The greek word for god

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The English word god comes from the Old English god, which itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic *ǥuđán. Its cognates in other Germanic languages include guþ, gudis (both Gothic), guð (Old Norse), god (Old Saxon, Old Frisian, and Old Dutch), and got (Old High German).

Etymology[edit]

The Proto-Germanic meaning of *ǥuđán and its etymology is uncertain. It is generally agreed that it derives from a Proto-Indo-European neuter passive perfect participle *ǵʰu-tó-m. This form within (late) Proto-Indo-European itself was possibly ambiguous, and thought to derive from a root *ǵʰeu̯- «to pour, libate» (the idea survives in the Dutch word, ‘Giet’, meaning, to pour) (Sanskrit huta, see hotṛ), or from a root *ǵʰau̯- (*ǵʰeu̯h₂—) «to call, to invoke» (Sanskrit hūta). Sanskrit hutá = «having been sacrificed», from the verb root hu = «sacrifice», but a slight shift in translation gives the meaning «one to whom sacrifices are made.»

Depending on which possibility is preferred, the pre-Christian meaning of the Germanic term may either have been (in the «pouring» case) «libation» or «that which is libated upon, idol» — or, as Watkins^[1] opines in the light of Greek χυτη γαια «poured earth» meaning «tumulus», «the Germanic form may have referred in the first instance to the spirit immanent in a burial mound» — or (in the «invoke» case) «invocation, prayer» (compare the meanings of Sanskrit brahman) or «that which is invoked».

Gaut[edit]

A significant number of scholars have connected this root with the names of three related Germanic tribes: the Geats, the Goths and the Gutar. These names may be derived from an eponymous chieftain Gaut, who was subsequently deified.^{[citation needed]} He also sometimes appears in early Medieval sagas as a name of Odin or one of his descendants, a former king of the Geats (Gaut(i)), an ancestor of the Gutar (Guti), of the Goths (Gothus) and of the royal line of Wessex (Geats) and as a previous hero of the Goths (Gapt).

Wōdanaz[edit]

Some variant forms of the name Odin such as the Lombardic Godan may point in the direction that the Lombardic form actually comes from Proto-Germanic *ǥuđánaz. Wōdanaz or Wōđinaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of a god of Germanic paganism, known as Odin in Norse mythology, Wōden in Old English, Wodan or Wotan in Old High German and Godan in the Lombardic language. Godan was shortened to God over time and was adopted/retained by the Germanic peoples of the British isles as the name of their deity, in lieu of the Latin word Deus used by the Latin speaking Christian church, after conversion to Christianity.

During the complex christianization of the Germanic tribes of Europe, there were many linguistic influences upon the Christian missionaries. One example post downfall of the western Roman Empire are the missionaries from Rome led by Augustine of Canterbury. Augustine’s mission to the Saxons in southern Britain was conducted at a time when the city of Rome was a part of a Lombardic kingdom. The translated Bibles which they brought on their mission were greatly influenced by the Germanic tribes they were in contact with, chief among them being the Lombards and Franks. The translation for the word deus of the Latin Bible was influenced by the then current usage by the tribes for their highest deity, namely Wodan by Angles, Saxons, and Franks of north-central and western Europe, and Godan by the Lombards of south-central Europe around Rome. There are many instances where the name Godan and Wodan are contracted to God and Wod.^[2] One instance is the wild hunt (a.k.a. Wodan’s wild hunt) where Wod is used.^[3][4]

The earliest uses of the word God in Germanic writing is often cited to be in the Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible, which is the Christian Bible as translated by Ulfilas into the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic, or Gothic, tribes. The oldest parts of the Gothic Bible, contained in the Codex Argenteus, are estimated to be from the fourth century. During the fourth century, the Goths were converted to Christianity, largely through the efforts of Bishop Ulfilas, who translated the Bible into the Gothic language in Nicopolis ad Istrum in today’s northern Bulgaria. The words guda and guþ were used for God in the Gothic Bible.

Influence of Christianity[edit]

God entered English when the language still had a system of grammatical gender. The word and its cognates were initially neuter but underwent transition when their speakers converted to Christianity, «as a means of distinguishing the personal God of the Christians from the impersonal divine powers acknowledged by pagans.»^[5]: 15 However, traces of the neuter endured. While these words became syntactically masculine, so that determiners and adjectives connected to them took masculine endings, they sometimes remained morphologically neuter, which could be seen in their inflections: In the phrase, guþ meins, «my God,» from the Gothic Bible, for example, guþ inflects as if it were still a neuter because it lacks a final -s, but the possessive adjective meins takes the final -s that it would with other masculine nouns.^[5]: 15

God and its cognates likely had a general, predominantly plural or collective sense prior to conversion to Christianity. After conversion, the word was commonly used in the singular to refer to the Christian deity, and also took on characteristics of a name.^{[5]: 15–16 [6]}

Translations[edit]

The word god was used to represent Greek theos and Latin deus in Bible translations, first in the Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas. For the etymology of deus, see *dyēus.

