light and life (part one)

In this next part of John's prologue (before-word) we get introduced to more of his abstract style, his unique words and his creative imagery.

John 1:4-9
John loves to use convolution in the way he organises the material he is presenting.  Not for him the linear logical progression or the chronological narative movement.  Here we see this in the way he uses an elipsis of thought; that is, the main thing he is telling us is interupted by an aside which complements it.
The main part is abstract cosmic/global imagery which tells us more about the One he is introducing. (verses 4,5&9)  The secondary part introduces us to John (the Baptiser) and is almost narrative.  (verses 6-8)
We will see this technique again in the fourth section of the prologue, and then several times as we explore the main narative flow of John.

As John continues his masterful manipulation of words (see previous post) here, we are introduced also to another of his quirks.  There are a number of words which are unevenly but repeatedly sprinkled though his story; these words partly work as connectors to carry us through the narative.  However they also serve to carry meaning from one section to another gradually interlinking disparate events to create, possibly without his readers even realising it, the abstract picture he wishes to leave us with.

The Life, The Light
The two words which John uses here are "life" and "light", ad we will encounter both of these again in key moments in John's record.  He is still telling us about "the Word", but he never uses that appelation again, except for once in the fourth section of the prologue.  From now on, until we are well into the introductory stories, this person is mainly refered to by pronouns.

"In him was life..." John has already told us that nothing was created without him, but now he gets more intense; not only did he make all 'stuff', but life (so much more than mere matter, as we all experience, even as we try to make it in the laboratory) was in him.  He didn't just make it, that was 'all things'; he has life or perhaps in a manner of speaking is life (as he himself will say later).  However it is phrased, John is clear that life is initimately connected with this person.  Later, as he repeatedly uses the word, we will discover his plan to invest this idea with a deeper and richer meaning than we normally afford it.  But even here, in identifying 'that life' as 'the light of all people', John gives us a clue that there is more involved than we might expect.  For anyone familiar with Genesis, already recalled by the first phrase of John's writing, there could be a connection set up with Genesis 2 which refers to God beathing the 'breath of life' into the nostrils of the person he had formed.

Now we are introduced (this is after all the prologue, and it is so carefully crafted that every sentence has something new in it) to yet another word: "light".  This word will resonate though the rest of John's work (and his other works as well) as much or more than the word "life".  Light is metaphorical and is identified with 'that life'.
Of course, for readers familiar with the Jewish Scriptures and the words 'in the beginning' still in their minds, the light recalls the first recorded command of God in Genesis 1:  "Let there be light."  In identifying light with life John moves into the symbolic world. And now for the first time he introduces people because this life, his life, is the light of all people (see next post).  So now we know that we are talking in philosophical pictures.

 ... to be continued