Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel: 1:1

In an earlier post, I decided to blog on the Greek text of John’s Gospel.  So where to start?  How about the 1st and most famous verse in the Gospel?  Here it is:

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Let’s look at the to be verbs first.  In this case, all of the verbs are ἦν (was).  But this imperfect Greek verb doesn’t just carry a past tense, it also carries a continual aspect.  That is, the action that was done in the past, was a continual action.  

In 1a, “In the beginning, the Word was continually”, or “There continually was the Word”.  

The same can be said about 1b: “The Word was continually with God”.  Many commentators like to comment that πρὸς really means “to, towards”, but there are plenty of times in the NT where it means what almost all translations have: “with”.

Our last phrase in 1c has been commented on since it was first written.  What does it really mean?  Does it just state Jesus’ deity?  Does it state that Jesus was (continually) THE God who was just mentioned in 1b?  Does it mean that “what God was, the Word was”?  Many commentators like to invoke Colwell’s Rule (just Google it) here, but we can’t be sure from this distance if that is what John wished to convey.  Of course, it must be established that this “rule” is something that John does throughout his Gospel.  As I have stressed in all of my teaching, what does the entire context of John’s Gospel have to say about John’s statement here?  Since John introduces us to “the Word” in verse 1, it serves as the introduction to the introduction (2-18).  Therefore, to clearly understand John’s statement, we probably shouldn’t rely on a rule that was established  in 1933 for assurance of what we want John to say.  As I have said before, the context of the whole Gospel is the true guide.  That is something that we will explore going forward.

Finally, Koine Greek in the 1st Century was a language that was “all over the page”.  There were many different dialects, many different ways of saying the same thing, many different meanings to the Greek vocabulary used in the NT, and many different writing styles.  We have very simple Greek used in John’s Gospel to very elegant Greek used in Luke and Acts, and everything in between.  We will read John’s Gospel for what it is.  We will try to not go in with preconceived notions of what the text says.  We will let John speak for himself.  I will not be offering a new translation either.  There are plenty of very good modern translations out there for people to read.  There is no doubt that I will be commented on the controversial passages, but I also want to point out some normal “stuff” about this Gospel as well.  

In the end, “good ole” common sense is going to rule the day, that is, we will let John speak and we will observe what he has to say about Jesus.

God bless!