The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, “Appendix 2A: Jesus—A Godlike One; Divine”
“The articular construction of the noun points to an identity, a personality, whereas a singular anarthrous predicate noun preceding the verb points to a quality about someone. Therefore, John’s statement that the Word, or Logos, was “a god” or “divine” or “godlike” does not mean that he was the God with whom he was.”
The organisation's fullest published defence of 'a god'. The appendix also lists seven other translations that render the clause 'a god', 'divine' or 'godlike', quotes Philip B. Harner's 1973 Journal of Biblical Literature article, and gives a chart of anarthrous predicate nouns in Mark and John (apparition, prophet, thief, king and so on) where translators supply 'a'.
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Provenance and verification note for The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, Appendix 2A: Jesus—A Godlike One; Divine
Confidence note. Appendix opened in full on wol.jw.org on 19 September 2026; page markers 1139 and 1140 read from the HTML page-number spans.
Notes. The appendix quotes Harner: 'In John 1:1 I think that the qualitative force of the predicate is so prominent that the noun cannot be regarded as definite.' It does not quote any rendering Harner himself proposed.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-nwtv-int-app2a