Language Learning Mom – A mom sharing her language learning experiences

John 1:1

Let’s do a whole verse for fun!  We’ll keep it simple.

John 1:1 En arche en ho Logos, kai ho Logos en pros ton Theon, kai Theos en ho Logos.

I’m underlining ‘en’ to signify that there should be a line over the e.  I don’t know how to do this yet.  The first En and the other ens use a different Greek letter for e.  Epsilon vs. eta.

We’ve covered

arche: beginning

logos: word

theos: god  (theon is a form of theos)

Other words in this verse:

en: in

en: was

ho: the

kai: and

pros: with

ton: the

So, let’s start:

En arche en ho Logos: In (the) beginning was the Word

kai ho Logos en pros ton Theon: and the Word was with (the) God

kai Theos en ho Logos: and God was the Word

Combining these we have:

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

Most translations do add in the ‘the’ before beginning, take out the ‘the’ before the first ‘God’, and switch it around to ‘the Word was God’.

Now you can say that you can translate one verse in the New Testament.  But wait!  How about two.

John 1:2 Houtos en en arche pros ton Theon.

Houtos is he.

So, we have:

He was in (the) beginning with (the) God.  As before, most translations add the first ‘the’ and take out the second ‘the’.

Some translations say: He was in the beginning with God.

Some switch it to: He was with God in the beginning.

Now wasn’t that fun!

Gwendolyn Culbertson

Sharing Ancient Greek words and their use in the New Testament.

2 comments

  1. CAROLYN PEREZ says:

    Isn’t this where Jehovah’s Witnesses have inserted a word, an indefinite article, to say “…the WORD was ‘a’ god.” to “prove” Jesus was a seperate god? I don’t see that anywhere here! Yay! Now I can translate this “all by myself!” 😉 Thanks!

    1. Gwendolyn Culbertson says:

      I looked it up and I believe you’re right. What a difference one little word can make.

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