Fancy Footwork
The Watchtower Society has put forward a number of “translations” that supposedly support their rendering of John 1.1. The 1984 Reference edition cited two from 1808 and 1864, the first being The New Testament, in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text. The Second is The Emphatic Diaglott by Benjamin Wilson, “interlinear reading.” The Society used to quote Johannes Greber’s translation, which also read “a god”, that is until it was discovered that the Society was knowingly quoting from a translation which Greber acknowledges he got from “spirit guides”. Of course, the Watchtower tried their best to cover their tracks on that one, but they got caught anyway.
We might first note that we don’t know who is responsible for the first of the above two quoted sources – what we have here is a version that was originally done by Archbishop Newcome, but was then “corrected” by a group of Unitarians whose scholarly abilities are unknown. We certainly can’t blame Archbishop Newcome for the Unitarians’ mistranslation.
The second source, that of Benjamin Wilson, only reads “a god” in the interlinear portion – Wilson’s actual translation reads, “and the Logos was God.” One gets the sense that the WTBTS is desperately trying to find some kind of scholarly support when it will go to the hyper-literal interlinear rendering of a rather obscure translator of the past century! But, this is the same group of folks who relied on Johannes Greber and his spirit guides as well…
In 1985, the Society published a new edition of their Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. In Appendix 2A they added another “translation” to their list – that of John S. Thompson of Baltimore, entitled The Monotessaron; or, the Gospel History, According to the Four Evangelists. This rendition, dated at 1829, is quoted as, “and the Logos was a god.”
In their new book entitled Witnesses of Jehovah, Leonard and Marjorie Chretien give us new information on just who John Thompson was. They quote The American Quarterly Review of September, 1830. Here we read Thompson saying, “I shall rejoice in having been the happy instrument, in the hand of God, of having done fourfold as much for mankind, as all the professed commentators of the last fifteen centuries!” Aside from a lack of humility, it seems Thompson was “moved about by every wind of doctrine” as well, moving from being a Calvinist to an Arminian Methodist preacher, to being a Restorationist, then on to an Arian Restorationist, until finally being a Unitarian Universalist (should sound familiar by now!) The Chretiens also record that Thompson admits to having exper-iences with – yup, you guessed it – spirit beings who instruct him to “be careful to represent Jesus as only the instrument of God in all he does.” The reader is directed to the Chretiens’ book for further details.
With the exposure of the nature of Greber’s work, the Society was left with a dwindling list of translations to help bolster their rendering of the last clause of John 1.1. So, they looked to the Germans to help them out, and came up with three translations dated 1975, 1978, and 1979.
The first is that of Siegfried Schulz, entitled Das Evangelium nach Johannes (all three translations have the same title). The Society translates Schulz’s version into English thus: “and a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word.” The second is that of Johannes Schneider. They render Schneider, “and godlike sort was the Logos.” Finally they cite the translation of Jurgen Becker, which they give as “and a god was the Logos.”
These new translations were included in the 1984 Reference Edition of the NWT, in Appendix 6A. They have since been cited in various Watchtower articles.
When I first saw these citations, I was struck by the irony of the situation. Here, to attempt to bolster an obviously flawed translation, the Society has to go to another language to come up with some support! The next thing into my mind was, “does the Society know much about the philosophy and world-view of modern German biblical scholars?” That was immediately followed by the thought, “if they did, would they care that these men probably approach the Bible from a completely different perspective than they themselves proclaim to be the absolute truth?” I knew then that someone would have to track these translations down and get information on them. One must always check out the Society’s quotations of scholars – the writers of the Watchtower are experts at making scholars say the opposite of what they meant.
As time went by I saw nothing being published regarding these men or their translations. So, I finally decided to try to get some information myself. I wrote to Dr. Keith Parks, who heads up the missions work for the Southern Baptist Convention in Europe. Dr. Parks kindly referred my letter to Dr. Wiard Popkes of Theologisches Seminar des Bundes Evanglisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in Deutschland. Dr. Popkes responded very quickly to my request for information. He copied the actual translations for me, as well as the accompanying commentary.
