One Missing Word Changes the Entire Gospel of John

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:02]Hey everybody, I'm Dan Mlelen >> and I'm Dan Beecher >> and this is Data Over Dogma where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

[00:00:16]>> Things are good. Things are good. I'm excited. We're going to get into one of history's mysteries today. Uh, and this one's an interesting one. We have touched briefly on this idea, but I I'm excited to go to dive deep with you. I don't 100% know where we're going with this because this is something that you've been working on.

[00:00:41]>> Uh slaving over a cauldron uh bubbling with interesting things like pho and and origin and whatever and you know >> eye of new and toe of dog or whatever.

[00:00:56]So, uh, so maybe we should just dive straight in to, uh, to history's mysteries. All right.

[00:01:05]So, guide me in. Where what are we doing? What are we talking about? What where are we here? We're we're talking about a weird um thing that a lot of folks have observed in some of the early Jewish and Christian discussions about God and the use of the Greek word theos because we know this this word means God and and ostensibly early Jewish and Christian authors are all monotheists and so there can only be one God. But we've got this weird thing where sometimes the word God might seem to be referring to somebody else. And in some places some of these authors write the word God without the definite article.

[00:01:49]Now if you don't know biblical Greek even personal names most of the time you include the definite article. So when you see in in your English translation, and Jesus said to them, in the Greek, it would be and the Jesus said to them, the definite article is being used most of the time. Now, there are certain syntactical circumstances where you actually don't use the definite article, but in some Greek texts, we have theos being used without the definite article in other instances where you would normally expect it. And a lot of folks who think that that the Trinity is in the Bible are happy to imagine that this is still referring to the God of Israel.

[00:02:35]It's just identifying Jesus as the God of Israel because obviously that's what the Trinity is, baby. That's okay.

[00:02:42]That's what the Bible is saying. But we've got a we got a handful of very interesting commentary from people from before and after the Gospel of John, which is where this is most debated.

[00:02:55]>> Okay. who actually directly address what they're doing. And I want to start with Pho. Pho of Alexandria was born at the end of the first century B.CE. died around 50ish 5060 CE. So was alive during the life of Jesus. And he wrote a lot of texts, way too much. But uh he he >> he was Jewish, right?

[00:03:19]>> Uh he Yes. He was an early Jewish philosopher. So um he he was incorporating a lot of stoic and middle platonic philosophy into Judaism kind of um it's a little bit syncretatistic but basically trying to to show that Judaism fits within a Greek philosophical worldview but uh he's he talks a lot about the logos and the and this is translated word most of the time in English translations the word of God for instance in Greek is logos theu and Um uh and when he's uh when he's talking about the logos, he's largely borrowing this framework from Greco Roman philosophy because starting with Plato but also including uh stoicism, they they had this concept of the logos as God's rationality and it could be the rationality uh that was inside God's head. So like you have an idea that's inside your head but then when you once you speak it it is expressed >> and it is now outside of you and it is separate from you. And so the logos can be can be both things but there's a >> mean when when you say that it's like rationality then it makes sense to me that logos would be the root word of our logic.

[00:04:37]>> Yes. Yeah. That's exactly right. So um we have pho in a text called on dreams.

[00:04:45]Okay, >> like I said, he wrote about too many things, but he he's examining a lot of uh a lot of different ways that that God is is influencing dreams and stuff like that. But there's one part where he's talking about Genesis 31:13. And this is where God well, it says that it's the angel of the Lord appears to Jacob and then in in verse 13 says, "I am the God of Bethl where you anointed the altar and all that kind of stuff." And pho is quoting the Greek translation which doesn't say that. It says, "I am the God uh that anointed you uh or that appeared to you in the place of God." Because Bethl means house of God. And so the Greek translators just thought, "Oh, this is a sentence, not a name."

[00:05:35]>> And so Pho's like, "Huh, this is weird.

[00:05:39]Let's consider whether there are two gods." And and now I'm quoting from uh on dreams book one uh section starting in section 228. For we read, I am the God that appeared to thee not in my place, but in the place of God as though it were anothers. What are we to say then? He that is truly God is one, but those those that are improperly so-called are more than one.

[00:06:05]Accordingly, the holy word in the present instance has indicated him who is truly God by means of the articles saying I am the God. Definite article 'the'. While it omits the article when mentioning him who is improperly so-called, saying who appeared to thee in the place not of the god but simply of God. Here it gives the title of God to his chief logos, his chief word, not from any superstitious nicity in applying names, but with one aim before him to use words to express facts. And so what what Pho is basically saying is that you have one entity that is truly in essence God and then you have other entities that can just be referred to as God without actually being God.

[00:06:55]And when the scriptures are referring to those entities as God, even though they're not God, it omits the definite article. And >> so they're not the God. They're not the God. They're just God.

[00:07:08]>> And that's somehow a lower place in the >> Yeah. And and a way to think of it is is to understand God here it in the qualitate qualitative sense.

[00:07:19]>> Okay. So it would be it would be kind of like, you know, another word for God in in English coming through different roots is deity, >> right?

[00:07:28]>> And you could say there's the deity and then there's deity, >> right?

