134 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis clear in 2.3 but not of the commentators (like Barrett, Carson, Bult- mann, Schnackenburg, Wilckens, etc. against Keener and Haenchen who seem to favour the qualitative interpretation). There are however qualifications. “Divine” should not be understood in this sense of divine in polytheistic context, neither simply as divine like angels, or as an expression that somebody is divine. It should be understood within the context of the monotheistic views prevalent in the Gospel. Jesus shares the divine quality (nature) that only God the Father has, without becoming God the Father. As Wallace171 pointed out, this expects a lot from the uninformed reader and therefore he prefers the more ambiguous translation of “the Word is God”. Another effort is of course to use “Umdichtung” and say something like, “As the Father was God, the Word is God also”. This option corresponds with the theology of this Gospel. Jesus shares the divinity with the Father. Jesus is one with the Father without being the Father (10,30). This implies that he is capable of divine actions (actions only God can do – 14,10-11) like eschatological judgment (5,27, 30; 12,48), giving life (5,19ff.; 10,17-18); protecting believers against evil (10,28ff.; 17,11-12), etc. Other expressions like Jesus as the one who is from above (3,13, 31; 8,23-24) also expresses his unique divine identity in a different way. It seems that the translation “the Word is divine” is plausible and acceptable, as long as it is interpreted in light of the theology of John and not in light of general thoughts about the divine. Chrys Caragounis: In view of the theological concerns of John, wan- ting to present the Logos as fully God, the third clause has taken the only form that it could have taken in Greek in order to express the intended meaning. Because the emphasis lay on the predicate, Θεός was placed before the subject (ὁ Λόγος). Socio-linguistically, John did not need to fear that Greeks might misunderstand his expression, since his clause is unambiguous. Modern interpretations of the phrase as “and the Word was a God” simply reveal ignorance of Greek syntax and phraseology. The idea of “a god” or “the God” in this particular context does not arise for a Greek, since the predicate directs attention to the essence and pro- perties of the Word: The Word was God–nothing more, nothing less. Theologically, this formulation is not only well-considered but also an excellent exponent of Johannine theology. It is John’s intention to present the Logos as fully God and at the same time as related to God, who, since the Logos was in the beginning with God, God was also there right from the start. In these three carefully forged clauses John succeeds in setting Wallace, Syntax, (see n. 9), 269. 171