light and life (part two)

Most languages and cultures use the image of light in metaphors built into the language, and most philosophies (whether religion or ideology) use it too.  In English we use "enlightenment", in both technical and non-technical senses, when we are referring to a movement from superstition to actual understanding, or for new attitudes emerging from recognition of new information.  The same word is used in Buddhism and many new age religions to describe the major spiritual change offered to the diligent disciple.  More mundane examples: it dawned on me = I realised, we often cartoon a idea as a light bulb.


So John now puts the light in a context: darkness, of course.  The whole point of light is that it shines in the darkness and stops it being dark.
John never tells us what the light means, and there are all sorts of pronouncements as to what precisely he intends.  But, if someone uses an image it is usually because the idea is too rich for more precise ways of describing it.  We are not meant to define the light; at this point we are meant to get a picture inside us that will keep popping up to make us wonder about this person who will be the subject of the narrative.  In a sense, the more the image bounces around in our heads creating resonances, the better for John's purpose.  This is poetry, not systematic analysis.

But, that doesn't mean that John doesn't tell us anything about the light.  It doesn't mean that I can take the image and turn it to my own purposes. 

John elaborates by extending the image:  "The light shines in the darkness ..."  It is obvious in a silly way, but this is important.  Light is not darkness, it dissapates darkness.  This goes further in that the darkness has not overcome/understood the light.  In most translations one of these two words occurs in the text, and the other in a footnote, because the Greek word is ambiguous; it means both. We shouldn't try to work out which is the meaning here, but should discover the vitality of both meanings held together.  (We have two English words that give a similar feel: comprehend - to understand or to surround and limit; grasp - to understand or to hold onto and not let go.)  Darkness is helpless with respect to light.  It has no hold on light, it can't limit light, it can't stop light, it can't even 'understand' light.  John shows us that we are not talking about two equal entities or qualities, a sort of ying and yang that are both necessary and must be balanced, held together, and even mixed.  Darkness is not light, and ultimately cannot co-exist with it. 

Now we have this explosive graphic idea in our minds, John breaks off for his little piece of story ...

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

 

what's in a word?

"'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all." ""
— Lewis Carroll (Through The Looking Glass) 

John uses words, not merely lots of words (25 pages of them in my Bible), but words used to invite us into worlds beyond words.  He uses them, not just to tell his story engagingly, but to place his account of what he experienced in a symbolic world (Luke Timothy Johnson's phrase in The Writings of the New Testament) which will enable his readers to connect themselves with the multifaceted consequence of what happened.

The first word to strike us is 'Word'; it occurs three times in the the three simple phrases of the first sentence of John.  That is a lot.  John is in the habit of reusing significant conceptual words at intervals throughout his narrative, but this very first one he now abandons except for one repeat in verse 14.

So, what does this 'Word' mean; why does John use it?
It was a word in current use at the time John wrote; a  definitely 'in' word.  Word was used by several philosophical and spiritual groups to convey concepts which were not identical, but were all groping after the arcane and intangible 'thing' behind and above.
For a long time Greek culture had had a special appreciation for reason; whole palces and jobs in society were devoted to reasoning.  But around the time of John, educated Greek people were talking about The Word as an almost personalised reason which was the greater 'thing' in the universe giving meaning and making it all work; this was a philosophical replacement for the pantheon of gods which people had begun to find intellectually dissatisfying.
In Hebrew thought, the idea of The Word (of God) was in any case quite near the surface of religious philosophy, since God speaking and acting were almost interchangeable; in fact creation in Genesis 1 all happens through speech.  However, near the time of John, at least one of the more passionate groups within the Jewish community had begun to use The Word with a sense of more agency, again almost personalising it.

John comes along and plunders the philosphical context in which he writes.  He wants to connect with his readers; he wants to grab our interest with a basis which will give him a foundation to work from.  Everyone had heard this Word used; probably not many of them had any clear idea what they or anyone else meant by it.  So John starts to infuse it with new meaning and new mystery in his careful, clever first few sentences.

The Word ... John's description
John takes us right back to the beginning; he doesn't define it, since he is not embarking on a scientific or even philoshophical treatise.  He just wants us to get the picture that at the start, before anything else, The Word existed.  Then, with a thought for those of his readers who come from a background which includes the monotheistic (one single God only) idea of God, John places the Word with God; because of course all these people would know that in the beginning God ...  But of course this is not enough as a description of the relationship between the Word and God; John wants to clarify that the Word is not another entity alongside God, that is not at all what he wants to say.  So he tells us that the Word was God, they are one and the same, but what he has already said prepares us for some kind of undefined complexity.

Now, to get on with exploring the Word, John reiterates both the 'beginningness' and the intensity of relationship to God which characterise the Word.  He goes on to the Word's presence in the act of the creation of everything.  For his Jewish readers this further identifies him with God, who they know as the creator of all things; for his other readers this gives them further information about what it means to talk about God.  Then, to make quite certain we have all got the point, he tells us that nothing that exists came about without the Word.  He is not just one among others, before there was anything, there was only him.

None of this defines the Word, or God, or the relationship of the Word with God.  But somehow, in these incredibly compact sentences, John plants a seed of comprehension for us.  Even more, he prepares us to be amazed; he opens us to journey through paradox and wonder.

cosmic prologue

Before he even gets to the introduction, John gives us a startling glance at the cosmic origins and implications of the narrative which we are about to read.    

John 1:1-18
He starts with pre-space and non-time; he uses multidimensional images; he moves through the enitire world of being human; and he imagines seeing God.  But in this telescopic whirlwind of transcendence, John places two small ellipses (like this, in brackets, only Greek doesn't have brackets) which prepare us as readers for the sudden entry into tangible history which will happen in the next sentence.

It really is a glance - less than half a page when the rest of his account is 25 pages.  At the end of his account, there is a corresponding epilogue after the conclusion.  It is even more brief, at only one sentence!

It is almost as if John wants us to be ready to assess his narrative in the cosmic context, but he wants Jesus' life to speak for him.  So he primes us, but then never comes back to force the issue.

There are five short sub-paragraphs:
1:1-3      The Word
1:4-9      The Light (ellipsis 1:6-8 John the Witness)
1:10-13  Receiving
1:14-17  Grace and Truth (ellipsis 1:15 The Witness of John)
1:18       Revealing God

So this poetic prologue is gigantic in scope, and quite monstrous in significance.  We'll take a look at it section by section before we allow John to gently place us into less bewildering surroundings, into the world of everyday people.