In a letter dated April 6, 1988, Dr. Popkes wrote, “My impression is that all of the scholars want to work out the same points, i.e., that the Word is of divine quality, although John has to state in this context the non-identity of father and son. The commentary says more about the ideas of the authors than the bare translation does.” (Personal letter from Dr. Wiard Popkes to James White)
Dr. Popkes also gave me information on the authors themselves: “Johannes Schneider was a Baptist, teaching at the University in Berlin. He died around 1970. Siegfried Schulz and Jurgen Becker are both professors of New Testament, now in their later fifties, Schulz at the University of Zurich, Becker at the University of Kiel. Both of them belong to what can be called the main stream of German NT research, and certainly both of them owe much to Rudolf Bultmann. This does not mean, however, that their interpretations of John’s prologue simply follow that of Bultmann. Rather, in the years after Bultmann much new research has been devoted to this very passage of Scripture.”
Before looking at the specific renderings given by these authors, a few things should be pointed out. First, Jehovah’s Witnesses are experts at quoting individuals that come from completely different perspectives and world-views in such as way as to make it sound as if they (the person being quoted) support or lend credence to the Watchtower’s teachings. This is clearly seen here. None of these scholars are classically Arian in their theology. Dr. Schneider was a Baptist. The other two men, as Dr. Popkes indicates, would come from a stream of biblical studies that is far removed from the Witnesses’ own views on inspiration and the nature of Scripture. Anyone familiar with Rudolf Bultmann and his ideas knows what I am talking about. As far as their view of the Bible goes, the Witnesses would be to the extreme right of these men. Bultmann emphasized the need to “de-mythologize” the Bible; that is, take out all that supernatural silliness and you might have a chance to get back to the real historical Jesus. The German schools are still stuck in the rut of naturalistic biblical criticism, and two of the translations the Witnesses cite come straight from that perspective.
Secondly, these men are trying to emphasize a very different point than the Witnesses are making. These men are differ-entiating between the Father and the Son in John 1.1, as well they should. But the average Witness would not be aware of this, for they have been given false information as to just what the doctrine of the Trinity is. They feel that the Trinity presents the Father and Son as being one person. This is not Trinitarianism, but rather modalism, an ancient heresy that was sometimes called Sabellianism. These German scholars are trying to emphasize the separate existence of the Logos as a personal entity. While we understand this, it does seem that they have gone too far in trying to accomplish their goal.
The material that Dr. Popkes sent me was, naturally, in German. Though I studied German for three years long ago, I did not feel qualified to attempt a good translation. So, I contacted a friend of mine, Mr. John Cecchini, who has a Master’s degree in German. John kindly agreed to translate the relevant portions of the photocopied material.
As it might be of help for other ministries to have the actual German renderings of the last clause of John 1.1 from these men, we provide it below:
(Schulz) und ein Gott (oder: Gott von Art) war das Wort.
(Schneider) Und Gottlicher Art war der Logos.
(Becker) Und ein Gott war der Logos.
A thought that immediately struck me upon reading these in German when they first arrived was that each of these translations seems to miss the fact that in Greek the subject of the copulative sentence is made known by the article – these translations seem to make the Logos the predicate nominative, rather than the subject of the clause. However, one of the authors (Schulz) clearly addresses this issue in his commentary on the passage.
Mr. Cecchini’s translation of the last clause of John 1:1 is as follows:
(Schulz) “…and one [a] God (or type of God) was the Word.”
(Schneider) “And a form of divinity was the Logos.”
(Becker) “…and one [a] God was [the] Logos.”
The comments of the men bear out the fact that they are trying to emphasize the differ-ence between Logos and God in 1.1c to avoid any intermixing of the two. Both Becker and Schneider, however, go beyond the border of orthodoxy in their comments (which, given the effect of Bultmann upon German liberalism is hardly to be a surprise – we need to remember that Bultmann didn’t think it was important whether Jesus actually rose from the dead or not). Schulz comments:
