Gospel of John – Prelude

darroch2

May 15, 2022 at 4:39 pm #4477

Would like to occasionally comment upon this gospel which seems to me in alignment with Vedantic and Buddhist thought and indicates the message of earlier Christianity more succinctly than the synoptic gospels.

Firstly, I would like to say that I am not an academic or expert in this field as my writing will surely indicate. I have been interested in spiritual matters since university and have dabbled in acquiring knowledge of various religious beliefs along the way. I have a working knowledge of koine Greek from my Greek Classics courses and read this gospel in Greek, albeit, sometimes with great effort.

Anyway, to the topic in hand. What does the prologue of this gospel mean? Is it glorifying Jesus as the light of humankind? Or is there a deeper mystical element in its logical layout? My opinion is that the whole prologue is an abstraction, pointing to the mystical path to the “kingdom of heaven” as followed by the earlier Christians. John’ gospel was probably accepted into the canon by the later orthodox church due to the ambivalent nature of its wording and the ability of the earlier Orthodox Church to interpret it in a superficial, literal way to support the idea that Jesus was the particular son of God sent to eliminate the ever-present sins of humanity.

When however, the prelude is read in a non-prejudicial way, it is clear that the meaning can convey another message, closely tied to Vedantic and other mystical systems. In the beginning was the logos. Logos in Greek can have a variety of meanings such as: word, reason, the inward thought by which reason is expressed Liddell & Scott). “In the beginning” of every human’s life, awareness illumines its thoughts, emotions and external contacts. I think the awareness that illumines our being is exactly what the logos, a word in John’s prologue equated with “Zooe” and “Phoos” or life and light, respectively in Greek, is.

Where the questionable issue of the prophet Jesus enters into the Greek prologue is in 1:2, where a stand-alone demonstrative adjective can mean this man or can also refer back to the previous sentence to the Greek noun “logos”, which I think is correct. It also keeps the flow of abstract thought which continues to the end of this paragraph. Then if we continue reading until the end the meaning becomes clearer that the “Phoos”, light appears in the darkness and the darkness did not overtake/overcome it. In other words, awareness cannot be overcome by ignorance.

Finally, in John 1:3 where it states everything happened because of it, the Greek work “gignomai” can also mean to be born, to become, to be (Liddell & Scott). “Therefore everything became/happened/was born because of it (IE logos = light) and without it not one thing which has happened/become/was”. Again seems like it is an abstract statement about our inner divine awareness and not some specific individual sent by the divine!