Talk:John 1-7 (Translated)

Truth or word

While I agree "truth" has too narrow a meaning, at first glance, it may serve the purpose well when explained properly. Sadly, many Christians believe that "word" refers to the Bible itself, rather than the deep concept of logos. Is there a better term than either? Message? DouglasA 22:12, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

I'm not a Greek scholar, but λογος, as I understand it, had an enormous range of implications in first century Greek, deeply rooted in a Greek culture which held all reality to be logical and ordered, and flowing from logic and order. While truth is being used now, I think we would be hard pressed to find a single word which encompasses all the meaning and implications of λογος. The question we must ask ourselves, is how much of the beauty of the first passage(s) of John are we willing sacrifice to give a completely accurate translation? If we don't care at all for the prose, perhaps John 1:1 might better read, "In the beginning was truth, reason, wisdom, and harmony, and all this was with God for this is what God is." A suggestion. JacobB 17:10, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Whoops, sorry for putting the comment Re 1:9 in the wrong place. Feel free to just delete it if you want. --MarkGall 17:28, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

The more foundational question that needs to be decided here is whether this is going to be a dynamic paraphrase, or a strict translation. In other words, are we attempting to relate what the Greek actually SAYS, or are we attempting to explain what we believe it MEANS? If this is a strict translation, then using "truth" in John 1:1 is not an option, as the word "aletheia" does not appear in that verse. Like it or not, we are stuck with legitimate translations of logos: "word, message, reason, communication, thought, etc." If, however, this is more of a dynamic paraphrase, then we are not restricted by what the Greek actually says, and are free to use whatever words we need to "explain" what the Greek means. In that case, we can describe the force and meaning of logos in our "translation." As it stands right now, this is something of an odd cross between a translation and a paraphrase. So we need a philosophy of translation that goes beyond "conservative" and guides us in how strict or loose we are allowed to be in this re-translation. That alone would settle many of these translation disputes. Mback

1:2

The entire purpose of verse two is emphasis, and some of that is lost in this translation. "All this" is not the best translation to relate the force of "houtos" in this construction. In verse 2 "houtos" is serving as an emphatic form of "autos," placing extra emphasis on "this SAME individual..." The purpose here is to emphasize the personal nature of the logos in verse one. "This same one," or even "this very same one" or something like that would be better. As it stands now, "all this" does exactly the opposite of what the Greek is attempting to relate: it DE-PERSONALIZES the logos from verse one, which is actually a more "liberal" approach to this verse. Mback 12:08, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

1:3

P66 has "outen" (nothing) in this verse while P75 has "oute hen" (not one thing), which is simply a more emphatic form of "outen." Our translation suggests we are going with the Greek in P75 (wise choice, given that p66 has 5 times as many copy errors as p75), and if that is the case, we should keep the emphatic nature of the words found there. "Not one thing" or "not one single thing" relates the emphatic force of the Greek much better than "no thing." The repetition of "ginomai" is also a function of emphasis, but, again, depending on how strict we are going to be, we probably can get away with dropping the last "that has been made" in this verse, as this translation does. Mback 12:21, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

1:4

I guess I need to know if we are doing a paraphrase or a strict translation, because this verse as it stands is a paraphrase. "He was the source of life" works in terms of relating what the Greek means (paraphrase), but that is NOT what the Greek actually says (strict translation). As a paraphrase, I don't see any reason why we can't do a better job of distinguishing between "dzoe" and "bios." How about something like, "He was the source of real life..." or "Real life was found only in Him, and ..."? Mback 12:43, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

1:5

While this verse definitely has many different modern translations, "snuff it out" is an idiom, not a defined "dictionary" word. That phrase gives this a strong "Message paraphrase" feel, as opposed to a more scholarly, exacting translation. Is that what we want? I have no problem with idioms, but in a strict translation, you usually limit the use of idioms in English to places where idioms occur in the Greek (which, admittedly, is fairly common). Mback 12:52, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

Interesting point. Thanks. I'll check out your other suggestions also.--Andy Schlafly 12:34, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

1:7

Note that the use of "houtos" in this verse is similar to how John uses it in verse two. John uses it as a more emphatic form of "autos," emphasizing that "this SAME John who was just mentioned in the previous sentence" is the one being referenced here. Mback 1:16, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

1:9

"Animates" is not a good translation of photidzo, but it is a marginally adequate paraphrase, if we are OK with the fact that it changes the flow of John's argument. Strictly speaking, in modern English "animates" references "giving life to" or "bringing to life." It could be argued that this is the effect of the light of God, making it a VERY loose paraphrase of what this verse is talking about, but it is a very poor word choice if the goal is a strict translation. The problem is that our translation takes the REVERSE meaning of verse four, which tells us that the real life He had within Him gave light to men. The current translation of this verse reverses that, and says the light from Him gives life. We could argue that this is still a true statement, but being a true statement, and being an accurate translation of the verse is not the same thing. Reversing the statement of verse four is NOT what the Greek is intending here. This verse is a follow up to the previous verses contrasting light with darkness, and photidzo specifically is "to enlighten, to bring into the light, to illuminate, to shine a light upon." The point of this verse is supposed to be that the true light brings us out of darkness, NOT that it gives us life. There is a difference between translating a verse into an English statement that just happens to be true, versus translating it into an English statement that actually relates what the verse SAYS, and is also true. Mback 1:55, 15 October 2009 (EDT)

2:1

Would 2:1 be a little clearer if it were changed to something along the lines of 'A few days later...'? I took 'third day' to mean either the third day of the week or, possibly, the 3rd day after 1:51.

Your suggestion is a good one, but I'm reluctant to remove information that is in the Greek. But certainly the reference to the third day could be clarified in some way for the reader, and I encourage you to do so by editing it.--Andy Schlafly 11:11, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

1:1 and 1:14

Using "Truth" for λογος in 1:1 but then "spirit" in 1:14 is not theologically sound. In the KJV, we have "the Word was God ... and the Word was made flesh" which indisputably places Jesus as being God. Changing from "Truth" to "spirit" breaks that link between the two and can mislead readers into a sub-Arian interpretation where Jesus is the son and messenger of God rather than being God Incarnate in human form.

John 2:1

Doesn't "the third day" mean "two days later" instead of "three days later" because of the custom of counting inclusively? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting#Inclusive_counting for details.

Your point is an excellent one, not because of your site, but because Christ rose on the "third day" (which was two days after Friday).--Andy Schlafly 22:08, 7 October 2009 (EDT)