John 3:1  But there was a man from the Pharisees, Nicodemus his name, a ruler of the Jews. 
 2 This one came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that You have come as a teacher from God. For no one is able to do these miraculous signs which You do, except God be with Him. LITV

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named  Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; John 19:39; 
2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."  NASB

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 
2 the same came unto him by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, except God be with him. ASV

1 Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council,
2 came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”  NET
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                                                                                  Commentary

The Greek word "nv", pronounced 'ain'... as in 'rain' without the 'r' is the imperfect of the verb 'to be' and means "was". In this context.. 'there was' is proper.
It seems that the 'insertion' of "there"..[was a man]  has caused some ulcers among commentators. The NET throws the baby out w/ the water by removing it as well as the Greek verb nv, was,  and =adding= the word "certain".  In so doing in order to make a grammatical flow they translate vs 2 in such a way as to make it look like... "Now a certain man.... came to Jesus". But to do that they had to  remove the Greek 'outos' in vs 2 which properly translated is... 'This one' or 'this man' ..came.... So here we see these people removed 2 Greek words from the text and added one. How marvelous. This is supposed to be Scholarship? The info blurb about this translation claims... "It was completed by more than 25 scholars – experts in the original biblical languages – who worked directly from the best currently available Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts."  Yeah Right. I guess since they were "experts" they had the right to remove Greek words and add their own. Therefore, this 'translation' by so-called Scholarly -Experts- is nothing but a paraphrase and a cheap one at that. What stuff!

Both the KJV and the NKJV leave out the Greek word 'de'  which means 'Now' or 'And'... see Lexicon. So KJOites beware. Here your beloved KJV is guilty of the very thing you condemn other versions of doing; omitting words that are in the Greek. The Geneva Bible also omits it.

Nickeldemus later got saved as he supplied spices to anoint Messiah's body before His burial.

John

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