Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament, “Chapter 11, 'And the Word Was …'”
“Ironically, some of these same scholars are quick to charge the NW translation with 'doctrinal bias' for translating the verse literally, free of KJV influence, following the most obvious sense of the Greek. It may very well be that the NW translators came to the task of translating John 1:1 with as much bias as the other translators did. It just so happens that their bias corresponds in this case to a more accurate translation of the Greek. (pp. 124-125) … Bias has shaped most of these translations much more than has accurate attention to the wording of the Bible. The NW translation of John 1:1 is superior to that of the other eight translations we are comparing. I do not think it is the best possible translation for a modern English reader; but at least it breaks with the KJV tradition followed by all the others, and it does so in the right direction by paying attention to how Greek grammar and syntax actually work. (p. 133)”
BeDuhn defends 'and the Word was a god' as a defensible rendering of the Greek, drawing on Philip Harner's 1973 study of qualitative predicate nouns, and argues that the customary rendering owes more to the King James tradition than to the grammar. The same p. 133 paragraph ends: 'All that we can ask is that a translation be an accurate starting point for exposition and interpretation. Only the NW achieves this, as provocative as it sounds to the modern reader.' This is the rendering Bruce Metzger called a 'frightful mistranslation' in 1953 and 'not justified' in 1964.
Official source (opens in new tab) Link not auto-checkable
Provenance and verification note for Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament, Chapter 11, 'And the Word Was …'
Confidence note. The book itself was never opened. The previous confidence label of 'verified' rested entirely on Google Books' in-volume snippet search, which no longer runs from this environment at all: books.google.com, books.google.co.uk, books.google.de, books.google.ca and www.googleapis.com/books/v1 all answer HTTP 429, and WebFetch is redirected to Google's 'sorry' interstitial. An auditor cannot reproduce the retrieval, and a snippet is in any case not the document. Downgraded to 'supported' on 19 September 2026. Both passages were confirmed independently on that date against reproductions that quote them in full with page attributions: pp. 124-125 at rfmcelroyiii.wordpress.com, p. 133 at tetragrammaton.org. BeDuhn's own sigla for the New World Translation is 'NW', not 'NWT': Allin quotes him with 'NW', the reproduction of pp. 124-125 has 'the NW translation', and JW.org expands it as 'The NW [New World Translation]'. The tetragrammaton.org reproduction silently prints 'NWT' throughout. Where the two differ, 'NW' is used here. Until the printed book is in hand, do not present these quotations as letter-perfect. One reproduction prints 'the other eight translation we are comparing'; the singular is evidently that site's typing slip and 'translations' is used above.
Scan provenance. Not opened. The pp. 124-125 passage is transcribed from the excerpt collection at rfmcelroyiii.wordpress.com and the p. 133 paragraph from the long review at tetragrammaton.org; the two are independent of each other.
Notes. BeDuhn's own preferred rendering is not the New World Translation's; he says on p. 133 that he does not think it is the best possible translation for a modern English reader. [Independent audit, 19 September 2026] The earlier version began the quotation with a bracketed supply, '[the NW rendering of] John 1:1 is superior…'. The bracket was unnecessary: the printed sentence is 'The NW translation of John 1:1 is superior to that of the other eight translations we are comparing', and it is preceded by 'Bias has shaped most of these translations much more than has accurate attention to the wording of the Bible', which is the sentence that gives the passage its force. Both have been restored. Note also that the page is pp. 124-125, not p. 125 alone.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-nwt-beduhn-2003-john-1-1