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The following is a list of variant translations of John 1:1 (many of the links are old and may no longer work:
Interlineary Word for Word English Translation-Emphatic Diaglott, "In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word."
Recovery Version, Living Streams Ministry, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Edward Harwood, H KAINH DIAQHKH. The New Testament, collated with the most approved manuscripts; with select notes in English, critical and explanatory, and references to those authors who have best illustrated the sacred writings. To which are added, a Catalogue of the principal Editions of the Greek Testament; and a List of the most esteemed Commentators and critics. London, 1776, 2 vols; 2nd ed. 1784, 2 vols. 1768,
"and was himself a divine person"
Newcome, 1808, "and the word was a god"
Crellius,as quoted in The New Testament in an Improved Version "the Word was God's"
La Bible du Centenaire, L’Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel,1928: “and the Word was a divine being.”
John Samuel Thompson, The Montessoran; or The Gospel History According to the Four Evangelists, Baltimore; published by the translator, 1829, "the Logos was a god
Goodspeed's An American Translation, 1939, "the Word was divine
Revised Version-Improved and Corrected, "the word was a god."
Prof. Felix Just, S.J. - Loyola Marymount University, "and god[-ly/-like] was the Word."
Concordant Version (Knoch) "God was the Word"
C.C. Torrey, The Four Gospels, Second Edition, 1947, "the Word was god
New English Bible, 1961, "what God was,the Word was"
Moffatt's The Bible, 1972, "the Logos was divine"
International English Bible-Extreme New Testament, 2001, "the Word was God*[ftn. or Deity, Divine, which is a better translation, because the Greek definite article is not present before this Greek word]
Reijnier Rooleeuw, M.D. -The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek, 1694, "and the Word was a god"
The NET Bible, "and the Word was fully God."
Simple English Bible, "and the Message was Deity"
Hermann Heinfetter, A Literal Translation of the New Testament,1863, [A]s a god the Command was"
Abner Kneeland-The New Testament in Greek and English, 1822, "The Word was a God"
Robert Young, LL.D. (Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.], 54). 1885,
"[A]nd a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word"
Belsham N.T. 1809 “the Word was a god”
Leicester Ambrose, The Final Theology, Volume 1, New York, New York; M.B. Sawyer and Company, 1879, "And the logos was a god"
Charles A.L. Totten, The Gospel of History, 1900, "the Word was Deistic [=The Word was Godly]
J.N. Jannaris, Zeitschrift fur die Newtestameutlich Wissencraft, (German periodical) 1901, [A]nd was a god"
International Bible Translators N.T. 1981
“In the beginning there was the Message. The Message was with God.
The Message was deity.”
CEV, "the Word was truly God."
Samuel Clarke, M.A., D.D., rector of St. James, Westminster, A Paraphrase on the Gospel of John, London
"[A] Divine Person."
Joseph Priestley, LL.D., F.R.S. (in A Familiar Illustration of Certain Passages of Scripture Relating to The Power of Man to do the Will of God, Original Sin, Election and Reprobation, The Divinity of Christ; And, Atonement for Sin by the Death of Christ [Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1794], 37). "a God"
Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156). "a God"
Andrews Norton, D.D. (in A Statement of Reasons For Not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians [Cambridge: Brown, Shattuck, and Company, 1833], 74). "a god"
J. Harold Greenlee, "and the Word was Deity" (A Concise Exegetical Grammar of New Testament Greek)
Paul Wernle, Professor Extraordinary of Modern Church History at the University of Basil (in The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 1, The Rise of Religion [1903], 16). "a God"
"At the beginning of Creation, there dwelt with God a mighty spirit, the Marshal, who produced all things in their order." 21st Century NT Free
"and the [Marshal] [Word] was a god." 21st Century Literal
George William Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament, 1911, [A]nd (a) God was the word"
Ernest Findlay Scott, The Literature of the New Testament, New York, Columbia University Press, 1932, "[A]nd the Word was of divine nature"
James L. Tomanec, The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed, 1958, [T]he Word was a God"
Philip Harner, JBL, Vol. 92, 1974, "The Word had the same nature as God"
Maximilian Zerwich S.J./Mary Grosvenor, 1974, "The Word was divine"
Siegfried Schulz, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1975, "And a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word"
Translator's NT, 1973, "The Word was with God and shared his nature
...with footnote, "There is a distinction in the Greek here between 'with God' and 'God.' In the forst instance, the article is used and this makes the reference specific. In the second instance there is not article, and it is difficult to believe that the omission is not significant. In effect it gives an adjectival quality to the second use of Theos (God) so that the phrae means 'The Word was divine'."
William Barclay's The New Testament, 1976, "the nature of the Word was the same as the nature of God"
Johannes Schneider, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1978, "and godlike sort was the Logos
Schonfield's The Original New Testament, 1985, "the Word was divine
Revised English Bible, 1989, "what God was, the Word was
Cotton Patch Version, 1970, and the Idea and God were One
Scholar's Version-The Five Gospels, 1993, "The Divine word and wisdom was there with God, and it was what God was
J. Madsen, New Testament A Rendering , 1994, "the Word was a divine Being"
Jurgen Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1979, "a God/god was the Logos/logos"
Curt Stage, The New Testament, 1907, "The Word/word was itself a divine Being/being."
