JOHN L. McKENZIE AND THE TRINITY BROCHURE.
In the brochure "Should you believe in the Trinity"(1989) published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society the Catholic scholar John L. McKenzie was quoted in a section entitled "The Word was God"(pp.26-28) in the Chapter "What About Trinity "Proof Texts"?"(pp.23-29) The use of McKenzie in this brochure has occaisioned criticism. One such has been from Robert M. Bowman in his book "Why You should Believe in the Trinity" (p.95).
The quotation was from McKenzie's Dictionary of the Bible under the topic "God"(p.317):
"And Jesuit John L. McKenzie wrote in his Dictionary of the Bible "Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated..."the word was a divine being." "
Bowman's objection of the brochure by it's use of McKenzie here is that it "quoted[McKenzie]out of context." Bowman goes on: "The JW booklet implies that calling the Word "a divine being" makes him less than Jehovah. Yet on the same page McKenzie calls Yahweh(Jehovah) "a divine personal being"; McKenzie also states that Jesus is called "God" in both John 20:28 and Titus 2:13 and that John 1:1-18 expresses "an identity between God and Jesus Christ."
So has the WTB&TS brochure mis-applied and mis-used McKenzie?
We feel that it is rather the case
that Bowman has not alerted his readers as to the purpose
of the section in the brochure "The Word was God."
"
What this section is primarily concerned with is the translation
of John 1:1c "KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS," literally "
and God/god was the Word/Logos."
The section first quotes the very well known King James
Version's translation "and the Word was God" and
that Trinitarians claim that this means that Jesus
Christ was "Almighty God." After noting how the context
argues against this translation the brochure then cites 8 Bible
translations(aswell as the New World Translation of 1950) that
render the above Greek construction somewhat differently. Six of
these use the English indefinite article 'a' ("a god,"
"a divine being," "a divine kind") and the
other two says "divine" and "godlike." The
brochure than discusses what authority these translations have
for so rendering.
The brochure quotes the article by Harner in the Journal of
Biblical Literature as saying that the word "QEOS"
in John 1:1c is "primarily qualatitive in meaning" and
that the predicate QEOS "cannot be regarded as definite."
Then a little further on the brochure shows that in other places
where the Greek sentence structure is the same often times Bible
translators will use the English indefinite article. We then come
to two quotations: one by Thayer and the other, which is our
concern here, by McKenzie. Has the brochure quoted McKenzie
"out of context"?
If it was to try to imply that McKenzie thought that the
Word was not "God," in a trinitarian 'kind' of sense,
then that would be true. But, as can be seen, the purpose of this
particular section has more to do with how the Greek construction
can be translated and then the meaning
being discussed/shown by looking at contextual matters. It is
evident that McKenzie was quoted simply because he was one
scholar who translated the predicate QEOS in "KAI
QEOS HN hO LOGOS" with an English indefinite article: "and
the word was a divine being." McKenzie even saying
it should be "rigorously translated" that way.
He was not quoted in how he thought this was meant to be
understood. Throughout this section the brochure is
trying to both discuss how the construction we have in John 1:1c
can be translated and its meaning. As Mckenzie said what he did
about the translation of it then it would certainly be
fitting and proper to quote him especially after the brochure had
indicated just before quoting McKenzie that "...since John 1:1
shows that the Word was with God, he could not be God
but was "a god," or "divine."-p.27. By saying
this the brochure is correctly argueing that the Word cannot be
the "hO QEOS" he was with. Even Trinitarians would
agree with this for they believe that the "HO THEOS"
was the Father and then to go on to translate that the
Word was "God"(as the English translation of the
definite and anarthrous QEOS' in John 1:1, 2 does not alert the
English reader to the use or omission of the Greek article with
each occurrence) would make an indentity between the Father and
the Word, that they are the same being! But that they are not is
well brought out by translating it how McKenzie much prefers
"and the word was a divine being." But it is
not only the Father that the Word or "LOGOS" is not.
The Word is not the "hO QEOS" here in John 1:1c.
McKenzie states right before he says "Jn 1:1 should
rigorously be translated "the word was with the God[=the
Father], and the word was a divine being" that "..the
title ho theos, which now designates the Father as a personal
reality, is not applied in the NT to Jesus himself "
Hence, we are not too sure that Bowman has himself 'used' or
understood McKenzie correctly when Bowman says, as already
quoted, "McKenzie also states that Jesus is called "God"
in....John 20:28." Actually, what Mckenzie said was that
"Thomas invokes Jesus with the titles which belong to
the Father...John 20:28," and, bearing in mind that
McKenzie said before this that hO QEOS" is "not
applied to Jesus himself" we think Bowman should have
alerted his readers to this aswell, so that how we are to
understand Mckenzie here in this section of his discussion of the
word "God" is not that clear. What is clear is how he
thought John 1:1c should be translated which translation agree
wholly with the New World Translation's "and the Word
was a god." McKenzie did in fact describe Jehovah God as
"a divine...being" as Bowman reports. But this means
that there are others who are also 'divine beings' yet not the
Almighty "divine being," God. Exactly! Also in John 1:1
what we have here is the Word, the "Logos," being
described as a "divine being" but as this "divine
being" was "with" God this Word is not the "divine
being" that is Almighty, Jehovah God.