I bought my first Greek New Testament today.

I do not claim expert knowledge, but as for your question. Do you wonder why versions have "Word" instead of Logos? or do you wonder about the word order of the last phrase - "God was the Word" vs. "the Word was God"? If you wonder in the first way I could ask you why don't versions render it "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the Theos, and the Logos was Theos". Some things are interesting to note here. The word for "beginning" has no article in the Greek Testament. Compare the LXX in Genesis 1:1. Secondly, the first verb is an imperfect active indicative - "was existing", "continuously was". Thirdly, the first Theos has an article - "the God", referring to the first Person of the Divine Trinity, God the Father. And the Logos (God the Son) was "pros" - "facing", God (the Father). The second Theos is anarthrous, i.e. lacking article, emphasis on quality or character. Thus an alternate rendering of the last clause could be "and the Word was Deity" (God). The original Greek has such a construction that it makes distinction between "God" and "God", the first having the article, the second lacking it. The syntax of the last clause is such that the rendering of the vast majority of English versions is fully proper - "the Word was (imperf. active indic.) God (Deity)". For what it was worth.

Harald

 

Except for the NWT which translates the clause "and the Word was God" with
"and the word was a god".

BTW there is no indefinite article in koine Greek.
Thats the single letter word a in front of the word "god" in the NWT.

Congrats Preach.

HankD

 

Preach, both Barry and Dr. Bernard Northrup have pointed out that refersal to me before. It sure makes the message stronger in the original, doesn't it!

And about learning Greek -- ummmm it takes a 'little' longer than that....

think years for proficiency

 

Which Greek New Testament did you buy?

If I understand the English use of an intransitive linking verb, I wouldn't think there is any difference in "God was the Word" and "The Word was God." A predicate substantive following a linking verb is the same as the subject - like "I am Sam; Sam I am; Sam am I." Perhaps someone well versed in Greek syntax could discuss if there is any great significance because of this word order in Greek.

 

I hope that was a joke! It takes that long, (or longer) for you to realize that Greek is not something that you can master. The first semester of study only touches on the basics--just enough to make you dangerous.

 

Four years of Greek in undergrad studies and 3 more in graduate studies and I know the Greek Alphabet....almost backwards.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Congratulations on your greek NT. Best wishes on learning greek. It's a rewarding endeavor!

 

Go for it! Keep up the good work!
I never regret taking Greek. I only
wish I had taken more.

Clay

 

AAAAAAAAAAmen! UBS4th is a great Greek NT!

Where are you taking your Greek?? There are a lot of good grammar books out there, but I used J. Gresham Machen's grammar when I was in college, and I think that one is the easiest to learn from.

You will enjoy your endeavors in learning Greek, and it will be a springboard to learn Hebrew after a couple of years of Greek (foreign languages have totally different grammar structures than that of English).

 

We know that "the word" is the subject because it has the definite article, and is nominative. We translate it accordingly. Martin Luther is right when he said that the lack of the article with theos is against Sabellianism, and the word order is against Arianism.

[ March 17, 2003, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: TomVols ]

 

Tom, I agree; also "the Word was with God, and the Word was God" seems to flow better in English. But I am still curious, though, if anyone thinks there is a difference in these two sentences in English: "God was the Word" and "The Word was God"?

PTW, I have the UBS (probably older since I've had it over twenty years) and the Trinitarian Bible Society's TR. I know you're not a KJV man. But if you intend to engage in debates or discussions on the Bible versions/translations/texts/etc., I would recommend at some point in the future you get some Majority Text testament as well, because the differences in the two text-types will often be a part of the discussion. It will be useful for just general comparisons as well. Of course, nowadays you can make use of the internet for secondary resources (which I couldn't do 20 years ago).

 

About John 1:1

The greek text, as has been stated by others, appears to say "God was the word."

In greek it is: "Theos ain ha Logos"

In greek, it doesn't matter the word order. What matters is the case of the words.

Both God and Word are in the nominative case (the case indicating the subject of the sentance). You cannot have two subjects in a sentance....well, two seperate subjects.

These words, Theos and Logos, do not need a definate article to indicate the translation as "The God" and "The Word."

Logos has the definate article; Theos does not. Why?

The definate article appears before Logos to indicate that Logos, not Theos, is the Subject of the clause.

This is known as Calwell's Rule.

I hope that helps!

Blessings

Archangel

 

PTW, I copied this from www.majoritytext.org:

That might be the best one to use if you're using NKJV. The Trinitarian Bible Society sells the Beza/Stephens/Elzevir Textus Receptus. I think it is good to attempt to compare a translation to its closest underlying text available to us.

Checked my UBS text; it's a third edition. Am I way behind the times. Anyone know what changes were made for the fourth edition?

 

From the "Preface to the Fourth Edition", it claims, "The text of the edition has remain unchanged"(vi). I'm pretty sure the only thing that was changed was the appartas the came with it, to make it align with NA27.