There are no new letters or words to learn. All the letters and words you already know, but here they are again: kai = and, theos = God, en = was, o = the, logos = word
Grammar: To read the Greek in the literal order that is is written here is: and God was the word. However, it is translated: and the word was God. Why is the literal word order and translation order different.? Remember that Greek can be in any order, and it is the endings that decide what goes before and after the verb. Thus the endings, not word order, control the translation. The subject ending is os, however here we have two words with os as the ending- theos and logos. So why do both have subject endings, and which one is the real subject?
In Greek one of the ways grammatically the verb "en" (was) works is that it links together words that relate closely to one another. Since the words closely relate to one another, they both have the same ending, a subject ending (even though only one is the subject and the other is describing the subject). So how do you tell which one is the actual subject? The subject is the one with "the" in front of it (ho logos). The one without "the" (theos) goes after the verb and describes the subject. So the correct translation is: the word was God.
Remember I said earlier that there is always a reason when "the" is left out. This first time was John 1:1a (review if you have forgotten) and now we have a second use of "the" being left out here in John 1:1c.
Another question. If logos is the subject, why is it not before the verb and theos after the verb? Though regular Greek order puts the subject before the verb, you learned in the last lesson that the Greeks liked to put things out of order in the sentence to call attention to something they wanted to emphasize. This is the reason here that theos is not after the verb, but in front of the verb and the subject is after the verb. By reversing the normal order the emphasis is being made very emphatically, so no one misses the point, that: the logos is GOD.
Knowing Greek grammar is important. If someone does not know the above Grammar facts that deal with this John 1:1c then translation mistakes can happen.Not knowing the above grammar has led to these two wrong translations : 1) God is the word and 2) The word is a God (they think that because there is no "the" in front of theos, that it must mean it has to be translated "a" God). So you can see, learning Grammar is very important to doing correct translation.
To go to lesson 6 click here.
