"In the beginning was the word" (Jn 1:1a)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Feb 22 19:47:39 EST 2000
At 4:48 PM -0600 2/22/00, Steven Craig Miller wrote:
>For me, the issue is not whether or not the translation "word" can in some
>sense be seen as "acceptable," but rather which translation better reflects
>the original text's meaning. Perhaps you don't feel that the translations
>which I've offered better reflect the original text. That is fair enough,
>it seems to me that there is plenty of room for differences of opinion
>here. Unfortunately, I'm unclear as to why you feel that the term "word" is
>a better translation than what I've offered. Perhaps you would like clarify
>this?
For my part, I'd be perfectly happy to see "word" replaced by something
better to translate LOGOS in the Johannine Prologue, but I'm not convinced
that "utterance" serves that need or better reflects the intended sense of
the original. Of course, it is obvious that there is room for argument over
what the intended sense of the original was; whether rightly or wrongly, it
has generally been held that use of the word LOGOS in the Johannine
Prologue is akin to and probably derivative from the Hokhma/SOFIA
traditions of Hellenistic Judaism as seen in Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon,
and Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, and it has also been held that it bears a
relationship of some sort to the usage of LOGOS in Philo of Alexandria,
although that too is not definitively proven. I've argued here before
against those who insist that Jewish tradition alone governs usage of the
word in the Johannine Prologue that I personally think it's inconceivable
that usage of LOGOS in Heraclitus and the Stoic traditions plays absolutely
no role in the meaning(s) to be discerned in the Johannine LOGOS.
I'd be perfectly happy to let the transliterated Greek word LOGOS stand
wherever it appears in the text of the Johannine Prologue when the Greek is
translated into English. I think most first-time readers of the Johannine
Prologue in translation are driven to a commentary in any case, and I doubt
that compulsion ends with the first reading of the Prologue. At any rate, I
don't think any single English word can do justice to what 'appears' to be
implicit in the Greek LOGOS. While we may not agree with all the senses
that Goethe's Faust applies in the effort to convey LOGOS into German, some
of them do appear close to what may be implicit, as he proceeds from "word"
to "sense" to "power" to "act":
Geschrieben steht: "Im Anfang war das Wort!"
Hier stock' ich schon! Wer hilft mir weiter fort?
Ich kann das Wort so hoch ummöglich schätzen,
Ich muss es anders übersetzen,
Wenn ich vom Geiste recht erleuchtet bin.
Geschrieben steht: "Im Anfang war der Sinn,
Bedenke wohl die erste Zeile,
Dass deine Feder sich nicht übereile!
Ist es der Sinn, der alles wirkt und schafft?
Es sollte stehn: "Im Anfang war die Kraft!"
Doch, auch indem ich dieses niederschreibe,
Schon warnt mich was, dass ich dabei nicht bleibe.
Mir hilft der Geist! Auf einmal seh' ich Rat
Und schreibe gestrost: "Im Anfang war die Tat!" Faust I, 1224-1237
I don't like "utterance" because, although it certainly may apply to more
than a single 'vocable', it appears to me to be limited too strictly in
essence to spoken communication, and I'm pretty well convinced that LOGOS
always implies more than spoken communication in Greek (hRHMA comes closer
to "utterance" in that sense, I think). Although etymology may not
ultimately 'count' for much in 'accounting' for word usage, I have a notion
that LOGOS and LEGW are never really TOO-far removed from their original
sense of "tale/tally" and "tell" in terms of counting or
recounting--ticking off in succession the elements that belong to a
meaningful whole. I don't think I'd want to use "tale" or "tally" for the
Johannine LOGOS either, but I wouldn't object to something like "message"
or "communication"--because that's what I think the intended sense of LOGOS
in the Johannine prologue is. In fact, I've always rather liked J.B.
Phillips' "In the beginning God expressed himself"--but perhaps that
already goes over into interpretation.
In sum, I'm not hung up on "word" to translate LOGOS, but I'm far from
satisfied that "utterance" is an improvement.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4514 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/attachments/20000222/67d0e078/attachment.bin
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list