The 'honesty'
remark of the 1951 New World Translation appendix on John 1:1.
Below is a
criticism by Robert Hommel on the 1951 New World Translation
appendix on the translation of the Greek of John 1:1c and this
publications remarks regarding the translations by Moffatt and
Goodspeed, two translators who translated the anarthrous QEOS
there with the English adjective "divine" and a reply
by a JW poster. This brief exchange occurred on a christian
discussion board.
"Let's start
at the very beginning. The author of the Appendix[1951 NWT, p.773-774]cites
"The Complete Bible - An American Translation" and
James Moffatt as both translating Jn 1:1c as "the Word
was divine." The author then says: "Every honest
person will have to admit that John's saying that the Word or
Logos 'was divine' is not saying that he was the God with
whom he was. It merely tells of a certain quality about the
Word or Logos, but it does not identify him as one and the
same God" (1951 NWT, pp. 773-774) But James Moffatt was
an orthodox Trinitarian who suported both the Nicene Creed
and the Chalcedon Confession: "'The Word was God...And
the Word became flesh,' simply means "The word was
divine...And the Word became human.' The Nicene faith, in the
Chalcedon definition, was intended to conserve both of these
truths against theories that failed to present Jesus as truly
God and truly man..." Moffatt, _Jesus Christ the Same_,
Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1945, p.61. Moffatt apparently *did*
believe that "divine" signified that Jesus was
"one and the same God" with hO QEOS.. So, I submit
that the statement from the appendix represents at least two
errors: 1) The "divine" translation does not *mean*
that the Logos is not the God with whom He was - many
scholars believe that "divine" means "the
nature of the true God." 2) James Moffatt's "divine"
translation does not support the author's contention, because
*he* believed "divine" signified "Jesus as
truly God." Please provide a cogent defense of the
author's statement. Please provide quotations from the
preponderance of Greek scholars contemporary with the author
of the appendix who prefered the "divine"
translation and believed that it "does not identify him
as one and the same God." Please provide quotations from
James Moffatt to the same effect.
Best regards,
Robert
Reply by a JW
poster:
"You mis-state
and mis-understand the point of the appendix author's words!
The appendix did not say: "Every honest person will have
to admit that Moffatt and Goodspeed
are saying that the Word or Logos 'was divine' is not saying
that he was the God with whom he was. It merely tells of a
certain quality about the Word or Logos, but it does not
identify him as one and the same God" but that by "John
saying...."
As the word "divine" in these translations is an
adjective and actually means, from Websters online dictionary
"of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a
god <divine love> b : being a deity <the divine
Savior> c : directed to a deity <divine worship.."
so the appendix was not saying what Moffatt or
Goodspeed meant that as the Word was "divine"
this did not make him the "God" he was with but
that those translations admit if one was to read them without
reading anything but the words meaning into them,
even perhaps without reading trinitarianism into
them, to an understanding that shows what John
meant and that was that the Word was not "God" but
"divine" and even "a god."
I am not sure if there were other translations or
commentaries at the time who differentiated between the
meaning of the Word being "divine" or "God"
in a translation of John 1.1c but Hugh J.
Schofield I do remember around that time also
translated as Moffatt and Goodspeed
did and he certainly did not mean that the Word was "truly
God" in the trinitarian/Nicene sense(see his footnote
under Rev.3.14 for instance.) And did not J.H.Thayer
state: "The Logos was divine, not the divine Being
himself"? ("Joseph Henry Thayer's personal copy of
Griesbach's Greek New Testament text, 1809, with Thayer's
handwritten comments on John 1:1 interleaved.") And even
today we have this as a preferred translation, and this is
the one preferred by your old adversary Dr. Jason
BeDuhn, and he does not think that here the Word
is being presented as "God" in any trinitarian
sense(though it could still accord with it I think
he admits). And you ask for "Greek scholars contemporary"
with both Moffatt and Goodspeed. What you mean though is trinitarian
Greek scholars! Hence, it matters not what Moffatt or
Goodspeed, nor any other trinitarian scholars, intended
to convey or understand by translating the
Greek noun QEOS with an English adjective "divine,"
as any normal reading of this
translation, this word "divine," devoid of any pre-conceived ideas about who or what the Word was,
(and
the apostle John knew nothing of "Nicene" did he?)
would understand that "the Word" being "divine,"
and sandwiched between two "was
with God" statements by the
apostle, that the Word was not the
same being the Word was with. Hence, not
"God." This was the "honesty" the
appendix author was talking of I have no doubt. It was being
honest with the English word "divine" and the
context in which it is found."
Trinitarians are not
being "honest" with themselves or with the apostle John
and his readers in English if they think their "and the Word
was divine" translations mean what they would like it to
mean and to accord with a post-NT, even alien NT understanding of
the nature and being of God. However, anyone who is
"honest" with the English word "divine" and
in the context of John 1:1, 2 would, as the 1951 New World
Translation appendix state:
".....will
have to admit that John's saying that the Word or Logos 'was
divine' is not saying that he was the
God with whom he was. It merely tells of a certain quality about
the Word or Logos, but it does not identify him as one and the
same God." (bold emphasis ours)
John 1:1 files
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