"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
How coarse the forgery is in this case will be plain, when we give the following absolutely literal translation:—
"In (a) beginning was the word, and the word was with the God, and the word was (a) god."
That is, the word was divine, a divine being, with him who is properly called the God.
We call the popular translation a coarse forgery, because it is forever compelling trinitarians to explain how the Word could possibly be with God, while literally being the God himself. The difficulty cannot be escaped: for John in the very next verse, as if wishing to anticipate the trinitarian contention, says, "The same was in (a) beginning with the God." How could the Word be the God and be with the God?
What John really said is easy to understand: That the Word in the indefinite past was a divine being, with the supreme God. Jesus himself was divine, and could be called a god, in the secondary sense.
In the age when John wrote, the word QEOS (theos, god), was applied to beings considered deities, and even to lesser beings sometimes; as in the case quoted by Jesus (John 10:35), "He called them gods unto whom the word of the God came."
And John (according to the text of Westcott and Hort) again in the first chapter emphasizes his use of the word QEOS {theos, god) in the secondary sense; saying (verse 18), "(An) only begotten god, he being in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared (him)." That is, the only begotten divine being, the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared the Father.
But the forgery in John 1:1 compels us to believe that the Word (Jesus) was with the supreme God, and was himself the supreme God; making John write nonsense. And this forgery is accomplished by the improper use of the capital letter in the English, and the ignoring of the use by John of the Greek article, which would in this case have shown the English reader that he was making a distinction between two beings, one of whom was the God, and the other a being also divine.
For the Greek word QEOS {theos, god) is generic; applying, in the age in which John wrote, to very many beings, all of whom, however, as we now know through divine revelation, were false QEOI {theoi, plural form, Gods, or gods) except God and his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And this fact is alluded to by Paul in 1 Cor. 8: 4-6: —
"For there is no God but one. For though there be that are called gods (theoi), whether in heaven or on earth; as there are gods (theoi) many, and lords {kurioi) many; yet to us there is one God
(theos), the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord (kurios) Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him."
The distinction intended and secured by John between the two beings, each of whom in John 1:1 he calls QEOS (theos, God, or god), is alluded to by Winer in his "New Testament Grammar," page 122, in the following language:—
"In John 1:1 QEOS HN hO LOGOS the article could not have been omitted if John had intended to designate the LOGOS as hO QEOS, because in this connection QEOS alone would be ambiguous. But that John designedly wrote QEOS is apparent, partly from the distinct antithesis PROS TON QEON verses 1, 2, and partly from the whole description of the LOGOS."
How shabby must then be considered that device that would not only conceal the distinction John intended by the use of the Greek article (seeing that he could not in his day make the sense distinction by the use of capitals and small letters), but must in the English Bible use our capital letter to mislead the reader. It is a clear case of forgery in translation.
But the moral bearing or significance of the act is not as great as the reader might at first suppose; seeing that the persons who committed the forgery had been trained to believe that there were three persons, each of whom was the infinite God, and yet there was but one infinite God.
Persons who have been trained to believe such an equation as 3 = 1 must consider theology a very mysterious science. And theologians of the trinitarian kind are always insisting on the mystery of the trinity, that it cannot be understood by the human mind; obscuring from their hearers and themselves that it is not a matter of mystery at all, but a matter of contradiction; that is, to teach that there are three persons, each of whom is infinitely God, is not mystery at all, but plain contradiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment