Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel: 1:14

Let’s take a look at a few things from the Greek in John 1:14.  First, let’s look at my translation of verse 14.

14 Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.

14 And the Word became flesh and he pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the One and Only from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The first thing one will see is “and he pitched a tent among us”.  σκηνόω literally means “to pitch a tent”, but figuratively, it means “to live” as in “among others”.  Its cognate noun is σκηνή which means “tent”.

Another thing to look at is μονογενής.  The word formed from μόνος (only/along) and γένος (kind).  Together, they form something like “a one of a kind” or “a unique one”.  I’ve chosen to express μονογενής as “the One and Only”, which I think fits Jesus very well.  What is unfortunate, it that the translators of the KJV didn’t understand this word.  They thought that the last part of the word came from γεννάω which means “to become a parent of” or “beget”.  Thankfully, modern scholarship and more ancient witnesses of this word have been able to provide its proper meaning.  We will see this word again in a future blog.

Last of all, let’s introduce everyone to the preposition παρὰ.  Here, παρὰ (from) is pared with the genitive form πατρός (Father).  Why look at a preposition?  Well, I’ve noticed that a lot of comments are made on this preposition in order to back up one’s theology.  Everyone can’t be correct.  The most important thing to do is to investigate how John used it.  So, we are going look at it now and will touch on it as we find its use in John’s Gospel.

As I said, παρά is a Greek preposition, but has different meaning when combined with different inflected nouns or objects of the preposition.  With a genitive noun, it carries the meaning “from” as in “from a source”.  In this case, the Word is the One and Only from the Father.  That is, he went from the Father’s presence to mankind’s presence.  This will become quite clear from the context of John’s Gospel as we proceed.

With a dative object, παρά carries the sense of “in the presence of” or “with” or perhaps “beside”.  Of course, there are other nuances with the dative, but we have to see how John uses the preposition, not other writers of the NT.

With the accusative, παρά carries the sense of “along side of”.  For example: περιπατεῖν παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν (to walk along side of the sea).

As one can see, παρά always seems to have a sense of proximity when used literally.  It can also be used figuratively as Paul does so many times in his letters, but even then, it could still be within realm of “proximity”.

Now we are going to be fair in this.  We will look at all angles, but at the end of the day, context is king and is going to rule.

We will discuss “grace and truth” in the next blog when dealing with the Jewish law.