In its New World Translation [sic] of the Bible, the Watchtower Society, commonly called Jehovah's Witnesses, says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." The Society claims that the absence of the definite article indicates the equivalent of the indefinite article in English, there being no such article in Greek. That statement by the Society about John 1:1 is highly deceptive.
First, it is incomplete. That is something that can be indicated by the absence of the article. However, in the copulative, as in the sentence here, Greek uses the definite article to distinguish the subject versus the predicate nominative. That is because Greek didn't use word order the way English does. In the Greek, the word order is actually "and God was the Word." The word order is a means of showing emphasis. Therefore, to translate "god" in the definite sense in English is correct.
Furthermore, notice that the NWT says "the beginning." Yet there is also no article in front of "beginning" in the Greek. The NWT inserts one there, while claiming that there is something suspect in doing the same thing for "god."
My purpose here is mainly my hope that some Jehovah's Witnesses will see this, and recognize that their loyalty to the Watchtower is undeserved. Turn to the true Christian Jesus, God the Son, for eternal life.
I also hope that some less-prepared Christians will read this before they are next approached by a Witness, so that the Watchtower cannot use its deception to capture yet another soul.
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