Against reading John 1:1 c
as “The Word as (the) God”:
However, the majority of commentators do not think the
Greek must be understood this way. Most agree with Rudolf Schnackenburg that
“the θεός before the copula … does not simply identify the Logos with the ὁ
θεός mentioned before.” In order for the Word to be identified with the God,
the subject and the predicate need to be interchangeable, but Murray J. Harris
points out that θεός in 1:1c is anarthrous “to show that the statement ‘the
Word was God’ is not a convertible proposition.” Andreas J. Köstenberger
further notes that if John had wanted to equate the Word with God, this would
mean “that the distinction established between the two persons in the previous
clause (‘the Word was with God’) would have been all but obliterated.”16
Colwell’s observation has drawn attention to the fact that pre-verbal predicate
nouns without the article may be definite, but this does not give us any
certainties. In the case of John 1:1c it is doubtful whether there would have
been an article if the predicate θεός had followed rather than preceded the
copular verb ἦν. Most commentators point to a different interpretation. (Cf.
Caragounis and Van der Watt, “Grammatical Analysis,” 120 (capitalization
theirs): “The structure of the phrase emphasizes the word Θεός. If Θεός were
not to be emphasized, then the clause would have been: καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν Θεός.”) (Alexander
Smarius, “Another
God in the Gospel of John? A Linguistic Analysis of John 1:1 and 1:18,” Horizons
in Biblical Theology 44 [2022]: 145)
Against reading John 1:1 c
as “The Word was (essentially) God”:
Some have argued against this by claiming that John would
have used the adjective θεῖος rather than the noun θεός, but a more substantial
objection to the rendering “the Word was divine” is that it is ambiguous: it is
not clear whether the Word is of a quality uniquely shared with the Father, or
is a separate being that can be called “divine” by itself. (Alexander Smarius, “Another God
in the Gospel of John? A Linguistic Analysis of John 1:1 and 1:18,” Horizons
in Biblical Theology 44 [2002]: 149)
If John 1:1c answers the question what the
Word was who in the beginning was with the God, it is instructive to review a
passage containing both the explicit question τί ἐστί and an
anarthrous predicate θεός as the answer. For this, we turn to Longus’
novel about Daphnis and Chloe. The elderly Philetas tells the two young
protagonists about his experiences with Eros. Subsequently (Daphn. 2.7):
ἐπυνθάνοντο τί ἐστί ποτε ὁ Ἔρως, πότερα παῖς ἢ ὄρνις, καὶ
τί δύναται. Πάλιν οὖν ὁ Φιλητᾶς ἔφη
θεός ἐστιν, ὦ παῖδες, ὁ Ἔρως, νέος καὶ καλὸς καὶ πετόµενος.
they asked what Eros is, a child or a bird, and what his
powers are. So in reply Philetas said:
Eros, children, is theos, young and beautiful and with wings.
Philetas’ answer follows the same
predicate-copula-subject sequence as John 1:1c. It is clear that the
predicate θεός here signifies Eros’ nature, just
as θεός probably denotes the Word’s nature in John 1:1c. Granted, the
religious and cultural settings of both texts couldn’t be wider apart, but one
thing can be learned from the textual similarity. In this passage in Longus’
novel, the only correct translation of θεός is “a god”, which is not
surprising since to the author and the (intended) reader, Eros is not the only
god. And yet θεός is not to be understood as indefinite (as in “one
of many”), but as qualitative. This is inherent to the
word θεός itself: it is a generic term, as will be explained
below, and the question before us is whether this is any different if the
writer is a monotheist. (Alexander Smarius, “Another God
in the Gospel of John? A Linguistic Analysis of John 1:1 and 1:18,” Horizons
in Biblical Theology 44 [2002]: 151-52, emphasis in bold added)
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