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A God Who Merits Our TrustThe Watchtower—1975 | November 15
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some way fail to keep his word after having laid a solid foundation for its fulfillment at the cost of the life of his dearly beloved Son. As the apostle Paul pointed out: “He who did not even spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all, why will he not also with him kindly give us all other things?”—Rom. 8:32.
Yes, how could anyone fear that perhaps some promise of God might remain unfulfilled? Jehovah God has already made the supreme sacrifice. His word and his oath to Abraham proved to be no lie but absolute truth. Through the course of human history, Jehovah has demonstrated his trustworthiness. Never did he fail in keeping his word of promise. Truly, Jehovah is a God who merits our absolute trust. He will not fail us. May we, therefore, strive hard not to fail him, exerting ourselves to maintain an approved standing before him.
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1975 | November 15
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Questions From Readers
● Does the rendering of John 1:1 in the New World Translation violate rules of Greek grammar or conflict with worship of only one God?
The New World Translation renders John 1:1 as follows: “In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” Some have objected to the translation “a god,” which appears in the final clause of this verse. They claim that the translators were wrong in putting an “a” in there before “god.” Is this really a mistranslation?
While the Greek language has no indefinite article corresponding to the English “a,” it does have a definite article ho, often rendered into English as “the.” For example, ho Khristosʹ, “the Christ,” ho Kyʹri·os, “the Lord,” ho The·osʹ, literally, “the God.”
Frequently, though, nouns occur in Greek without the article. Grammarians refer to these nouns as “anarthrous,” meaning “used without the article.” Interestingly, in the final part of John 1:1, the Greek word for “god,” the·osʹ, does not have the definite article ho before it. How do translators render such anarthrous Greek nouns into English?
Often they add the English indefinite article “a” to give proper sense to the passage. For example, in the concluding portion of John 9:17 the Greek text literally states, according to the interlinear literal translation by clergyman Alfred Marshall, D.Litt: “And he said[,] — A prophet he is.” There is no definite article before the Greek word for “prophet” here. The translator, therefore, rendered the word as “a prophet,” as do many other English translations.—Authorized Version, New American Standard Bible, also translations by Charles B. Williams and William F. Beck.
This does not mean, however, that every time an anarthrous noun occurs in the Greek text it should appear in English with the indefinite article. Translators render these nouns variously, at times even with a “the,” understanding them as definite, though the definite article is missing. At Matthew 27:40, for instance, several English Bible versions have the phrase “the Son of God,” though the Greek word for “son” is without the definite article.
What about John 1:1? Marshall’s interlinear translation of it reads: “In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with — God, and God was the Word.” As noted above, no “the” appears before “God” in the final clause of this verse. The New World Bible Translation Committee chose to insert the indefinite article “a” there. This helps to distinguish “the Word,” Jesus Christ, as a god, or divine person with vast power, from the God whom he was “with,” Jehovah, the Almighty. Some persons familiar with Greek claim that in doing so the translators violated an important rule of Greek grammar. Why so?
The problem, they say, is word order. Back in 1933 Greek scholar E. C. Colwell published an article entitled “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament.”
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