Logos

λόγος

What the Word Actually Means

Greek for word, but in Yochanan's hands it reaches back for the Hebrew davar rather than forward into Greek philosophy. Read through the Tanakh, the prologue stops being metaphysics and becomes covenant.

Logos is the Greek word for word, and it arrives carrying a philosophical history. For the Stoics it was the rational principle ordering the cosmos. Centuries of Western commentary have read Yochanan's prologue through that lens, and the result is a Messiah introduced by way of Greek metaphysics.

Read it Hebraically and something else happens. Behind logos stands davar, the word that is also a matter, an event, a thing that does something. By the davar of YHWH the heavens were made (Psalm 33:6). God said, and it was (Genesis 1:3). The Aramaic Targums go further, speaking of the Memra, the Word of YHWH, as the divine agency through which HaShem creates, reveals, and binds Himself in covenant.

So "in the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos became flesh" is not a Greek philosophical claim dressed in Jewish clothing. It is a Hebrew claim wearing Greek vocabulary: the self-disclosing, covenant-making Word of HaShem, the very instruction David loved and hid in his heart, took on a body and walked.

What English Gives You

word, account, reason, discourse

The Original

λόγος

Where to Find It

John 1:1, John 1:14, Psalm 33:6, Genesis 1:3

Source Language

Greek

The Root

λέγω (lego, to speak)

How to Say It

logos

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