John chapter 1 might not actually mean what a lot of mainstream Christianity claims it means.
I have a linguistics degree, and my language emphasis was Ancient Greek – the same language that the New Testament was originally written in. I’ve found that exploring the original language of the Bible can benefit us as a missionaries and as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The Bible chapter that people brought up to me the most on my mission was John 1, and they claimed that this chapter “proves” the Trinity theology. So, when I came home and learned Greek, I wrote an essay on its original meaning for a school project.
The most prominent verses are verse 1, read “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” and verse 14, read “The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
People use this to “prove” that Jesus and God are one being because, in verse 1, the “word” was God, and, in verse 14, the “word became flesh” – a clear reference to Jesus Christ. The focal point of this line of reasoning is the word “the word”.
The original text says “logos”, which is translated to “word”. The funny thing about logos is that it actually has a TON of meanings, and when I was learning Greek, I used it mostly to mean “speech”, as in “So and so gave a speech to the people”. But, one of the earliest uses of logos, centuries before Christ was born, was from the philosopher Heraclitus, who used this word to describe the rational structure of the universe.
Now, something important to understand about John the apostle is that he is widely known as the most poetic writer in the New Testament. If you look up “which new testament author was the most poetic?”, the overwhelming answer is John.
So, a poetically-inclined author using a poetic structure may not be realistically taken so literally, and instead we might understand the verses to mean something to the effect of “In the beginning was the rational structure of the universe, and this rational structure was with God, and this rational structure was God.” As in, God is the most rational structure in the universe.
Then, 14 verses later, “the rational structure became flesh and lived among us”, which, when interpreted poetically instead of literally, can be theologically tied to the motivations behind Christ’s birth and atonement.
John’s original audience may have understood from these verses that God, a being of reason and rational thinking, wanted to provide a way to return back to Him despite our sins. This logical thinking was manifest in the birth of Jesus Christ, who overcame that obstacle.
Comment what you think about this new way of looking at John 1.
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