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"Where did the 'a god' come from in John 1? None of the English translations I've looked at -- including King James, New King James, Revised Standard, New English Bible, Living Bible, New International Version, Amplified Bible -- have an 'a' in front of God in the last phrase of John 1:1. The Greek grammatical construction and word order all have them affirming: 'and the Word was God.'"
Reply: First, you write of the "Greek grammatical construction" and yet you point to English Bibles, none of which portray "Greek grammatical construction(s)." You also state of the Bibles that you mention that "all have them affirming: 'and the Word was God.'" This is not true of all of the Bibles you mentioned. For instance, the New English Bible has "what God was, the Word was" which is not really what the original Greek has, but it is an interpretation of what the translators think John may have meant.
You mentioned the Amplified Bible, which has "and the Word was God Himself" and the Living Bible which has "and is himself God." There is a word in Greek for "himself" and it is AUTOS, a word that is not at this verse. This word was added to the text by the translators of these two Bibles simply because of theological bias, and yet no one is upset that a word was added which was not in the Greek text. The reason no one is upset is because these Bibles are saying what they want them to say. The fact that you got three Bibles wrong tells me that you didn't actually check the Bibles you were referring to, you simply assumed they read "and the Word was God."
Now let's look at the Revised Standard Version Bible mentioned above. Two of the members of the RSV translation committee were James Moffatt and Edgar J. Goodspeed, two of the greatest Bible translators of the early 20th century. In their own Bibles at John 1:1 they translated the clause in question as "the Logos was divine" and "the Word was divine." These are better translations of that Scripture. But once they were assumed into the RSV translation committee the text in question fell back into the traditional "and the Word was God." The RSV is a committee translation and committee translations (like the NKJV and NIV) are known for compromise, and they are also expected to fulfill certain expectations that the public demands, especially if they want to sell those Bibles and pay the members of those committees. This is why many Bibles made by individuals have more freedom to translate what the Greek actually says, and they have produced many translations that do NOT say "and the Word was God."
"The truth of the matter is that when dealing with religious writings people are generally far less concerned with accuracy than with traditional expression, familiar through long use." Toward a Science of Translating by Eugene A. Nida
Even when translators know that an alternative rendering may be more accurate, they still will not translate that way. I have Bibles that say something similar to what _The New Testament
in Plain English_ says in a footnote, that "Deity, Divine (which is actually a better translation)" but they still will not use the "better" translation, which supports what Eugene Nida is saying above.
And as far as the New International Version goes,
"The preface to this version begins with one of the most whopping falsehoods ever to be written into a Bible version by a group of 'Bible believers' such as the promoters of the version were, for it says that the people who worked on the version came from many denominations and this 'helped to safeguard the translation from sectarian bias.' The contrary is the case; the NIV was a sectarian project from the beginning. It was, as it itself says, planned by committees of the Christian Reformed Church and the National Association of Evangelicals. The name International, as is well known to anyone experienced in the literature, is a code word meaning 'acceptable for conservatives and fundamentalists.' The reason for the existence of the NIV is not, and never was, that it was in any way better, or had better principles of translation, or better scholarship behind it, or that it had solved the problem of style as between archaic 'biblical' style and conversational 'modern' style. Its reason for existence was purely and simply that it was produced by and for evangelicals and for them only." [From James Barr, _Modern English Bible Versions as a Problem for the Church_ Quarterly Review/Fall 1994]
No serious Bible scholar should use the NIV.
Now when it comes to the Greek at John 1:1 you will quickly see that these other Bibles do support translations with the indefinite article "a" in similar constructions.
The construction at John 1:1c is a pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nominative, and looking in the Gospel of John, over half of the pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nominatives (such as in John 1:1c) actually appear to be indefinite. For example:
John 4:19 has PROFHTHS EI SU which translates to: "you are a prophet."
John 6:70 has DIABOLOS ESTIN which translates to: "is a slanderer."
John 8:34 has DOULOS ESTIN which translates to: "is a slave."
John 8:44 has ANQRWPOKTONOS HN which translates to "a murderer."
John 8:44 has EUSTHS ESTIN which translates to "he is a liar."
John 8:48 has SAMARITHS EI SU which translates to "you are a Samaritan."
John 9:8 has PROSAITHS HN which translates to "as a beggar."
John 9:17 has PROFTHS ESTIN which translates to "He is a prophet."
John 9:24 has hAMARTWLOS ESTIN which translates to "is a sinner."
John 9:25 has hAMARTWLOS ESTIN which translates to "he is a sinner."
John 10:1 has KLEPTHS ESTIN which translates to "is a thief"
John 10:13 has MISQWTOS ESTIN which translates to "a hired hand."
John 12:6 has KLEPTHS HN which translates to "he was a thief."
John 18:35 has MHTI EGO IOUDAIOS EIMI which translates to "I am not a Jew, am I?"
John 18:37 has BASILEUS EI SU which translates to "So you are a king?"
John 18:37 also has BASILEUS EIMI EGW which translates to "I am a king."
Notice the indefinite article "a" is inserted here in most Bibles, in all of these examples, even though the Greek does not have an indefinite article.
It had to be added because the English, and common sense (just as at John 1:1) demands it.
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