Bohmer, 1910, "It was strongly linked to God, yes itself divine Being/being"
Das Neue Testament, by Ludwig Thimme, 1919, "God of Kind/kind was the Word/word"
Baumgarten et al, 1920, "God (of Kind/kind) was the Logos/logos"
Holzmann, 1926, "ein Gott war der Gedanke" [a God/god was the Thought/thought]
Friedriche Rittelmeyer, 1938, "itself a God/god was the Word/word"
Lyder Brun (Norw. professor of NT theology), 1945, "the Word was of divine kind"
Fredrich Pfaefflin, The New Testament, 1949, "was of divine Kind/kind"
Albrecht, 1957, "godlike Being/being had the Word/word"
Smit, 1960, "the word of the world was a divine being"
Menge, 1961, "God(=godlike Being/being) was the Word/word"
Haenchen, 1980, "God (of Kind/kind) was the Logos/logos" [as mentioned in William Loader's The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, p. 155 cf. p.260]
Die Bibel in heutigem Deutsch, 1982, "He was with God and in all like God"
Haenchen (tr. By R. Funk), 1984, "divine (of the category divinity)was the Logos"
Johannes Schulz, 1987, "a God/god (or: God/god of Kind/kind) was the Word/word." [As mentioned in William Loader's The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, p. 155 cf. p.260]
William Temple, Archbishop of York, Readings in St. John's Gospel, London, Macmillan & Co.,1933,
"And the Word was divine."
John Crellius, Latin form of German, The 2 Books of John Crellius Fancus, Touching One God the Father, 1631, "The Word of Speech was a God"
Greek Orthodox /Arabic Calendar, incorporating portions of the 4 Gospels, Greek Orthodox Patriarchy or Beirut, May, 1983, "the word was with Allah[God] and the word was a god"
Ervin Edward Stringfellow (Prof. of NT Language and Literature/Drake University, 1943, "And the Word was Divine"
Robert Harvey, D.D., Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Westminster College, Cambridge, in The Historic Jesus in the New Testament, London, Student Movement Christian Press1931
"and the Logos was divine (a divine being)"
Jesuit John L. McKenzie, 1965, wrote in his Dictionary of the Bible: "Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated . . . 'the word was a divine being.'
Dymond, E.C. New Testament, 1962 (original manuscript)
"In the beginning was the creative purpose of God. It was with God and was fully expressive of God [just as wisdom was with God before creation]."
Buzzard/Hunting
“In the beginning of God’s creative effort, even before he created the
heavenly bodies and the earth, the mental power to reason logically already
existed, and the Wisdom produced by it was known only to God, for the
Wisdom was God’s Wisdom” (Pro. 8:22-30)
Barclay, W. The Daily Study Bible- The Gospel of John vol.1
“III. [Revised Edition ISBN 0-664-21304-9: Finally John says that “The Word was God”. There is no doubt that
this is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which english speaks. When the greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The greek for God is ‘theos’, and the definite article is ‘ho’. When greek speaks about God it does not simply say ‘theos’; it says ‘ho theos’. Now, when greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective; it describes the character, the quality of the person. John did not say that the Word was ‘ho theos’; that would have been to say that the Word was identical with God; he says that the Word was
‘theos’- without the definite article- which means that the Word was, as we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said ‘The Word was God’ he was n o t saying that Jesus is identical with God, he was saying that Jesus is so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in Jesus we perfectly see what God is like”
There is no basis for regarding the predicate theos as definite...In John 1:1 I think that the qualitative force of the predicate [noun] is so prominent that the noun cannot be regarded as definite.—Philip Harner, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 92:1, 1973, pp. 85, 7.
We must, then take Theos, without the article, in the indefinite [“qualitative” would have been a better word choice] sense of a divine nature or a divine being, as distinguished from the definite absolute God [the Father], ho Theos, the authotheos [selfgod] of Origen. Thus the Theos of John [1:1c] answers to “the image of God'' of Paul, Col. 1:15.—G. Lucke, “Dissertation on the Logos”, quoted by John Wilson in, Unitarian Principles Confirmed by Trinitarian Testimonies, p. 428.
There is a distinction in the Greek here between 'with God' and 'God'. In the first instance the article is used and this makes the reference specific. In the second instance there in no article and it is difficult to believe that the omission is not significant. In effect it gives an adjectival quality to the second use of Theos so the phrase means 'The Word was divine'.—The Translator's New Testament, p. 451.
We reach a more difficult issue in the Gospel of John. Here, in the Prologue, the Word is said to be God, but, as often observed, in contrast with the clause, 'the Word was with God', the definite article is not used (in the final clause.) For this reason it is generally translated 'and the Word was divine' (Moffatt) or is not regarded as God in the Absolute sense of the name...In a second passage in the Prologue (I 18) the textual evidence attests 'only-begotten God' more strongly than 'only begotten Son', but the latter is preferred by many commentators as being more in harmony with Johannine usage and with the succeeding clause, 'who is in the bosom of the Father'. In neither passage is Jesus unequivocally called God, while again and again in the Gospel He is named 'the Son of God.—Vincent Taylor, The Expository Times, January 1962. p. 117.
