John 1:1. On translating 'ho theos' and 'theos'

 

This post is about whether we should translate John 1:1 thus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

To assist, I’m going to look at usefully similar grammar elsewhere in the New Testament.

Before I go further,  here are quick definitions of words I use here and in related posts:

·       Qualitative: this means you’re describing something based on its qualities. We’re saying what something is like. You see phrases like "qualitative change" and "qualitative data". An example:  "qualitative analysis determines the chemical constituents of a substance or mixture".

·       Equative: it's necessary to mention this because people discussing this verse tend to focus on the nouns when they should be focussing also on the little verb 'was'. An equative clause is where two things (for example God and Word) are held together in a comparison where what is holding them together is a verb like ‘was’ (as in ‘the Word was God’), words like was and were, am and are – basically state-of-being verbs.  So, equative is a better fit with John 1:1c than just ‘qualitative’ on its own. So, in John 1:1c, the necessary question is whether it is equative-qualitative, equative-definite, or equative indefinite, rather than qualitative-definite or qualitative-indefinite. However, for the purposes of this blog post, I’ll generally run through the argument as it usually goes between Trinitarians and the likes of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which means losing some of the correct nuance of ‘equative.’ More on this here.

·       Definite article: the word “the”

·       Article-less: not having the word “the”

·       Indefinite: in English, this means using the word “a / an”. E.g. “A car.” Greek doesn’t have such a word.

 

Example 1: ‘Law’ twice

In Romans 2:23, Paul uses the word ‘law’ twice, with and without the definite article. It is not accidental that he does so.

He writes: "You who glory in LAW, do you through your transgression of THE LAW dishonour God?"

That’s: "You who glory in LAW (no definite article), do you through your transgression of THE LAW (definite article) dishonour God?"

The Greek, using ‘law’ twice, gives it the article (‘the’) on the second occasion and omits the article on the first.

Let’s state the fairly obvious fact. In that sentence, ‘law’ is not a separate class of law from ‘the law’. The law in which the Jews gloried has to be the law of Moses. In both usages, it’s the same stuff – the same Law of Moses. The law they transgress is the Law of Moses. So, it means the same law, both times.

The connection Paul is making is by virtue of a qualitative usage paired with a definite usage. That is, when he says ‘law’ (without the article) he is saying that what the Jews like about the law was its lawfulness (qualitative).

But when he says ‘THE law’ Paul is speaking of it as an actual code that they have broken.

So, in that sentence, ‘the law’ is definite, and ‘law’ is qualitative. The article-less ‘Law’, since it is the same Mosaic Law as ‘THE law’, is certainly not indefinite. It’s not saying “a law… the Law”.

Meaning resides in function and context, as I often say. ‘Law’ is not an inferior or different class of law from ‘THE law’. Why? Because it’s the SAME Mosaic Law in view.

(For those who like to know these things by the way, ‘law’ is dative and ‘the law’ is genitive.)

Paul chooses to give the article to the latter but not to the former, and he does so deliberately here. He is not inviting us to infer a definite article where he chooses to omit in this verse. \it’s because he wants to give qualitative force to the anarthrous noun ‘Law’. (You can see Paul make the same distinction with ‘Law’ just as deliberately in Romans 3:21 and elsewhere.)

Conclusion: it’s not about difference, but about sameness.

 

So let’s remember that sentence for future reference: ‘law’, next to ‘the law’, is not indefinite and not in a different inferior class of laws. In both cases, the same Mosaic Law is in view. Now let’s look at another example which further illustrates the point.

 

 

Example 2: ‘Sin’ twice

In Romans 7:13 we have the words, “so that sin might be shown to be sin”.

That’s: “so that sin (definite article) might be shown to be sin (no definite article)”.

What Paul is doing here is similar to the above. But English usage of the word ‘sin’ struggles to convey what the Greek conveys. Again, though, the Greek, using ‘sin’ twice, gives it the article (‘the’) on the first occasion and omits the article on the second.

The second usage is plainly qualitative. The sentence means, “so that [THE] sin might be shown up for all its sinfulness”.

As said, the second use of ‘sin’ lacks the definite article in the Greek. This again is no accident. That lack of the article makes it qualitative, meaning ‘sinniness’ or ‘sinfulness’.

But (the same as with ‘law’ in the above example), it’s qualitative. It does not make ‘sin/sinfulness’ indefinite, which would make little sense. On the contrary the same stuff – sin - is in view in both halves of the sentence. The absence of the article does not put ‘sin’ into a different inferior class of sins compared to ‘the sin.’ Nor does it make ‘sin’ indefinite. (For those who like to know these things, ‘sin’ is nominative both times.)