Greek «θεός » (theos) means god in English. It is often connected with Greek «θέω» (theō), «run»,^[7][8] and «θεωρέω» (theoreō), «to look at, to see, to observe»,^[9][10] Latin feriae «holidays», fanum «temple», and also Armenian di-k` «gods». Alternative suggestions (e.g. by De Saussure) connect *dhu̯es- «smoke, spirit», attested in Baltic and Germanic words for «spook» and ultimately cognate with Latin fumus «smoke.» The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek te-o^[11] (plural te-o-i^[12]), written in Linear B syllabic script.

Capitalization[edit]

The development of English orthography was dominated by Christian texts. Capitalized, «God» was first used to refer to the Abrahamic God and may now signify any monotheistic conception of God, including the translations of the Arabic Allāh, Persian Khuda, Indic Ishvara and the Maasai Ngai.

In the English language, capitalization is used for names by which a god is known, including ‘God’. Consequently, its capitalized form is not used for multiple gods or when referring to the generic idea of a deity.^[13][14]

Pronouns referring to a god are also often capitalized by adherents to a religion as an indication of reverence, and are traditionally in the masculine gender («He», «Him», «His» etc) unless specifically referring to a goddess.^[15][16]

See also[edit]

• Anglo-Saxon paganism
• Allah (Arabic word)
• Bhagavan (Hindi word)
• El (deity) (Semitic word)
• Elohim
• Goddess
• Jumala (Finnish word)
• Khuda (Persian word)
• Names of God
• Tanri (Turkish word)
• Yahweh
• YHWH

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Use of guþ n the Gothic Bible.
• Use of guda n the Gothic Bible.
• Gothic language and its relation to other Germanic languages such as Anglish (English) and Saxon

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Bert wrote:

Iacobus wrote:
In the Greek text there are many cases of a singular anarthrous predicate nouns preceding the verb (e.g. Mark 6:49,11:32; John 4:19, 6:70, 8:44, 8:48, 9:17, 10:1, 10:13, 10:33, 12:6, 18:37). In these places, translators insert the indefinite article «a» before the predicate noun in order to bring out the quality or characteristic of the subject. Since the indefinite article is inserted before the predicate noun in such texts, with equal justification the indefinite article «a» is inserted before the anarthrous θεός in the predicate of John 1:1 to make it read «a god.» The Sacred Scriptures confirm the correctness of this rendering.

Would you suggest translating ….ὁ θεος φῶς ἐστιν in 1 John 1:5 as ….God is a light?

Well, according to Philip B. Harner (previously quoted): «. . . anarthrous predicate preceding the verb, are PRIMARILY qualitative in meaning.» So, not always is there understood an «a». For further explanation, read the following, quoted from the 11/15/75 Watchtower (especially noting the fifth paragraph down from the question).

«Questions from Readers

• Does the rendering of John 1:1 in the New World Translation violate rules of Greek grammar or conflict with worship of only one God?

The New World Translation renders John 1:1 as follows: “In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.” Some have objected to the translation “a god,” which appears in the final clause of this verse. They claim that the translators were wrong in putting an “a” in there before “god.” Is this really a mistranslation?

While the Greek language has no indefinite article corresponding to the English “a,” it does have a definite article ho, often rendered into English as “the.” For example, ho Khristos´, “the Christ,” ho Ky´ri·os, “the Lord,” ho The·os´, literally, “the God.”

Frequently, though, nouns occur in Greek without the article. Grammarians refer to these nouns as “anarthrous,” meaning “used without the article.” Interestingly, in the final part of John 1:1, the Greek word for “god,” the·os´, does not have the definite article ho before it. How do translators render such anarthrous Greek nouns into English?

Often they add the English indefinite article “a” to give proper sense to the passage. For example, in the concluding portion of John 9:17 the Greek text literally states, according to the interlinear literal translation by clergyman Alfred Marshall, D.Litt: “And he said[,] — A prophet he is.” There is no definite article before the Greek word for “prophet” here. The translator, therefore, rendered the word as “a prophet,” as do many other English translations.—Authorized Version, New American Standard Bible, also translations by Charles B. Williams and William F. Beck.