[00:07:33]>> And so so and so is not the deity. So and so is just deity. Um and and so it it kind of means divine, >> right?

[00:07:41]>> Um and so and and Pho.

[00:07:44]There's a there's a part where uh he's talking about um passage in Genesis where the he's wondering why God tells somebody to um uh to come up to God I think it is and he says why not come up to to me or something like that and he says that uh it's not proper to refer to uh this entity as uh as the god because this is the second god God, God's chief logos, God's word. So, Pho explicitly refers to the word of God as a second God.

[00:08:24]>> Okay?

[00:08:25]>> And so, when when this is being written less than a century prior to the gospel of John and the Gospel of John seems to be relying an awful lot on very similar philosophical frameworks. But then we get to uh this really interesting discussion in Justin Martyr. And Justin Martyr is >> well we we should mention the part of the Gospel of John that >> Oh yeah yeah yeah >> that we're that that that we're sort of talking about which is John 1:1 right >> well John 1:1 is the main one but there are a few places where you have being used without the definite article where we might expect the definite article if it's referring to the God of Israel but yes John 1:1 says in the beginning was the word and the word was proton which means with God or or toward God or next to God. And then it says no logos and theos was the word and that's traditionally translated and the word was God which would identify the word as the very God of Israel but there's no definite article there and in this situation the syntactical relationship indicates that the word theos is not being used to identify a specific god but is used in the qualitative sense to mean deity or divine. And so the author could be appealing to something very close to what what Pho is saying that the law >> you're saying that that the author of the Gospel of John came after Pho the gospel was written after so could have been aware of Pho's writing.

[00:09:58]>> I I think almost certainly aware of Pho writing because there's because the the logos theology that we find in John is uh resonates quite a lot with what the logos theology that we find in Pho.

[00:10:10]>> Okay. So when the author of John excludes that definite article, it's likely an in an intentional thing that's informed by Pho's Pho's ideas of that how that definite article operates >> in in this particular instance. The we wouldn't necessarily expect the definite article. So it's it's not definitive there.

[00:10:35]>> Okay. But I I think what the author is doing is it's using the the word God with this understanding that there can be the God and then there can be uh thing entities that are improperly so-called or are people who carry the label without being God. So, so you could say and the word was with God and the word was divine or the word was >> also deity in some way but but not conflate them as the same thing >> right it's not a it's not equating them and and there's another interesting occurrence in John 10 where a lot of people will point out that the >> Jesus's Jewish opponents understood that he was identifying as the very God of Israel when he says I am the father are one and they take up rocks to stone him and in verse 33 and and Jesus is like ah for which of my good works are you stoning me and they say we're not stoning you for your good works we're stoning you because you being human make yourself God now if you look in an English translation that's capital G God >> it makes it sound like they're saying you're claiming to be the God of Israel >> right >> but I don't think that's what's going on because in the Greek there should be a definite article there and there's not.

[00:11:55]>> Okay.

[00:11:55]>> And so I think and there are a lot of later manuscripts that add the definite article because they're like, "Huh, why doesn't it have a definite?" It should have a definite article. Put a definite article in there. But without the article, if we keep Pho's statement in mind, the author of John could be representing the Jewish foes of Jesus as understanding Jesus to be claiming to be not necessarily the God of Israel, but at least divine, >> right?

[00:12:25]>> Much like the logos. And and I think there's some parallelism going on here, too, because the word anthropos, which means human, also does not have a definite article. And so I mean just this the symmetry of the accusation is you are human and that's a qualitative uh statement and you're making yourself divine also a qualitative statement. So it would be it would be uh more parallel that way and Jesus's response is nuhuh look at Psalm 82 where the scripture says you are gods talking to humans.

[00:13:03]It's very clearly not saying you are the God of Israel, just that you're your divinities, your gods. And and so Jesus's defense makes no sense if we understand this passage to be talking about the accusation that Jesus is claiming to be the very God of Israel.

[00:13:20]>> Right?

[00:13:21]And so there are a handful of instances in the Gospel of John where we have this uh use of theos without the definite article that in light of Pho's statement probably indicates an intentional reference to the logos as divine, not as the very God of Israel.

[00:13:42]>> All right. Interesting.

[00:13:44]>> And then you might say, well, that was so much later than Pho. John's not doing that. But we find uh very similar statements or discussions in even later authors as late as the 3rd century CE. But I want to I want to stop first in Justin Martyr who's writing around 150 CE. So right around the dead center of the 2n century CE. And Justin is actually talking to uh this is a text called uh dialogue with trifo. And it's it's this dialectic back and forth between Justin and a Jewish thinker. And Justin is just trying to prove Christianity true from the Jewish scriptures. But he says in this uh in this one section, I shall attempt to prove my assertion, namely that there exists and is mentioned in scripture another God and Lord under the creator of all things who is also called an angel. And we have multiple references to Jesus as the logos, the angel, and another god. And uh a little bit down he says, "Then if I could not prove to you from the scriptures that one of these three," and he's talking about Genesis 18 where the three entities appear to Abraham. If I could not prove to you from the scriptures that one of these three is God and yet is termed an angel because as stated above, he delivered the messages of God, the creator of all to whomsoever God desires, and on and on and on. So he he's talking about how there's a a being that is not God that is referred to as God.

