John 1:3-5 Geneva

It could be that some of the early Bible translators associated the Word with something coming from the mouth of God. The Tyndale version also used the word "it" rather than "Him." The sense of their rendering would be that, without God's speaking the word, nothing would have been created purely by chance.

In the Greek, the word autos (pronounced ow-tos') is defined in Strong's as: 1. himself, herself, themselves, itself; 2. he, she, it; and 3. the same. Taking these definitions into account, either "He" or "it" could be considered a correct translation.

And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word (John 1:3 CEV).

The Contemporary English Version uses neither "He" nor "it," avoiding the question altogether. At first this may seem a good rendering, but I see no textual basis for changing the wording of the verse. The original Greek texts do not use the word logos (log'-os) here, but rather autos, making the CEV rendering a bit paraphrastic.