As mentioned in the Note on 1c, the Prologue's “The Word was God” offers a difficulty because there is no article before theos. Does this imply that “god” means less when predicated of the Word than it does when used as a name for the Father? Once again the reader must divest himself of a post-Nicene understanding of the vocabulary involved.—Raymond E. Brown, The Anchor Bible, p. 25.
The late Dr. William Temple in His Readings in St. John's Gospel (1939), 4, obviously accepts Moffatt's translation, for he says, 'The term “God” is fully substantival [shows identity, who, or what, 'the God', the Father, is] in the first clause pros ton then [“with the God”, both “the” (ton) and “God” (Theon) being spelled accusative case endings] it is predicative and not far from being adjectival in the second - kai theos en ho logos [“and (a) god was the Word”]—R.H. Strachan, The Fourth Gospel (3rd ed., 1941).
The closing words of v[erse]. 1 should be translated, “the Word was divine.” Here the word Theos has no article, thus giving it the significance of an adjective”...Taken by itself, the sentence kai theos en ho logos [and (a) god was the Word] could admittedly bear either of two meanings: 1) 'and the Word was (the) God' or 2) 'and the Word was (a) God'...E.F. Scott's statement about the Philonic doctrine (The Fourth Gospel: Its Purpose and Theology, Edinburg, 1908, p.151): “The Logos appears sometimes as only an aspect of the activity of God, at other times as a “second God” an independent and it might seem a personal being.” We have seen that 'and the Word was (a) God' is a possible, if unlikely, translation of kai theos en ho logos. This is apparently accepted by E.F. Scott—J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Expository Times, July 1951, pp. 314-316.
It would be impossible to speak about Jesus without considering the words of John's 'Gospel: “The Word was God”. The Greek of that phrase is Theos en ho logos. This does not mean Word was God. In Greek ho is the definite article. [there are eighteen other ways to spell the 'definite' article in the Koine Greek of the first century of the common era] In Greek, if two things are identified [shown to be the same entity] the definite article is used with both. If this phrase meant the Word was God it would be Ho theos çn ho logos. There is noting strange about this. We do the very same in English. When in English, or in Greek, a noun does to have the definite article, it becomes the equivalent of an adjective. [a description rather than an identification, how the subject is rather than what of who the subject is] If in English I say: “John is the man,” then I identify John with a definite and particular specimen of the human race; but if I omit the definite article and say “John is man,” then I do not identify him, I classify him. I say “John is human; he belongs to the sphere of man.” So then, what the Greek really says [means] in not “The Word was God,” but “The word is in the same sphere as God; it belongs to the same kind of life [spiritual life] and is one with God [cp. John 17:20-23 on “one”]. (Notations is brackets added by this reviewer.)—William Barclay, Who Is Jesus, Tidings, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A., 1975, pp. 35-6.
Here “God” is used predicatively, without the article: the Word, whom he has just distinguished from the Person of God, is nevertheless a divine being in his own right.—Bruce Vawter, C.M., The Four Gospels an Introduction, p. 38.
The rule holds wherever the subject has the article and the predicate does not. The subject is then definite and distributed, the predicate indefinite and undistributed.—A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, fourth edition, 1934, p. 767.
God - divine in nature...God (in kind)”, [footnote to John 1:1c]—The Cross Reference Bible, American Standard Version, Harold E. Monser, Editor-In-Chief; Associate Editors, C.R. Scotville, I.M. Price, A.T. Robertson, M.S. Terry, Jr., R. Sampey, J.W. Monser, G.C. Eiselen, R.A. Torrey, A.C. Zenor, 1959 edition.
Not that he [John] identified him [the Word] with the Godhead (ho Theos); on the contrary, he clearly distinguishes the Son and the Father and makes him inferior in dignity (“the Father is greater than I”), but he declares that the Son is “God” (Theos), that is, of divine essence or nature.—Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, edition of 1910, Vol. I, p. 690.
The predicate [noun] commonly refers not to an individual or individuals as such, but to the class to which the subject belongs, to the nature or quality predicated of the subject; e.g. Jo I, 1 [kai theos en ho logos], which attributes to the Word the divine nature,—Maximilian Zerwich, S.J., Biblical Greek, Rome, Scriptua Pontificii Instituti Biblici (Pontifical Biblical Scripture Institute), p. 55.
In John 1:1...Theos en (“was deity”);...The qualitative force is obvious and most important,—Alfred M. Perry, “Translating The Greek Article” in Journal of Biblical Literature, 1949, Vol. l68, p. 331.
After closely examining Colwell's rule, Harris says, "This leads me to affirm that one may not infer (as is often done) in rule 2b that anarthrous predicate nouns which precede the verb are usually definite. Indeed, such nouns will usually be qualitative in emphasis.—Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1992, pp. 60, 312.
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