October 11 - John 1:1

I've spent a good part of the day immersed in Greek again, so it looks like you are going to learn a little bit more!

Sometimes it is so much easier for us to be ignorant and allow scholars and theologians to interpret and explain scripture to us.  I've never been much for that, but I'll tell you what, it does make it easier on the brain.  Since they've done all of the work interpreting the Greek New Testament into various and sundry translations for us, why do we even bother to learn Greek and study using the original language. What I can tell you is that even though it is out there ... I want to know it for myself, even when it causes me to run these poor neurons round and round until they're spinning so fast they want to shut down.

One of the passages we were assigned to uncover this week is John 1:1.  You know this verse very well.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

This is part of our basic doctrine and theology, right?  There is enough discrepancy in this verse in the original Greek that it is one of those places that other cults use to slam down and claim a win.

In yesterday's blog, I wrote a bit about the definite article and its importance in the Greek language.  Well, a lot of confusion happens when it doesn't show up.

So ... here's the Greek transliteration of this passage.

En - In
arche (arcay) - beginning
ayn - was
o - the
logos - word,
kai - and
o - the
logos - word
ayn - was
pros - with
ton - the
theon - God,
kai - and
theos - God
ayn - was
o - the
logos - word.

In the (assumed because of the preposition) beginning was the word, and the word was with the God and God was the word.

Look at those two sentences together:

English: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Greek: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with the God and God was the word.

There is a solid, definite article in the second phrase identifying this as the God we know.  In Greek, generally a proper name has an article in front of it.  It's just the way things are done.  But, what about the last of the three phrases.  This is what gets everyone into trouble!  The Jehovah's Witnesses read this and interpret it without the definite article and instead use an indefinite article, which is always a possibility, implying that Jesus is not of the same essence with God, but is a god along with God.

So, they interpret this as:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and a god was the Word.

That changes everything, doesn't it!?!

Without going too deeply into the history of translation and the research done into the use of verbs/nouns/articles before and after other verbs (which, by the way, is what I read and processed on today), suffice it to say that Biblical grammar actually has a pretty solid base and there are more things to consider than just the words in a verse.

Theologically, you do more than translate a single verse.  The entirety of John's gospel points to the deity of Christ - the fact that He was God, the fact that He existed from eternity.  Though the Word differs in the person of God, He shares the essence of the Father. 

Grammatically, this type of sentence structure nearly always indicates that the noun requires not a definite article (the) or an indefinite article (a, an), but is qualitative - meaning that it emphasizes the quality of the noun.  So ... Theos is the essence ... the quality that is being applied to "Logos."  In other words,  The Word is the essence of God.

Now, it all makes sense and we can move beyond simply accepting the verse to knowing deep down that the verse offers us truth.  John wrote it this way so that we would have a clear understanding of just exactly who Jesus Christ is.

And, if you think all of this is just nuts and all you want to do is read your English translation and be happy, I'm totally cool with that!  But, if you keep reading this, you have to put up with me as I explore the parts of Scripture that are going to upset and intrigue me!