John 1:1

As it reads, this verse seems to be a contradiction. How can the Word be God and yet also be with God? Many try and suggest that John is expressing a paradox here, but this is not the case. The translation "the Word was God" loses an aspect of the Greek that is important for understanding the Trinity - it will not be necessary to understand a discussion of Greek grammar to untangle this. Phillip Harner presented a list of five alternate renderings of the text and shows, by comparison and contrast, the meaning of John 1:1 that sidesteps the need for a degree. I have paraphrased him here, and recommend that you read his original article as given in the bibliography.

When John says that the "Word is with God" the word God possesses the definite article (the word "the" in English is the definite article in English - but please note that Greek and English usage of the article differ in important ways).

The next time the word "God" is used ("the Word was God") it does not posses this article (note that there is no indefinite article in Greek, the indefinite article in English is the word "a"), and it is in a special form called a predicate nominative. Also (although word order is less significant in Greek) the subject precedes the noun. The significance of all this is that the word is made qualitative, but is not changed in its basic meaning.

To help get a handle on this, Philip Harner listed several different Greek phrases which John could have written (but did not) so that we can compare them with what John did say and thereby better understand what John meant and did not mean to say. The alternatives presented were as follows:

  1. ho logos en ho theos: The logos (the Word) and theos (God) are completely equivalent and interchangeable - they are identically the same. This is how most people mistakenly read the verse. If this had been what John had written, then we would not believe in the Trinity today. Rather, we would be monarchists.
  2. theos en ho logos: This is what John actually wrote. This differs from (1) in that it makes the word theios qualitative. It's meaning is something like the New English Bible's translation: "What the Word was, God was." Moffat, Goodspeed, and other scholars have translated the qualitative word "God" using words like "divine" or "deity" but what they are trying to express with these words is prone to misunderstanding. Their meaning is in keeping with the NEB, that "divine" or "deity" refers to the unique divinity of the one True God.
  3. ho logos theos en: This would have the same meaning but a different emphasis than the previous list item. This version would put the emphasis on the Word rather than on the nature he possessed.
  4. ho logos hen theos: This would mean that the word was a divine being of some kind - perhaps like an angel.
  5. ho logos hen theios: Similar in meaning to the last clause. Uses an adjective theios rather than a noun theos.
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