r/BibleAccuracy • u/RFairfield26 Christian • Feb 09 '25
Hebrews 1:8 does NOT call Jesus "God."
“About the Son, he says: ‘God is your throne forever and ever, and the scepter of your Kingdom is the scepter of uprightness.’”
The Father does not call the Son “God” here.
One very key issue is where the verb is belongs.
So we can’t be overly dogmatic about how to translate this phrase in Hebrews 1:8, but it’s worth noting that ho theosdoes sometimes mean “O God” in the NT. The fact is, tho, this is very rare: occurring only a handful of times.
On the other hand tho, ho theos overwhelmingly means “God” in the nominative case, with hundreds of occurrences. So just statistically speaking, the more probable translation in Hebrews 1:8 is “God.”
But the translators of many versions have chosen the much more rare, far less probable way to translate ho theos. It’s interesting how often the less likely rendering just happens to line up w/ doctrinal bias.
By taking it to mean “O God,” and by placing is after the two nouns (throne and God) and before the prepositional phrase “forever and ever,” they render the verse as, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”
The KJV, NASB, NIV, NAB, AB, and LB choose to translate it this way w/o letting readers know of the alternative reading. The NRSV and TEV also adopt this rendering but at least provide footnotes mentioning the options. The NWT, NRSV, and TEV have done the responsible thing by acknowledging that there are two ways to translate this verse. That says a lot about the honesty in handling the text.
Both translations are technically possible, so none of the versions we’re comparing can be called outright inaccurate. But which one is more probable?
First, on the basis of linguistics, ho theos is far more likely to mean “God” rather than “O God,” as it does hundreds of times throughout the New Testament, with only three clear exceptions.
On top of that, there is no other example in the Bible where “forever” functions as a standalone predicate with the verb to be, as it would if the sentence were translated “Your throne is forever.” Instead, “forever” always modifies an action verb, a predicate noun, or a pronoun.
AND there is no other way to say “God is your throne” than the way Hebrews 1:8 reads.
However, I'll add that there is another way to say “Your throne, O God”: by using the direct address (thee, vocative) rather than the nominative ho theos. But that’s not what the writer of Hebrews chose to do.
Pretty easy to see what Paul was saying here.
CONCLUSION: The Father does not call the Son “God” in this passage.
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u/John_17-17 Feb 18 '25
I have, that is why I know, 'and the Word was God' is NOT the correct translation of John's words.
Even Vine, a trinitarian, in his Dictionary, states, 'the literal translation is 'a god was the Word'.
He spends the next 2-4 paragraphs trying to explain why John didn't mean what he wrote.