Thanks debator, im sure that you are posting this information with good intentions (you remind myself a bit some time back), I believe that debates are important to clear understandings.
While I wanted to refer to John 1:1 "a god" or 10:33 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." (NIV) or a God (NWT), Im not trying to push the conversation to trinity or monotheism but rather scripture accuracy.
In that sense, for the sake of scripture it should be translated without agenda:-
Firstly the original manuscripts also say "a god" specifically the sahidic Coptic
http://nwtandcoptic.blogspot.com/
The Sahidic Coptic was translated in the 3rd century, about a hundred years before the Trinity became official church doctrine. The Sahidic Coptic calls the Word in John 1:1c "a god," not "god" or "the god."
I have been doing some research on this, according to wikipedia
The collection of manuscripts of Sahidic translations is often designated by cop sa in academic writing and critical apparatuses . The first translation into the Sahidic dialect was made at the end of the 2nd century in Upper Egypt , where Greek was less well understood . So the Sahidic is famous for being the first major literary development of the Coptic language, though literary work in the other dialects soon followed. By the ninth century, Sahidic was gradually replaced by neighbouring Bohairic, and disappeared. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_versions_of_the_Bible
also has wobble pointed out
"1) The Coptic language uses the indefinite article differently than English, so it does not prove that the Word is in any way not God.
2) This is still a translation of a copy of many copies, we do not have an autograph copy, or anything very near it, so to argue over every jot and tittle is not only not scholarly."
From what I gather Sahidic Coptic is not the nail in the coffin, do you agree?
And in the original Greek John 1:1c lacks the definite Article which means translation can be a god but not G-od which presumes a definite where there is none.
So this would be what is according to some scholars but not all
According to the Kingdom Interlinear 1985
however from this is not the understanding of all scholars,
This is what one of them had to say
"In the beggining was the Word{logos} and the Word was with God, {ton theon} and the word was God {theos}
Contrary to the translations of the emphatic diaglott and NWT, the Greek grammatical construction leaves no doubt whatsoever that this is the only possible rendering of the text. The subject of the sentence is Word {logos}, the verb was. There can be no direct object following " was ," since according to grammatical usage intransitive verbs take no objects but take instead predicated nominatives, which refer back to the subject-in this case word {logos } . In fact, the late New Testament Greek scholar Dr. E. C. Colwell formulated a rule that clearly states that a definite predicate nominative (in this case theos-God) never takes an article when it precedes the verb ( was ), as we find in John 1:1. It is therefore easy to see that no article is needed for theos since theos is the predicate nominative of was in the in the third sentence-clause of the verse and must refer back to the subject, Word {logos}."
So from this if we apply the NWT rule for mat3:9 6:24, luk1:35 78: 2:40, john 1:6 12-13 18: 3:2 21: 9:16 33:,rom 1:7 17-18, 1 cor 1:3 15:10, phi 2:11-13, etc it wont make sense. Do you agree?
Trinity doctrine demands that John 1:1c translates John 1:1 G-od rather than "a god" so the incorrect "G-od" has been promulgated in a religion overun by trinitarian doctrine. But a few translations throughout the centuries have not bowed to this doctrinal pressure including ours.
While I do agree with religions having their own agendas, I think it's more important to have a clear understanding than finger pointing.
The Word was a god.” (The New Testament in an Improved Version)
Interlineary Word for Word English Translation-Emphatic Diaglott, "In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word."
**Edward Harwood, H KAINH DIAQHKH. London, 1776, 2 vols; 2nd ed. 1784, 2 vols. 1768,"and was himself a divine person"
Newcome, 1808, "and the word was a god"
La Bible du Centenaire, L’Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel,1928: “and the Word was a divine being.”
John Samuel Thompson, The Montessoran; or The Gospel History According to the Four Evangelists, Baltimore; published by the translator, 1829, "the Logos was a god"
Goodspeed's An American Translation, 1939, "the Word was divine"
Moffatt's The Bible, 1972, "the Logos was divine"
International English Bible-Extreme New Testament, 2001, "the Word was God*[ftn. or Deity, Divine, which is a better translation, because the Greek definite article is not present before this Greek word]
Reijnier Rooleeuw, M.D. -The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek, 1694, "and the Word was a god"
Hermann Heinfetter, A Literal Translation of the New Testament,1863, [A]s a god the Command was"
Abner Kneeland-The New Testament in Greek and English, 1822, "The Word was a God"
Robert Young, LL.D. (Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.], 54). 1885,
"[A]nd a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word"
Belsham N.T. 1809 “the Word was a god”
Leicester Ambrose, The Final Theology, Volume 1, New York, New York; M.B. Sawyer and Company, 1879, "And the logos was a god"
Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156). "a God"
George William Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament, 1911, [A]nd (a) God was the word"
James L. Tomanec, The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed, 1958, [T]he Word was a God"
Thanks, Ill look into these.
Joey
