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NASB | John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 1:1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. [Gen 1:1; Is 9:6] |
Bible Question:
Regarding the NASB translation of the Bible: Can you give me your views and supporting sources on the accuracy of it to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts? Recently, I was told that the translators of the modern Bibles intentionally left out the article "a" in the verse John 1:1 (ie. the famous God vs "a god" translation arguement) Unfortunately, not being a Greek/Hebrew scholar, I had no convincing response to give him, so responded that I would not acccept his assertion of intentional omission by the NASB translators anymore than he would accept my assertion that his NWT was inaccurate. Pretty weak huh? What say ye on this matter? If any of you can translate Greek or Hebrew I am very interested in hearing your input. Thank you, In Christ and loving Him, Edie |
Bible Answer: The ones who told you the article "a" was left out of John 1:1 were obviously using the New World Translation which includes it. NWT is a translation by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. They have a host of "greek" scholars. However, all the other Bible translations, KJV, NASB, NIV, etc. all agree that the "a" is NOT there. If it were, then Jesus would be "a god" which is something that the Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower...) use to justify their doctrine stand on the divinity (or lack of) of Jesus. Nor was the so-called dropping of the "a" a modern invention. The most ancient translations (those before KJV) all did not include the article "a" in this verse. It is not really a good idea to get into a Greek discussion on this verse. I did a long time ago and discovered they had pages and pages of Greek explanation for it's presence. It is a BIG issue with them. After I learned more of the Bible, when discussing this with a NWT advocate at another time, I took them to Philipians 2 where we find that "Jesus, being in the very nature God...". A study of the Greek here uses the word "morphe" which means "all that makes something what it is" (I am paraphrasing). Since Jesus had the morphe of God and the morphe of man, He was 100 percent God and 100 percent Man at the same time. Since this section of scripture (as well as other places) does not depend on the presence or absence of the article "a", I would have to agree with the NASB and other non-NWT translations that "Jesus was God". |