John 1:1

John 1:1 from the Ostromir Gospel, with John's Evangelist portrait, 1056 or 1057.

First page of John's Gospel from the Coronation Gospels, c. 10th century

John 1:1 is the first verse in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John. In the Douay–Rheims, King James, New International, and other versions of the Bible, the verse reads:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The phrase "the Word" (a translation of the Greek word "Logos") has been historically interpreted as referring to Jesus, as indicated in other verses later in the same chapter, and is identified as a name of Jesus the book of Revelation. This identification of Jesus as the Word features prominently in extant Christian writings following the composition of the gospel, c. 100. This verse and others throughout Johannine literature connect the Christian understanding of Jesus to the philosophical idea of the Logos and the Hebrew Wisdom literature. They also set the stage for later understanding development of Trinitarian theology early in the post-biblical era.

According to Matthew Henry (1662–1714) in his commentary, Jesus is called the "Word" in this opening verse because he was the Son of God sent to earth to reveal his Father's mind to the world. He asserts that a plain reading of the verse written by John the Evangelist should be understood as proof that Jesus is God; that Jesus has the same essence as God and existed with God the Father from the very beginning, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1 opens the larger section sometimes described as the "Prologue to John" John 1:1–1:18. The Prologue deals with Jesus, the "Word made flesh" who "dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

History

Irenaeus of Lyon

In the last quarter of the second century Irenaeus (c. 135-202), a student of John's disciple Polycarp, relates that the Apostle John wrote his gospel to refute the heresies current in Asia Minor, and particularly at Ephesus, where he was withstood by the Gnostic-Judaizer Cerinthus:

John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. All things, he says, were made by Him; therefore in all things this creation of ours is [included], for we cannot concede to these men that [the words] all things are spoken in reference to those within their Pleroma

According to Irenaeus, John speaks of Jesus as the Word—a name attributed to him some fifteen years prior in the Revelation—because,

...according to these men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour (Soter), who [they say] was produced from the joint contributions of all the Æons. For they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour, too, never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispensational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend into the Pleroma. Some, however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did become incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if anyone carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate, (sine carne) and impassible, as [they say] is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; while others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord's disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

In Irenaeus's theology, the Word (Logos) of John 1:1 is and always has been the Son, and is one God together with the Father, who is uncreated and has eternally co-existed with the Father from the beginning.

Tertullian of Carthage

Tertullian in the early third century writes:

If the number of the Trinity also offends you, as if it were not connected in the simple Unity, I ask you how it is possible for a Being who is merely and absolutely One and Singular, to speak in plural phrase, saying, "Let us make man in our image, and after our own likeness" . . . Now if He too is God, according to John, (who says,) "The Word was God," then you have two Beings — One that commands that the thing be made, and the Other that executes the order and creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another, I have already explained, on the ground of Personality, not of Substance — in the way of distinction, not of division. But although I must everywhere hold one only substance in three coherent and inseparable (Persons), yet I am bound to acknowledge, from the necessity of the case, that He who issues a command is different from Him who executes it.

And a little later, responding to accusations that Christians were preachers of two or three Gods, by the misconception that there is a division of the unity of the Trinity, he writes:

Well then, you reply, if He was God who spoke, and He was also God who created, at this rate, one God spoke and another created; (and thus) two Gods are declared. If you are so venturesome and harsh, reflect a while; and that you may think the better and more deliberately, listen to the psalm in which Two are described as God: "Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Your kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Your God, has anointed You" or "made You His Christ." Now, since He here speaks to God, and affirms that God is anointed by God, He must have affirmed that Two are God, by reason of the sceptre's royal power . . . That is a still grander statement which you will find expressly made in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." There was One who was, and there was another with whom He was . . . And although, when named apart, He is called God, He does not thereby constitute two Gods, but one; and that from the very circumstance that He is entitled to be called God, from His union with the Father.

Origen of Alexandria

Origen of Alexandria, a third century Christian scholar and theologian, theologizes over the use of the definite article in his Commentary on the Gospel of John. To Origen, the issue is not whether the article or absence thereof defines the Word as God or "a" god; his interest is rather in explaining how the Word is called God, and the prohibition against worshipping other gods is not violated:

We next notice John's use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God. Does the same difference which we observe between God with the article and God without it prevail also between the Logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the God who is over all is God with the article not without it, so the Logos is the source of that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence The Logos. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be God all but the name, or they deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other.

His conclusion is that the Word of God, by virtue of his union with God, is therefore God. A clearer and more succinct statement can be found his writings against Celsus, where after quoting John 10:30, "I and my Father are one," he proceeds to write, "We worship one God, the Father and the Son, therefore, as we have explained; and our argument against the worship of other gods still continues valid," as well as his writings on the first principles:

Seeing God the Father is invisible and inseparable from the Son . . . we do not say, as the heretics suppose, that some part of the substance of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things non-existent, i.e., beyond His own substance, so that there once was a time when He did not exist.

Translation and English Versions

John 1:1 in Translation

The Gospel of John begins with a Hymn to the Word which identifies Jesus as the Logos and the Logos as divine. The translation of last four words of John 1:1 (θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος) has been a particular topic of debate in Western Christianity. This debate mostly centers over the usage of the article ὁ within the clause, where some have argued that the absence of the article before θεὸς, "God," makes it indefinite and should therefore result in the translation, "and the Word was a god". This translation can be found in the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation, and among English translations is first noted in Unitarian Thomas Belsham's 1808 revision of William Newcome's translation. Others, ignoring the function of the article altogether, have proposed the translation, "and God was the Word." However, neither translation accurately reflects the role of the article in this type of Greek construction. In this construct, involving an equative verb as well as a predicate nominative in the emphatic position, the article serves to distinguish subject ("the Word") from the predicate ("God"). In such a construction, the predicate, being in the emphatic position, is not to be considered indefinite. As E.C. Colwell observes, "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the verb . . . The absence of the article does not make the predicate indefinite or qualitative when it precedes the verb."

Therefore by far the most common English translation is, "the Word was God," though even more emphatic translations such as "the Word was God Himself" (Amplified Bible) or "the Word ... was truly God" (Contemporary English Version) also exist. Related translations have also been suggested, such as "what God was the Word also was."

Although "Word" is the most common translation of the noun Logos, other less accepted translations have been used, which have more or less fallen by the grammatical wayside as understanding of the Greek language has increased in the Western world. Gordon Clark (1902–1985), for instance, a Calvinist theologian and expert on pre-Socratic philosophy, famously translated Logos as "Logic": "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God." He meant to imply by this translation that the laws of logic were derived from God and formed part of Creation, and were therefore not a secular principle imposed on the Christian world view.

Some other translations, such as An American Translation (1935) and Moffatt, New Translation, render "the Word was divine."

The question of how to translate Logos is also treated in Goethe's Faust, with lead character Heinrich Faust finally opting for die Tat, ("deed/action"). This interpretation owes itself to the Hebrew דָּבָר (Dabhar), which not only means "word," but can also be understood as a deed or thing accomplished: that is, "the word is the highest and noblest function of man and is, for that reason, identical with his action. 'Word' and 'Deed' are thus not two different meanings of Dabhar, but the 'deed' is the consequence of the basic meaning inhering in Dabhar."

Examination of Colwell's Rule in John 1:1

The question has been raised as to whether Colwell's rule helps in interpreting John 1:1. It has been suggested that Colwell's rule has been misapplied as its converse, as though it implied definiteness. Rodney J. Decker has stated, "it has often been misused by well-intentioned defenders of the deity of Christ." Daniel B. Wallace argues that the use of the anarthrous theos (the lack of the definite article before the second theos) is due to its use as a qualitative noun, describing the nature or essence of the Word, not due to Colwell's rule. Wallace however has misstated the converse of Colwell's Rule as actual the rule, saying, "the rule states that definiteness is determined or indicated by the context, not by the grammar." However, Colwell himself is clear on this matter in his statement of the rule, writing:

The opening verse of John’s Gospel contains one of the many passages where this rule suggests the translation of a predicate as a definite noun. Καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος [Kaì theòs ên ho lógos] looks much more like "And the Word was God" than "And the Word was divine" when viewed with reference to this rule. The absence of the article does not make the predicate indefinite or qualitative when it precedes the verb, it is indefinite in this position only when the context demands it. The context makes no such demand in the Gospel of John, for this statement cannot be regarded as strange in the prologue of the gospel which reaches its climax in the confession of Thomas [Footnote: John 20,28]."

In other words, according to Colwell himself the rule indeed applies to John 1:1, and an anarthrous pre-verbal predicate nominative is usually definite, and is only indefinite when acted upon by exceptional linguistic or contextual features.

Common Objections

The Greek article is often translated the, which is the English definite article, but it can have a range of meanings that can be quite different from those found in English, and require context to interpret. Ancient Greek does not have an indefinite article like the English word a, and nominatives without articles also have a range of meanings that require context to interpret. While some have insisted that θεὸς without the article in John 1:1 should mean "a god" vs. "God", and without appealing to Colwell's Rule (above), it is to be noted that the Hebrew words El, HaElohim and Yahweh (all referring to God) are rendered as anarthrous theos in the Septuagint at Nahum 1:2, Isaiah 37:16, 41:4, Jeremiah 23:23 and Ezekiel 45:9 among many other locations.

Moreover, in the Gospel of John the anarthrous θεὸς (theos) is used to refer to God in locations including John 1:18a (θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε, "no one has seen God at any time"), John 8:54 (ὅτι θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν, "that he is your God") and John 13:3 (ὅτι ἀπὸ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν, "that he proceeded forth form God"). In each of these instances theos is again anarthrous and used in a definite sense; other instances in the New Testament can be found in Romans 8:33, 2 Corinthians 5:19, 6:16 and Hebrews 11:16. As Wallace observes, "The function of the article is not primarily to make something definite that would otherwise be indefinite. It does not primarily 'definitize.' There are at least ten ways in which a noun in Greek can be definite without the article." Therefore, anarthrous or arthrous constructions by themselves, without context and proper application of grammar, cannot determine how to render it into a target language.

The rendering as "a god" is justified by some non-Trinitarians by comparing it with the grammatical construction of Acts 28:6, "The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god."Ac. 28:6 NIV. This is an infinitive construction involving a double accusative (ἔλεγον αὐτὸν εἶναι θεόν), in which the accusative pronoun serves as a subject of the infinitive, and therefore does not need to be distinguished by the article. Additionally, the predicate follows the verb and is anarthrous, meaning that that it is not definite according to Colwell's rule. As Wallace notes, when the order is object-complement, "the object will normally fall in the definite range, while the complement will tend toward the qualitative-indefinite range," and he lists Acts 28:6 as one example of this construction. There is nothing contextually that leads one to believe the islanders believed Paul was God par excellence, nor is there any reason contextually to believe that they had a certain god in mind.

Another objection is that the Sahidic New Testament contains an indefinite article before "God," and owing to the fact that Coptic scholar George Horner renders the Sahidic Coptic of John 1:1c as "and [a] God was the word," while his apparatus mentions, "Square brackets imply words used by the Coptic and not required by the English". The word is bracketed because the Sahidic in certain contexts uses the indefinite article differently than English. In the October 2011 Journal of Theological Studies, Brian J. Wright and Tim Ricchuiti demonstrate that the indefinite article in the Coptic translation, of John 1:1, has a qualitative meaning. Many such occurrences for qualitative nouns are identified in the Coptic New Testament, including 1 John 1:5 and 1 John 4:8. Moreover, the indefinite article is used to refer to God in Deuteronomy 4:31 and Malachi 2:10.

John 1:1 in English versions

In about the year 1380, English Theologian John Wycliffe became the first to translate the bible from Latin into Old English. For John 1:1, he translates, In the bigynnyng was the word, and the word was at God, and God was the word.

Wycliffe was followed in 1525 by the scholar William Tyndale who, translating from the original Greek, renders the passage, In the beginnynge was the worde and the worde was with God: and the worde was God, presenting the text as it still is most commonly received to this day:

• 1525:"In the beginnynge was the worde and the worde was with God: and the worde was God." –Tyndale's Bible (translated from the Textus Receptus)
• 1557:"In the beginning was the Worde, and the Worde was with God, and that Worde was God." – Geneva Bible
• 1568: "In the begynnyng was the Worde, & the Worde was with God: and that Worde was God." – Bishop's Bible
• 1611: "In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, and the Word was God." – Authorized Version (King James Bible)
• 1769: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." – King James Bible, 1769 revision
• The meaning has remained the same to this day in the vast majority of modern English translations, including but not limited to the ASV, BRG, CSB, CEB, CJB, CEV, DARBY, DLNT, DRA, ERV, EHV, ESV, EXB, GNV, GW, GNT, HCSB, ICB, ISV, JUB, KJV, AKJV, KJ21, LEB, TLB, MEV, MOUNCE, NOG, NABRE, NASB, NCV, NET, NIRV, NIV, NIVUK, NKJV, NLT, NMB, NRSV, NRSVA, NRSVACE, NRSVCE, NTE, RSV, RSVCE, TLV, WEB, WE, WYC, YLT.

The balance of current scholarship, the rules of Greek grammar, as well as its usage in Greek Patristic citations almost universally favors this rendering as being the correct one.

Unitarian, Universalist, and Non-Trinitarian Translations

Beginning with the rise of Unitarianism in England following the establishment of the first Unitarian Church in London, the Essex Street Chapel, a wave of translations was produced instead distinguishing the Word as "a god", beginning with Unitarian Minister Thomas Belsham, who presided over the Essex Street Chapel from 1805 until his death in 1829:

• 1808: "and the Word was a god" – Unitarian Minister Thomas Belsham, Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London.
• 1822: "and the Word was a god" – Former Universalist turned pantheist and freethinker, Abner Kneeland, The New Testament in Greek and English
• 1829: "and the Word was a god" – John Samuel Thompson, pastor of the First Universalist Society in Charleston, Massachusetts, The Monotessaron.
• 1864:"In the Beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." Right hand translation; left hand interlinear, "and a god was the word." – Benjamin Wilson, co-founder of the non-trinitarian Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith, Emphatic Diaglott.
• 1863: "and the Word was a god" – Non-trinitarian Frederick Parker, under the pseudonym Herman Heinfetter, A Literal Translation of the New Testament.
• 1911: "In the beginning was being the word, and the word was being with God, and [a] God was the Word" – G.W. Horner, The Coptic Version of the N.T. The indefinite article is bracketed because in the Sahidic dialect, the indefinite article is used also for qualitative references. The indefinite article is also used to refer to God in Deuteronomy 4:31 and Malachi 2:10.
• 1950: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god" - Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses), New World Translation
• 1958: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God" – The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Anointed (James L. Tomanek, 1958)

Biblical scholar, translator and textual critic Bruce M. Metzger states, regarding this translation ("and the Word was a god"), that "as a matter of solid fact" such a rendering is a mistranslation that "overlooks entirely an established rule of Greek grammar [i.e., Colwell's Rule] which necessitates the rendering '...and the Word was God.'"

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormonism) in 1867 does not translate the passage, but rather puts in his own words what he believes it was intended to signify: "In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God" (The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (Morman))

Adjectival, Emphatic and Nuance-Based Translations

Some English translations have attempted to translate the passage adjectivally:

• 1885: "and a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word" – Robert Young, alternate translation in his Concise Commentary on The Holy Bible. In his Revised Literal Translation (YLT) he translates, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"
• 1935: "In the beginning the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was divine" – The Bible: An American Translation, by John M. P. Smith and Edgar J. Goodspeed, Chicago
• 1955: "so the Word was divine" – The Authentic New Testament, by Hugh J. Schonfield, Aberdeen.

According to Metzger, "As regards Jn1¹, Colwell's research casts the most serious doubts on the correctness of such translations as 'and the Logos was divine' (Moffatt, Strachan), and 'the Word was divine' (Goodspeed), and (worst of all) 'and the Word was a god'".

Other translators have attempted to reflect perceived nuances within the passages, or to be emphatic in translations:

• 1956: "In the beginning the Word was existing. And the Word was in fellowship with God the Father. And the Word was as to His essence absolute deity" – The Wuest Expanded Translation
• 1966, 2001: "...and he was the same as God" – The Good News Bible
• 1979:"'the word was God.' Or, more literally, 'God was the word.'" – The Four Gospels and the Revelation (R. Lattimore, 1979)
• 1987"In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself." Amplified Bible
• 1993: "The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one." — The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson.

• Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.The Voice was and is God. Bereshis (in the Beginning) was the Dvar Hashem [YESHAYAH 55:11; BERESHIS 1:3], and the Dvar Hashem was agav (along with, etzel, Mishle 8:30;30:4) Hashem, and the Dvar Hashem was nothing less, by nature, than Elohim! [Psa 56:11(10); Yn 17:5; Rev. 19:13 i.e., the Ma’amar Memra]" - Orthodox Jewish Bible
• In the very beginning the Living Expression was already there. And the Living Expression was with God, yet fully God. — The Passion Translation

• 1962, 1979: "'the word was God.' Or, more literally, 'God was the word.'" – The Four Gospels and the Revelation (R. Lattimore, 1979)
• 1970, 1989: "...and what God was, the Word was" – The Revised English Bible
• 2017: “In the origin there was the Logos, and the Logos was present with GOD, and the Logos was god;” - The New Testament: A Translation, by David Bentley Hart.

Biblical parallels

"In the beginning (archē) was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" may be compared with:

• Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (NKJV) The opening words of the Old Testament are also "In the beginning". Theologian Charles Ellicott writes:

"The reference to the opening words of the Old Testament is obvious, and is the more striking when we remember that a Jew would constantly speak of and quote from the book of Genesis as "Berēshîth" ("in the beginning"). It is quite in harmony with the Hebrew tone of this Gospel to do so, and it can hardly be that St. John wrote his Berēshîth without having that of Moses present to his mind, and without being guided by its meaning.

• Mark 1:1, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." (NASB)
• Luke 1:2, "just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (logos) delivered them to us." (NKJV). David L. Jeffrey, Director of Manuscript Research in Scripture and Tradition at Baylor University, writes,

"Thus St. Luke makes little distinction between preaching the word and preaching Jesus . . . and in his reference to 'eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word' (Luke 1:2) he is certainly speaking of the person as well as the words and actions of Jesus."

• 1 John 1:1, "What was from the beginning (archē), what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word (logos) of Life".
• Colossians 1:15–18, "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible . . . all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning (archē)" (KJV)
• Hebrews 1:8, 10, "But to the Son [He says]: 'Your throne, O God, [is] forever and ever...' And: 'You, LORD, in the beginning (archē) laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.'" (NKJV)

Logos

Main article: Logos (Christianity)

The Greek word λόγος or logos is a word with various meanings. It is often translated into English as "Word" but can also mean thought, speech, account, meaning, reason, proportion, principle, standard, or logic, among other things. It has varied use in the fields of philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion. In the New Testament, "The Word (Logos) of God" is a name attributed to Jesus.

Christology

Main article: Christology

Of the canonical gospels, John has the highest explicit Christology. Here Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the True Vine, etc. In 1:1, John identifies Jesus as the Logos, that which made the existence of the created world possible.

In mainstream Christian understanding of John's Christology, the conception that Jesus Christ is the Logos has been important in establishing the doctrine of Jesus' divinity, as well as that of the Trinity, as set forth in the Chalcedonian Definition.

The debate about the nature of Christ from the first century through the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE must be understood in light of the pervasive world view of Platonic dualism. Platonism is normally divided into four periods: Old Academy (347-267 BCE), New Academy (267-80 BCE), Middle Platonism (80 BCE-250 CE), and Neoplatonism (250 CE through the Reformation).

Some scholars of the Bible have suggested that John made creative use of double meaning in the word Logos to communicate to both Jews, who were familiar with the Wisdom tradition in Judaism, and Hellenic polytheism, especially followers of Philo, often called Hellenistic Judaism. Each of these two groups had its own history associated with the concept of the Logos, and each could understand John's use of the term from one or both of those contexts. Especially for the Hellenists, however, John turns the concept of the Logos on its head when he claimed "the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

Gordon Clark translated Logos as "Logic" in the opening verses of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God." He meant to imply by this translation that the laws of logic were contained in the Bible itself and were therefore not a secular principle imposed on the Christian worldview.

Following Jesuit translations of the 18th century, most modern Bible translations into Chinese use the word "Tao" in John 1:1 to translate "Logos", following the use as "Idea" in Taoism.

Alternative views

In Unitarianism there are other interpretations of John 1:1. In the commentaries on John 1 by Lelio Sozzini (Zurich, c.1559) and his nephew Fausto Sozzini (Lyons, c.1562) the "word" being "made flesh" is taken as a reference to the virgin birth, and not to the personal pre-existence of Christ. The passages in the New Testament referring to the Logos were explained by Fausto Sozzini as relating to the foreknown work of Christ as the author of the new creation, not as relating to the "old" Genesis creation. Fausto Sozzini aimed to "completely de-Platonize" the reading of John 1:1-15.