John 1:10
John 1:1010He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.
Read as another statement of agency: the world was produced through Jesus because Jehovah worked through him. JWs take "the world did not know him" as a comment on human unbelief toward Jehovah's appointed representative, not as a claim about who the Word is.
This verse is useful precisely because nobody argues about it — which makes it a clean place to show the pattern. Within a single sentence John uses both of his verbs: the Word "was" (en) in the world, and the world "came to be" (egeneto) through him. Same sentence, two categories. The one who was already there, and the thing that started existing. You can walk a JW through this in their own Bible without knowing any Greek, because the English keeps the distinction: "He was in the world, and the world came into existence through him." Ask which of the two is described as coming into existence. Then work back through the prologue and check every occurrence — verses 1, 2, 4, 9 and 10 put the Word on the "was" side; verses 3, 6, 10 and 14 use "came into existence" for the world, for John the Baptist, and for the incarnation. John had the second verb available for the Word at verse 1 and did not use it. Compare , .