What does "Godhead" mean?

Misuse of the term. The term "Godhead" is an archaic word not found in modern-day translations of the Bible nor a part of the vocabulary of today's Christians, all except for Seventh-day Adventists. Adventists have a history in the use of the term that they cannot avoid—both Ellen G. White and the Adventist pioneers used it frequently in their writings. However, what they meant by the term and what modern-day Adventists mean by the term are two different things. First of all, the term "Godhead" never meant Trinity nor did EGW and the Adventist pioneers ever intended it to mean Trinity. That modern-day Adventists use it to mean some variant of the Trinity doctrine is simply a form of usurpation—they neither understand the true meaning of the word nor the intent of its use back in the day.

Usage. The word "Godhead" is used three times in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible (Acts 17:29, Romans 1:20, and Colossians 2:9) using three different Greek words: theios (G2304), theiotes (G2305), and theotes (G2320). Of these, theios (G2304) is used three different times (Acts 17:29; 2 Peter 1:3, 4), translated once as "Godhead" (in Acts 17:29) and twice ad "divine" in the KJV.

Please note that most modern translations no longer use the term "Godhead," but consider it an obsolete term. Instead, the words deity, divine nature, or divine being are used. It is helpful to understand the history of the word and the underlying Greek words for which it is used.

The ending "-head", is not related to the word "head" as we understand it. John Wycliffe introduced the term godhed into English Bible versions in two places, and, though somewhat archaic, the term survives in modern English because of its use in three places of the Tyndale New Testament (1525) and into the Authorized King James Version of the Bible (1611). In that translation, the word was used to translate three different Greek words:

Verse	Strong's Concordance (Greek)	Wycliffe 1382	Tyndale 1534	KJV	Modern
Acts 17:29	G2304 theios; divine	that godli thing	godhed	Godhead	divine nature
2 Peter 1:3	G2304 theios	godlich vertu	godlynes	divine	divine power
2 Peter 1:4	G2304 theios	Goddis kynde	godly nature	divine	divine nature
Romans 1:20	G2305 theiotes; divinity, divine nature	godhed	godhed	Godhead	divine nature
Colossians 2:9	G2320 theotes; deity	the Godhed	the godheed	Godhead	deity

The terms "Godhead" and "deity" were interchangeable a few centuries ago

• Highland Host blog: First of all, the term ‘godhead’, as used in the 17th century simply meant 'deity', as a perusal of Puritan literature will reveal. Thus in his Commentary on John,[1] first published in 1657, George Hutcheson writes that John's statement in John 1.3 that all things were made by Christ is "a proof of Christ's godhead" (P. 11)....Matthew Poole wrote in 1685 on the same text that “The Divine nature and eternal existence of the Lord Christ is evident from his efficiency in the creation of the world.”[2] Also note that this is a comment on the same passage as the earlier quote from Hutcheson, incidentally showing that the old term ‘Godhead’ is a (now obsolete in this sense) synonym for ‘Divine nature’. Commenting on Colossians 2.9,[3] Poole uses ‘Godhead’ and ‘Divine nature’ interchangeably. ‘Godhead’ is in fact derived from the same root as the German ‘Gottheit’, Deity, that which makes God God, the essence of God. The Puritans – and the AV translators – use the word accordingly.

By the late 1800s the term "Godhead" was already in dispute

• A Bible study from Faithbuilders Fellowship: In 1881, when the KJV was in common use and the first English revision of its New Testament was published, an article by H. V. Reed appeared in the magazine Restitution. He wrote: "The word godhead is not good English: it means nothing in itself and conveys no idea to the reader: What is a godhead?" It is merely a bad translation. The Greek manuscript word should be rendered 'divinity' or 'deity'. Many Bible scholars and translators have realized that 'godhead' does not convey clear meaning. Weymouth, Moffatt, Smith-Goodspeed, Farrar Fenton, RSV, Good News, NAS, Living Bible, NIV, J. B. Phillips, Bible in Living English, Jerusalem Bible, NWT, Emphatic Diaglott, and The Everyday Bible versions, all recognizing its inadequacy, use some word or phrase other than 'godhead' seen three times in the KJV, where, in Acts 17:29, Rom. 1:20, Col. 2:9, it represents a different Greek word each time.

Usage in 2 Peter 1:3-4. It reads as follows:

• 2 Peter 1:3-4 (WEB): seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.

The promise given by Peter is that we may obtain (i.e. become partakers of) the divine nature "through" the knowledge of God and of Christ (v.8).