This does not mean, however, that every time an anarthrous noun occurs in the Greek text it should appear in English with the indefinite article. Translators render these nouns variously, at times even with a “the,” understanding them as definite, though the definite article is missing. At Matthew 27:40, for instance, several English Bible versions have the phrase “the Son of God,” though the Greek word for “son” is without the definite article.

What about John 1:1? Marshall’s interlinear translation of it reads: “In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with — God, and God was the Word.” As noted above, no “the” appears before “God” in the final clause of this verse. The New World Bible Translation Committee chose to insert the indefinite article “a” there. This helps to distinguish “the Word,” Jesus Christ, as a god, or divine person with vast power, from the God whom he was “with,” Jehovah, the Almighty. Some persons familiar with Greek claim that in doing so the translators violated an important rule of Greek grammar. Why so?

The problem, they say, is word order. Back in 1933 Greek scholar E. C. Colwell published an article entitled “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament.” In it he wrote: “A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the verb. . . . A predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a ‘qualitative’ noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun in spite of the absence of the article.”

At John 1:1 the anarthrous predicate noun the·os´ does precede the verb, the Greek word order being literally: “God [predicate] was [verb] the Word [subject].” Concerning this verse Colwell concluded: “The opening verse of John’s Gospel contains one of the many passages where this rule suggests the translation of a predicate as a definite noun.” Thus some scholars claim that the only really correct way to translate this clause is: “And the Word was God.”

Do these statements of Colwell prove that “a god” is a mistranslation at John 1:1? Perhaps you noticed this scholar’s wording that an anarthrous predicate noun that precedes the verb should be understood as definite “if the context suggests” that. Further along in his argument Colwell stressed that the predicate is indefinite in this position “only when the context demands it.” Nowhere did he state that all anarthrous predicate nouns that precede the verb in Greek are definite nouns. Not any inviolable rule of grammar, but context must guide the translator in such cases.

The Greek text of the Christian Scriptures has many examples of this type of predicate noun where other translators into English have added the indefinite article “a.” Consider, for example, Marshall’s interlinear translation of the following verses: “Says to him the woman: Sir, I perceive that a prophet [predicate] art [verb] thou [subject].” (John 4:19) “Said therefore to him—Pilate: Not really a king [predicate] art [verb] thou [subject]? Answered—Jesus: Thou sayest that a king [predicate] I am [verb, with subject included].”—John 18:37.

Did you notice the expressions “a prophet,” “a king” (twice)? These are anarthrous predicate nouns that precede the verb in Greek. But the translator rendered them with the indefinite article “a.” There are numerous examples of this in English versions of the Bible. For further illustration consider the following from the Gospel of John in The New English Bible: “A devil” (6:70); “a slave” (8:34); “a murderer . . . a liar” (8:44); “a thief” (10:1); “a hireling” (10:13); “a relation” (18:26).

Alfred Marshall explains why he used the indefinite article in his interlinear translation of all the verses mentioned in the two previous paragraphs, and in many more: “The use of it in translation is a matter of individual judgement. . . . We have inserted ‘a’ or ‘an’ as a matter of course where it seems called for.” Of course, neither Colwell (as noted above) nor Marshall felt that an “a” before “god” at John 1:1 was called for. But this was not because of any inflexible rule of grammar. It was “individual judgement,” which scholars and translators have a right to express. The New World Bible Translation Committee expressed a different judgment in this place by the translation “a god.”

Certain scholars have pointed out that anarthrous predicate nouns that precede the verb in Greek may have a qualitative significance. That is, they may describe the nature or status of the subject. Thus some translators render John 1:1: “The Logos was divine,” (Moffatt); “the Word was divine,” (Goodspeed); “the nature of the Word was the same as the nature of God,” (Barclay); “the Word was with God and shared his nature,” (The Translator’s New Testament).

Does the idea that Jesus Christ is “a god” conflict with the Scriptural teaching that there is only one God? (1 Cor. 8:5, 6) Not at all. At times the Hebrew Scriptures employ the term for God, ’elo·him´, with reference to mighty creatures. At Psalm 8:5, for example, we read: “You also proceeded to make him [man] a little less than godlike ones.” (Hebrew, ’elohim´; “a god,” New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible) The Greek Septuagint Version renders ?elo·him´ here as “angels.” The Jewish translators of this version saw no conflict with monotheism in applying the term for God to created spirit persons. (Compare Hebrews 2:7, 9.) Similarly, Jews of the first century C.E. found no conflict with their belief in one God at Psalm 82, though verses 1 and 6 of this psalm utilize the word ’elo·him´ (the·oi´, plural of the·os´, Septuagint) with reference to human judges.—Compare John 10:34-36.»»