Reading the Bible is hard work, if you do it right, because a text without a context is a pretext, and scrounging up the context for a 2000-year-old work (much more if we’re using Hebrew Scriptures) requires consulting a lot of different fields of study and the works of many scholars.
I am ranting about all of this because I re-read the first chapter of John, which we all know and love, right? “In the beginning, there was the Word…”
Some time ago, in a class on Koine Greek, we went over this passage in the original language. It comes out a little differently: “In beginning was the logos and the logos was towards God, and God was the logos. This one was in beginning toward the God.”
Logos is a loaded term. It’s generally translated “word,” but that translation is a disservice to its meaning. Logos, as it was understood by those writing these texts, was more than just a word, it was a promise, an accounting, the logical implication of a divine order. Now, isn’t that more fun?
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