Sunday, February 21, 2021

John 1:1, Exodus 7:1 and the Indefinite Article

 


From Rammohun Roy (Raja) "Works on Christianity" 1901 (Page 43)

They...render the last sentence of the verse “the word was God," without the indefinite article “a” before “God,” while they translate Exod. 7:I, "I have made thee (Moses) a God to Pharoah," though, in the original Hebrew, there stands only the word Elohim or "God," without the indefinite article “a” before it. If regard for the divine unity induced them to add the article "a" in the verse of Exodus, a God to Pharoah,” why did not the same regard, as well as a desire of consistency, suggest to them to add the article “a” in John 1:1, “the word was a God”? We may, however, easily account for this inconsistency. The term “God” in Exodus is applied to Moses, the notion of whose deity they abhor; but as they meant to refer the same term in John 1:1, to Jesus, (whose deity they are induced by their education to support) they leave the word “God” here without the article “a,” and carefully write it with a capital G. Lastly. If eternity be understood by the phrase "In the beginning," in John 1:1, and Jesus Christ be literally understood by the “word," then we shall not only be compelled to receive Christ as an eternal being, but also his apostles; since Luke (ch. 1:2) speaks of himself and his fellow disciples, as "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the beginning.”

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