and our Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament is quoted on page 744 to seek to justify their translation, I am making this statement… of all the scholars in the world, as far as we know none have translated this verse as Jehovah’s Witnesses have done. If the Greek article occurred with both Word and God in John 1:1, the implication would be that they are one and the same person, absolutely identical. But John affirmed that "the Word was with (the) God" (the definite article preceding each noun), and in so writing, he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words, that both are of the same nature, and that nature is the highest in existence, namely divine…. The apostle John, in the context of the introduction to his Gospel, is pulling all the stops out of language to portray not only the deity of Christ, but also his equality with the Father. He states that the Word was in the beginning, that He was with God, that He was God and that all creation came into existence through him and that not even one thing exists that was not created by Christ. What else could be said that John did not say?2
As for Dr. Robertson, they misstate his own position by selectively quoting him. As they observe, Robertson does say that, "the absence of the article here is on purpose." But Jehovah’s Witnesses do not explain why he says this. He does so to indicate that to include the article "would have been Sabellianism."3 In his Word Pictures, Robertson provides a succinct analysis: By exact and careful language John denied Sabellianism by not saying ho theos enho logos (The God was the Word). That would mean that all of God was expressed in ho logos (the Word) 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 I 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."4
The Watchtower Society appendix defending the "a god" rendering (Kingdom Interlinear, p. 1158-1160) again appears scholarly, but is not. For example, they misquote Dana and Mantey’s Grammar.5 In a letter to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society dated July 11, 1974, Mantey even demanded a public apology for these repeated misquotings—as well as requested their discontinuance of the use of his grammar: After citing numerous examples of mistranslations, Mantey writes: In view of the preceding facts, especially because you have been quoting me out of context, I herewith request you not to quote the Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament again, which you have been doing for 24 years. Also that you not quote it or me in any of your publications from this time on.
Also that you publicly and immediately apologize in the Watchtower magazine, since my words had no relevance to the absence of the article before theos in John 1:1…. On the page before the Preface in the grammar are these words: "All rights reserved—no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher." If you have such permission, please send me a photocopy of it. If you do not heed these requests you will suffer the consequences.
Regretfully yours,
Julius R. Mantey6
Michael Van Buskirk has also documented Watchtower deception in detail in his Scholastic Dishonesty of the Watchtower noting they also misquote A. T. Robertson’s Grammar and other sources as well. They further claim, "At Acts 28:6