[00:15:26]>> Yeah.

[00:15:27]>> Then he says, "Let us return to the scriptures and I shall try to convince you that he who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses is called God." Now all these times Jesus has been referred to as God. Justin Martyr has omitted the definite article >> and and he says um he who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob and Moses and is called God is distinct from God the creator. Distinct that is in number but not in mind. And the word in Greek goi which is translated here mind is like will intent. It doesn't mean it doesn't mean substance or essence. It just means in in intent or in will. So Justin Martyr is doing the same thing that Pho explains >> using the word God without the definite article to refer to the word of God to the logos whom Justin understands to be Jesus.

[00:16:29]And then I I think one of the most illuminating references comes from origin of Alexandria. So this is a writer uh a theologian and all um who's in Alexandria in the early 3rd century CE and is talking about John 1:1 and he says um John has used the articles in one place and omitted them in another very precisely and not as though he did not understand the precision of the Greek language. In the case of the word, he adds the article 'the'. But in the case of the noun god, he inserts it in one place and omits it in another. For he adds the article when the noun god stands for the unccreated cause of the universe, but he omits it when the word is referred to as God. And as the God and God differ in these places, so perhaps the word and word differ. And he goes on to talk about for like three pages about what it means for uh God and the word to be referred to as the God versus just God and the word versus just word. So even as late as the third, this is like 220 230 CE. This is almost 200 years after Pho is writing. We have multiple authors who are who are either mimicking what Pho is talking about or are quite explicitly addressing what John is talking about as reflecting Pho's idea that this is there's a distinction to be made here between Hos the God and just Thausos God. I guess one of the questions that that that that origin quote brings up for me uh is is was the author of the Gospel of John a good writer? Like was he was he a careful and good writer? Because if so then yeah it stands to reason that these would be conscious choices that that this writer is making.

[00:18:41]>> Yeah. Yeah, if they if they are, you know, expert in the language, then it makes sense to say that these were conscious decisions.

[00:18:51]>> Yeah. The author of the Gospel of John is generally treated as a competent writer. C certainly not the the most flowery pros that has ever posed, but uh but is is definitely not a a clumsy or an uncareful writer. Now, in terms of editing, that's another story. uh as we've talked about with Hugo Mendes but um but in terms of the Greek yeah I think the author is considered competent and and I want to read one more portion from origin okay >> he says the god therefore is the true god the others are gods formed according to him as images of the prototype but again the archet archetypal image of the many images is the word with the God who was in the beginning. By being with the God, he always continues to be God >> without the definite article. So So very clearly origin is is has either noticed what Pho is doing and and noticed that Jon is doing the same thing or has just noticed this pattern in John independent of Pho and is arriving at a very similar conclusion. I happen to think he probably is aware of of Pho and and is saying, "Hey, that's that's a framework for understanding what the author of the gospel is John of John is doing." But origin was also uh probably the quintessential prototrinitarian who thought that that um Jesus was God. So we I think what what's happening is is this is a discussion about this vestage of the way earlier authors are are talking about the word as distinct from God and and origin is noticing it even though uh he's already developing a a far more um sophisticated trinitarian philosophy even though I think he was a bit of a subordinationist and and thought that the word and Jesus was less than >> um even if there there are some scholars who argue that he was no subordinationist and was one of the first true trinitarians, but >> that remains to be seen in my opinion.

[00:21:09]>> Well, and it points out that, you know, as we discussed the the Trinity and whatever, and we've we've talked about the Trinity idea before, it it was a later innovation. It was not like it developed over a long time after all of this was written, after after all of the >> Yeah. the the books of the New Testament were written.

[00:21:29]>> Yeah. And and even after Justin Martyr because I think he's he he says multiple times the word is another God.

[00:21:37]>> Yeah.

[00:21:37]>> So yeah, you don't have the No, no, it's bury God from very God. Um quite yet.

[00:21:44]>> Yeah. Interesting.

[00:21:46]There you go. I you know, I like it when we do a little bit of uh a little bit of grammatical geek outery. I uh I enjoy those those moments that I think that's a lot of fun.

[00:21:57]>> I think so too.

[00:21:58]>> If you So, okay. I I want to hear the the uh the DMV the Dan Mlelen translation of John 11. How would you how would you do it?

[00:22:07]>> So, for an academic audience, I would say and the word was deity.

[00:22:12]>> Okay.

[00:22:12]>> But I that would require um translating that as deity in the other places as well. And the word was with the deity and the word was deity. I think that would be most precise >> but deity is a is a pretty cumbersome word for a lot of people. So for a the general public I would translate it divine.

[00:22:35]>> Okay. Okay. So and the word was with God and the word was divine.

[00:22:39]>> Yeah.

[00:22:40]>> Okay. Interesting. Well, there you have it, friends. Uh, if you would like to become a part of making this show happen every week, every uh, episode, you can go to our Patreon over on patreon.com/datoverdogma.

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[00:23:14]Thanks to JJ for being our producer. And we'll talk to you all next time. And bye everybody.