A Christmas editorial about The Word and its wisdom

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The rest of the Gospel quickly and abundantly makes clear that the “Word” is Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians revere as their savior, the Christ. Christians cherish and understand the poetry in the passage, and they understand its deep significance. On the simplest level, the double meaning of “The Word” is obvious: Jesus himself is the “expression” of God made manifest, the incarnation of God’s thought and purpose.

Yet, and this observation is hardly new or revelatory, but it is still important, the original word “logos” in Greek, from which “the word” is translated, contains multiple connotations. It is in those connotations and in the particular context where they were written that the universality of at least part of the message can be discerned.

The two most important other meanings or connotations of “logos” are, first, something in the realm between “reason” and “wisdom” and, second, something involved in creative order, as in a good thought put into factual existence.

The physical author of the Gospel, whether it was the apostle John or a close associate writing in his name, almost surely spoke primarily in an Aramaic language rather than Greek. Yet the Gospel was written in Greek, and the broader philosophical concepts inherent in the Greek word “logos” were, even then, of largely Greek origin (although they also were somewhat consonant with Hebrew traditions). The reason the Gospel’s author wrote in Greek was that Greek was the most common language at the time in the eastern half of the Roman empire…. [The full editorial is here.]