TheologyThoughts

Jason BeDuhn wrote a book defending the New World translation as the best all around translation available today because it avoids the religious biases of the KJV translators, something as he sees passed down to nearly all modern versions (Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003, and see my review, http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry/BDR.HTM). He claims in that book that one of the reasons they translated John 1:1c as "the word was God" rather than "a god" is because they were most familiar with the Latin Vulgate as their primary text. Latin, as you may or may not know, has neither a definite or indefinite article, so the KJV translators, used to thinking in those terms, naturally rendered "God" rather than "a god," which they should not have done if they understood the Greek grammar a little better. In my review, I respond:

To say that I find this claim incredible would be an understatement. In the first place, whatever else one might find to say about the KJV, the NT translators show a very high level of competence in correctly translating the article throughout. They knew Greek as well as any other scholar of their period.

Now, you can read my review for how otherwise I think BeDuhn got it wrong in his arguments on John 1:1. But here, I want to provide support for the claim that scholars at that time knew Greek well and were even discussing the use of the definite article in Greek with regard to the deity of Christ. Recently, a list member posted the following text to the b-Latin list and asked for help and commentary on the translation.

Addendum tamen non esse καθολου hanc observationem, quod, si duo conjunguntur, quorum prius cum articulo, posterius sine articulo ponitur, de eodem subjecto illa loquantur. Contrarium enim ex Matth. xxi. 12. Marc. ii. 15. Luc. xix. 45. apparet; ubi οἱ πολουντες και ἀγοραζοντες conjunguntur, quorum illud articulum habet, hoc vero non: et tamcn alii vendentes alii ementes inielliguntur.

(Philolog. Sacra, lib. 3. tractat. 2. canon I.)

This is Salomen Glassius (1593-1656).

My rendering:

Nevertheless, it must be added that this observation is not universal
[KAQOLOU), that if two are joined, the first by the article, the second
without, that they refer to the same subject. The contrary is found in Mt
21:12, Mk 2:15, Lk 19:45, where hOI PWLOUNTES KAI AGORAZONTES are joined,
the former with the article, the latter without. Different sellers and
different buyers are nevertheless understood.

While an earlier citation would be even better, this shows something of the state of grammatical understanding of the Greek in the first half of the 17th century. Why should we expect less of the KJV translators? Glassius, BTW, goes on to observe essentially that exceptions to a grammatical usage should not be used to undermine that usage in other contexts.