JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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Russell, Barbour, Wilson, Franz, Thomson, and Greber have all shown themselves to be
false prophets who teach doctrines that emanate from the spirit or demonic world.
Because this verse has been such a target of controversy, several of the foremost biblical
and linguistic scholars will be cited.
It is ironic that B. F. Westcott, considered by most to be the textual scholar in the world,
and whose Greek text the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Interlinear use, forcefully contradicts
the interpretation and thus translation of John 1:1 by the Watchtower Society:
"The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in 4:24. It is necessarily without
the article . . . No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression,
which simply affirms the true Deity of the Word . . . in the third clause 'the Word' is
declared to be 'God' and so included in the unity of the Godhead."
Bruce Metzger, professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton
Theological Seminary and author of The Text of the New Testament and many other scholarly
works, observes,
"The Jehovah's Witnesses have incorporated in their translation of the New
Testament several quite erroneous renderings of the Greek. . . . Far more
pernicious in this same verse is the rendering, 'and the Word was a god,' with
the following footnotes: 'A god,' in contrast with 'the God.' It must be stated
quite frankly that, if the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously,
they are polytheists. In view of the additional light which is available during
this age of Grace, such a representation is even more reprehensible than were
the heathenish, polytheistic errors into which ancient Israel was so prone to
fall. As a matter of solid fact, however, such a rendering is a frightful mis-
translation."23
British scholar H. H. Rowley asserts,
"From beginning to end this volume is a shining example of how the Bible
should not be translated . . . it is an insult to the Word of God."24
Julius Mantey, co-author with H. E. Dana of, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New
Testament, calls the Watchtower translation of John 1:1:
"A grossly misleading translation. It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate
John 1:1 'the Word was a god.' But of all the scholars in the world, so far as we
know, none have translated this verse as Jehovah's Witnesses have done."25
F. F. Bruce, who before his death was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and
Exegesis in the University of Manchester, England, stated: