John
The Deity of Jesus Christ
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The Word is the authority, beyond question.
Not all Bibles read as the
King James Bible, whereby it says that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". Why ? Simply put, there is missing the definite article, "the", or
ho in Greek, that would identify "
the Word" as "
the God".
Within the confines of John 1:1, 2, the definite article "the" (
ho in Greek) is used before "Word" every time, making it "the Word". However, the apostle John makes a change with regard to the word "god", in which the first and third times he uses it (Greek
theon), the definite article "the" (
ho in Greek) is attached to it, and thus saying literally "
the God". In the
second use of "god", John makes a change to "
theos"
without the definite article from "
theon" that is used
with the definite article in the first and third occurrences.
Hence, John was identifying the first and third usage of
theon as "the God", whereas in the
second usage
without the definite article, he was identifying "the Word", Jesus as "
a god" or having godlike qualities. It need be remembered that Koine Greek had
no indefinite article such as "a" that we use in English.
But there is a language that Koine Greek was translated into not long after the death of the apostles, and that is Sahidic Coptic, that was spoken in Egypt in the centuries immediately following Jesus' earthly ministry, that has an indefinite article.
Regarding the earliest Coptic translations of the Bible,
The Anchor Bible Dictionary says: “Since the [
Septuagint] and the [Christian Greek Scriptures] were being translated into Coptic during the 3d century C.E., the Coptic version is based on [Greek manuscripts] which are
significantly older than the vast majority of extant witnesses.”
Scholar Thomas O. Lambdin, in his work
Introduction to Sahidic Coptic, says: “The use of the Coptic articles, both definite and indefinite, corresponds closely to the use of the articles in English.”
Hence, the Coptic translation supplies interesting evidence as to how John 1:1 would have been understood back then, dating from before the fourth century, which was when the Trinity became official doctrine. What do we find? The Sahidic Coptic translation uses an
indefinite article with the word “god” in the final part of John 1:1.
Thus, when rendered into modern English, the translation reads: “And the Word was a god.” Evidently, those ancient translators realized that John’s words recorded at John 1:1 did not mean that Jesus was to be identified as Almighty God. The Word was a god, not Almighty God.
JOHN 1:1. SAHIDIC COPTIC TEXT; P. CHESTER BEATTY-813; WITH INTERLINEAR TRANSLATION
In the beginning existed the Word
and the Word existed with
the God and a god was
the Word.
