JW DISCLAIMER
The NWT uses "a god" to argue for preexistence or what they term "the pre-human Jesus."
For example, they're the only translations that render John 1:1c as "the Word was a god."
But the following article has to do with John 10:33 only!
The NWT uses "a god" to argue for preexistence or what they term "the pre-human Jesus."
For example, they're the only translations that render John 1:1c as "the Word was a god."
But the following article has to do with John 10:33 only!
A combination of biased translations due to bad dogma has led most Christians to misunderstand the Jewish charge against Jesus in John 10:33.
Most translations have the Jews saying to Jesus:
“We are not stoning you for any good work but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
The New Testament Greek scholar Bill Mounce says:
"The Jewish response shows clearly that Jesus was making a claim to be God, the God, Yahweh. There's no question that Jesus and his followers claimed that Jesus was God."
Well, I do beg to differ and question whether Jesus was Capital G God, the God, Yahweh! In view of Jews who would never dream to accuse anyone of claiming to be, let alone make themselves, the one God of Israel. The Jewish response would be to simply ignore such a person. And some well-known modern-day Trinitarian scholars seem to agree.
The British Methodist minister C.K. Barrett admitted “it’s simply intolerable that Jesus should be made to say, I am God, the supreme God of the OT, and being God I do as I am told, and, I am God, and I’m here because someone sent me.”
The Anglican cleric and scholar R.T. France was right to note that this sort of talk, “as a public relations exercise…would've been a guaranteed disaster.”
But this still begs the question: What exactly did the Jews charge Jesus with in John 10:33?
Dr. James McGrath, yet another trinitarian scholar, writes that Jesus’ real “conflict with the Jews [throughout the Gospel of John] did not concern a supposed abandonment of Jewish monotheism.”
“Rather, the issue is whether Jesus is an agent carrying out God's will and purposes, or a blasphemer who is seeking glory and power for himself in a manner that detracts from the glory due to the only God."
So the real issue, according to Dr. McGrath, is not claiming "equality with God per se” but whether or not this lowly man from Nazareth was just another “upstart, one of a number of messianic pretenders and glory-seekers to appear on the scene during this period of Jewish history.”
Now the Jews knew full well that God could and did appoint personal agents with His full authority, like Moses, the judges of Israel and some prophets. Scripture even calls them god, lower case g that is, i.e., Moses (Ex 4.16; 7.1); the judges of Israel (Ex 22:8; Ps 82:6).
The real charge is that for the Jews Jesus was a "mere man,” i.e., an illegitimate agent of God, who claimed to be or made himself a legitimate agent of God, i.e., a lower case g god (like Moses et al).
Therefore, the translation a god instead of capital G God is better suited and supported by the context of John 10.
For example, in v.34 Jesus himself uses the aforementioned Ps 82:6 as a sort of “proof text”:
“Is it not written in your Law, I said, you are gods?”
In verse 35a-38 "If he called them gods to whom the word of God came....
“Why do you call it blasphemy when I say, I am the Son of God?
After all, the Father set me apart [i.e., commissioned me as His personal agent] and sent me into the world.”
If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.”
But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
This last saying is clearly an allusion to the well-known Jewish legal principle of the time which stated that “the one sent by a man is as the man himself.”
That the a god translation best suits this story is supported by other notable Trinitarians.
A Translator's Handbook on the Gospel of John by Newnan and Nida:
"Purely on the basis of the Greek text, therefore, it is possible to translate [John 10:33 as] a god, as [the New English Bible does], rather than to translate [capital G] God.”
The New International Dictionary of NT Theology:
"The reason why judges are called gods in Ps. 82 is that they have the office of administering God's judgment as sons of the Most High [i.e., hence, they're sons of God].
In context of the Psalm the men in question have failed to do this....In trying to arrest him and in disregarding the testimony of his works, [the Jews] were judging unjustly like the judges in Ps. 82.
On the other hand, Jesus fulfilled the role of a true judge as a [little g] god and son of the Most High."
Yet, most of his fellow Jews at the time rejected Jesus not only as a legitimate prophet/agent of God, lower case g god but more importantly as their promised Messiah, the unique Son of the Most High.
Hence, in John 19:7 the Jewish leaders say to Pilate:
"We have a law, and according to [our] law he ought to die, because he made himself Son of God."