Conclusion: it’s not about difference, but about sameness.

 

So let’s remember this sentence too for future reference: ‘sin’, next to ‘the sin’, is not indefinite; and it is not in a different inferior class of sin. In both cases, the SAME stuff – sin - is in view.

You will notice each of my examples is a little different, and yet the same linguistic feature works in each of them.

So that was just two examples. The New Testament has a range of Greek idioms. The Greek idiom here is to show how qualitative-ness of the same kinds of thing is indicated by using the same noun twice, but only once with the article. The article-less noun in both these cases is qualitative, not indefinite.

 

 

Application to John 1:1: ‘God’ twice

So when we look at John 1:1, we have a ready NT grammatical tool for understanding ‘the god’ and ‘god’.

The meaning is right before us: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [the] God [ho theos] and the Word was God [theos]." (In a moment I'll mention a translation that I think captures this better.)

So, that’s: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God (with definite article) and the Word was God (without definite article).”

The Greek, using ‘God’ twice, gives it the article (‘the’) on the first occasion and omits the article on the second. You can see the relevance of the above two examples.

The second use of ‘God’ in this verse has qualitative force, just as the article-less ‘law’ and ‘sin’ have qualitative force (adjacent to ‘the law’ and ‘the sin’) in the above examples.

The Greek idiom here is to show how qualitative-ness of the same kinds of thing is indicated by using the same noun twice, but only once with the article.

If we want to reflect the qualitative force in English explicitly, then we can express the same idea (‘the Word was God’) the way that the REB does: “and what God was, the Word was.”

Conclusion: it’s not about difference, but about sameness.

The pairing of ‘ho theos’ (the god) with ‘theos’ (god) makes it more, rather than less, likely that the author of John is saying that ‘ho theos’ and ‘theos’ are of the same kind. The qualities of ‘ho theos’ are carried over by the word ‘theos’ in just the same way that we see in the above two examples from the Greek New Testament.

So John is simply saying in that the qualities of 'ho logos' (the Word) are the qualities of 'ho theos', (the God) the qualities of the one true God. A great thing about the REB's "What God was, the Word was” is that it’s a plain qualitative rendering in agreement with the context.

There is nothing about the grammar of John 1:1 which puts ‘The Word’ into a different class of divinity from ‘The Deity’. If some people want to believe there is such a different class in that verse, then that is a matter of faith for them. (Such as for Jehovah’s Witnesses.) It would be wrong however to assert that anything in the grammar gives greater weight to their view.

If the Word possesses the same qualities as a unique God, then the Word is within the identity of that God. 

In contrast, it's not remotely as if John 1:1 is saying "in the beginning there were two classes of gods."

Sometimes Jehovah's Witnesses place great store in the pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nominative in John 1:1c, as if that dictates an indefinite, but of course that construction is just what one finds in Mark 2:28: κύριός ἐστιν ὁ Υἱὸς. But who would say the son is "a" Lord of the Sabbath?!

 

Footnote 1

One shouldn’t get too carried away with finding ‘ho theos” and “theos” together in John’s Gospel. It’s not just a single time.

For example, John 3:2 has both 'theos' and 'ho theos' – and it isn’t a deliberate contrast of two separate divine beings. Both are God in this verse. (This is easily explained as the article-ess genitive is assumed to have the option to be with or without an implicit article, whereas the nominative has the explicit article.)

Or how about John 6:45-46 which has both 'theos' and 'ho theos' (both are genitives and John chooses to make the article explicit in only one, not the other). And it isn’t a deliberate contrast of two separate divine beings.

Other examples of verses that have ‘theos’ and ‘ho theos’ together:

John 9:31-33 (in 9:33 you will find 'para theou' rather than the explicit 'para tou theo' of John 6:46; and

John 13:3 (a more easily explained example - the accusative has the explicit article but the genitive does not).

So there are lots of different constructions, lots of different contexts and functions, so it’s a mistake to over-simplify. Only a clumsy translator would try to duplicate the same English rendering for every similar Greek construction regardless of the context etc.

By the way, you'll notice John sometimes says 'apo theou' talking about God the Father, whereas Luke will say 'apo tou theou' (Acts 26:22).

 

Footnote 2

I intend to write separate posts on:

·       The lack of an actual indefinite article in Greek, and how biblical Greek sometimes uses tis and heis to the effect of an indefinite article.

·       Count nouns and compound nouns. In that one, I may pose the obvious question that may always be asked when reading "with God... was a god" - the obvious question being, how many gods in total may be counted there? And why is that a problem?