The Jesus Question

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”  -John 1:1, 14

In the opening of his Gospel, John refers to Jesus using the Greek term “Logos.”  English Bible translators have rendered that loaded term as “Word”; unfortunately, as is true in any literary translation, much meaning is lost, as “Logos” carries with it many connotations—and indeed, an entire philosophical framework—that “Word” does not.  In the ancient world, the term “Logos” didn’t really have a fixed definition, since philosophers were continually reinterpreting it, readapting it, to give it renewed meaning (among them Heraclitus, Aristotle, the Stoics, Philo, and, in the third century A.D., Plotinus).  In most schools of Greek philosophy, though, the term was used to designate the underlying principle of the universe, one that was rational, intelligent, and vivifying.  Some loose synonyms for Logos might be Mind, Power, Cause, Act, Ground, Reason, or Structure, but no one word adequately sums up the fullness of the term.  Continue reading →