97
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 70:
Line 70: +
Talk:John 1-7 (Translated) (view source)
Revision as of 04:30, October 24, 2009
, 04:30, October 24, 2009→Truth or word: I disagree that living word, log, or truth are appropriate
:::By using three different terms for λογος, repetition is avoided and the meaning is more completely conveyed. This also comports with the redefinition of λογος in John 17:17.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:56, 23 October 2009 (EDT)
:::By using three different terms for λογος, repetition is avoided and the meaning is more completely conveyed. This also comports with the redefinition of λογος in John 17:17.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:56, 23 October 2009 (EDT)
::::I respect your interest in improving this verse, but there are several reasons I do not think it is in our interest to attempt to improve on the KJV translation. First, the verse has become idiomatic in the English language. It's a pure classic, and it very much adequately conveys the idea of logos and provides a rich use of logos in the verse. Second, attempting to avoid repetition in a verse that uses the same word in the same sense (as I read it in Greek) is wrong. Logos simply does not convincingly translate to logic, living word, or truth. There is no possessive to the object of was in the second stanza. It's not in the Greek. Logos does not translate to living word either - it means literally assertion, gesture, or statement. Neither does logos translate to truth - it only refers to the product of the power of speech, resolution, conditioning, or commanding and does not editorialize the significance of the message. So I think the best translation is as the KJV found it because it leaves the English speaking reader with a richness inherent in the ambiguity of the meaning of logos, which is inherent in that word in English, and conveys the poetry and whatever the poetic conceit is (is it almost like alliteration but when you use the same word multiple times?) in the Greek. The beauty of the use of logos in this verse is that it conveys something entirely different than something as simple as truth, living word, or logic. God literally made the motivating gesture of the universe. Thus, in the beginning was that which always was and always will be - it is and was God's gesture of creation. It was with God. It was God. God is the beginning and the end. It's elementary. [[User:Cambrian|Cambrian]] 00:30, 24 October 2009 (EDT)
== 1:2 ==
== 1:2 ==