Let me explainwhy. The Greek of the last part of John 1:1 reads, kai theos ên ho logos. If we do a word-by-word replacement, itwould read “and God was the word” or “and [a] god was the word.” You see, theGreek masculine definite article (i.e., ‘the’) is the little “ho.” The Greek language does not have anindefinite article. Anyone who learns Greek will quickly know that a noun thatis not preceded by an article may be translated indefinitely. So theos can be translated “a god,” whereasho theos must be translated “the god”or “God.”

But this rule doesnot always hold. Sometimes, there is no definite article in the Greek text, butthe context suggests that the noun is definite or articular. Also, in the casewhen two nouns are connected by a copulative verb (i.e., ‘is,’ ‘was,’ ‘are,’etc.), then (1) the first noun indicates the emphasis. It does not indicatewhether it is the nominative (i.e., subject or LHS of verb), or the accusative(i.e., object, or RHS of verb). (2) If only one of the nouns has the definitearticle, it is the nominative. In which case, the accusative may or may not bedefinite. Whether it is, must be determined from the context.

Now, this meansthat kai theos ên ho logos may betranslated “and the word was [the] God” or “and the word was [a] god.” Whether theos should be translated “[the]God” or “[a] god” must be determined from the context. When we look at thecontext, we see that in the context (vv. 1–2), theos is always articular andso unambiguously referring to “[the] God.” Therefore we must translatethe statement as “the word was God.”

We hear the JWscomplaining: But the Apostle John could have kept the definite article for theosif he had intended to refer to “[the] God” and not to “[a] god.” Wereply that there are only four cases in the New Testament (see Acts 7:43,12:22, 28:6; 2 Cor 4:4) where singular theos can be translated “god” with the smallletter ‘g,’ and in each case they cannot be translated as “God” (even though inActs 7:43 and 2 Corinthians 4:4, the theos has a definite article). This compareswith 299 occurrences in the UBSGNT (which the JW would use) of anarthrous theos(i.e., without definite article) that has to be translated as “God.” Apart fromJohn 1:1, nineteen other anarthrous theos occur in the Gospel of John, each of whichcannot be translated as “a god.” No one, not even JWs, would translateJohn 1:6 as “There was a man sent from agod, whose name was John”; or John 1:12–13 as “But as many as received him,to them gave he power to become the sons of agod, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood,nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of a god.” If they try to grasp straw andinvent a rule that says anarthrous theos in conjunction with a copulative verb must betranslated as “a god,” then let them translate 2 Corinthians 5:19 as “To wit,that a god was in Christ, reconcilingthe world unto himself….”

Apart from that, if the JWs insist on translating John 1:1 with “theword was a god,” in order to assert the non-deity of Christ, howwould he then explain Thomas’ declaration of the Lord Jesus as, “My Lord and myGod” (Jn 20:28). The Greek is ho kuriosmou kai ho theos mou. Notice the definite article before theos?

In short, the JW’stranslation of John 1:1 is simply unscholarly, irresponsible, dishonest andblasphemous, and therefore damnable. A responsible and objective translationwill only yield: “and the Word was God.”