BibleProject - In the Beginning – John 1

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

The apostle John is the most poetic of the Gospel storytellers, but what is he really communicating with his beautiful, imagery-laden language? Join Tim, Jon, and Carissa for a closer look at John 1 and discover how John incorporates elements of the Genesis and Exodus narratives to form a portrait of how God responds to rebellious people.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0-13:15)Part two (13:15-24:45)Part three (24:45-37:30)Part four (37:30-48:00)Part five (48:00-54:00)Part six (54:00-1:01:17)Referenced ResourcesDavid Andrew Teeter, Hebrew Bible scholarWilliam Arthur Tooman, Hebrew Bible scholarGod Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, Mary L. ColoeJohn (Word Biblical Commentary Volume 36), George R. Beasley-MurrayThe Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook, C. T. R. HaywardInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Day and Night” by Aiguille“Movement” by FeltyShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

The Bible has four biographies of Jesus, who call them gospels, and they all begin in a unique way. The gospel, according to Matthew Matthew begins with a genealogy that connects Jesus' birth all the way to Abraham. The Gospel according to Mark, it begins right in the action with Jesus being baptized. The Gospel according to Luke begins with a note. From Luke about why he wrote the biography and how he went about writing it.

And of all the introductions, the gospel according to John is the most unique. John begins with a highly designed artistic poem that connects Jesus to the story of the Hebrew Bible and to Yahweh himself. John's prologue is personal, poetic, and it's powerful. I mean like John knew and loved this guy who got killed and then who he somehow had this crazy encounters with and saw the empty tomb and it just blew the categories for everything. And now he's trying to share with us the most important thing he could tell us before telling the story of Jesus.

And this is it. The prologue introduces Jesus this way. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Which sounds, depending on your view of reality, it could sound like a just a craft contradiction and logic. How could something be with something and also that thing? If it's with it, it's separate from it. To which John, I think we just say I'm inviting you into a different view of reality.

I'm John Collins. Welcome to Bible Project Podcast. Today, I talk with Dr. Tim Mackey and Dr. Chris Aquinn. And together, we look at the literary design of the prologue to the Gospel according to John. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Alright, we are together as a three person crew again because we're working on the

visual commentary series and so we have Tim Mackie, hey Tim? John, hello. And, Chris Aquinn, hi Chris. Hey guys. And today we get to talk about a section of scripture which is the prologue to the Gospel of John. It's not an entire chapter, it's 18 verses, John 1 through 18 and it's this coherent, literary unit that is wonderful

and I'm excited to talk through it with you. Yeah, this is bringing to a conclusion, kind of our first, well, what for us was a pilot project of the Visual Commentary series. So we thought about, what's the short series we could do to just explore this new medium of doing visual commentaries? So it's been all around passages in the Bible that are built off of Genesis 1 in themes of creation.

So this is the only new testament book that we're doing. It'll be the first new testament book. A section, Lira Unit that we're exploring. And what better than the poetic prologue to John because it begins with the same words as Genesis 1, the first sentence of Genesis. Perfect. In the beginning. So maybe one way to frame this is first to back up real quick here. So in the New Testament, there are four accounts of the story of Jesus and each of them in its own

way is connected back to the circle of the first followers around Jesus, the people who sat at his feet, followed him around Galilee, part of the original circle. And so Matthew, Mark, and Luke are tracing through a set of connections back to people who were either in that circle or were co-workers of the people in that circle. So Mark referring traditionally to the John Mark that worked with Peter and Paul Barnabas in the book of Acts. And then Luke is following a series of connections back to the Luke that Paul names in one of his letters, calls him the physician. So Matthew is connected back through a whole other set of complicated connections, but John is one of the four that's actually also the most unique from the other three.

The other three shared common sources and redeployed them in their accounts. And John is aware of all the same stories and traditions, but he's given his account a very unique stamp. Yeah, he writes it differently. Yeah, it just feels different. And Jesus talks often differently than he does in the other three. And so that itself is an interesting thing, to explore. But the speaking voice that begins the story here is not that of Jesus, it's of the narrator

who's gonna speak throughout the rest of the account and tell the story of Jesus. But all of the gospels have their own unique beginning, but John in particular has a poetic prologue that previews the whole story to follow. And none of the other gospels have a beginning that's quite like this. Most of them kind of just get the narrative going in their own ways. But this prologue is truly a prologue

in terms of it's not yet the beginning of the narrative proper. It's an anticipation, a poetic cast of previewing what the whole thing is going to be about. Is it like a summary up front then? Mm-hmm, I think so. Yeah. It's a summary that's introducing you to the key themes and ideas, motifs, imagery, but also it's placing the story of Jesus in a bigger context. It's saying, dear reader, if you want to understand the Jesus who you're going to meet in here, what you need to know is that you got to go all the way back to the beginning. What John is going to do in this prologue is essentially

blend together a whole bunch of Hebrew Bible hyperlinks as a way of showing how Jesus is the reality to which the whole storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures were pointing. But not just the storyline. Every important image that you know that becomes a symbol of God, the God of Israel, the Creator, whether that's God's Word, or God's light, or God's truth, or God's child, God's son, God's glory, the temple, the Torah. These are all, like, really core images associated with God's character in the Hebrew Bible. And he's not just saying, Jesus is the fulfillment of the story. He's saying that Jesus is the reality to which all of those images in the Hebrew Bible were pointing.

He is the thing that all of those are referring to. And so it's a little bit more unique of a move than how the other's regospels, Portray Jesus, is the kind of climax of the biblical story. Yeah, so this prologue is super packed with images, with theology, and I'm looking at the structure that you outlined here. It's highly structured. Like it's... Highly structured.

Really. Two parallel panels, six parts. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah. So, here, yeah, I'll make a few macro observations and see what you guys think about it. Or maybe I'll say what I think is being clear, and then you can tell me if I'm not making any sense. So it begins with a pretty famous beginning, a four short poetic lines. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. After those four poetic lines, something begins that is something that feels like a narrative thread. It talks about how in that word was life and the life was the light coming into the darkness. Then we're told that John the Baptist all of a sudden appears and he's bearing witness to the light, telling other people about the light. Then we get this story about how the light came into the world, but some people didn't want to receive the light and they want to live in the darkness.

But then there are some people who do want to receive the light and then they become reborn as children of God. And so that's the first kind of sequence. The light enters the world. John bears witness to the light. The light is rejected by some received by others who are born from above. It's the first kind of sequence. And you're like, ah, yeah, it sounds like a pretty good summary of what John's about to say. First, let's just say all of that imagery, light and dark creation,

First, let's just say all of that imagery, light and dark creation, people, humans being born, this all feels like I'm in the world of Genesis 1 and 2. Yeah. Starting in verse 14, a new movement appears and you can feel the shift in the language and the imagery. And it's probably one of the more well-known verses. And the word became flesh, and it dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, the glory of the one and only from the Father. Now, if you're just thinking in terms of narrative, the word became flesh, and we saw his glory,

if you're following this narrative flow, I think a thoughtful reader would come to the conclusion, didn't this already happen? Yeah. Right. I thought the light already came into the darkness. Right. And like, was interacting with people. If this is referring to the incarnation, didn't it already happen back in verse three?

Right. Because we've already heard that some people received him, some people didn't. Yeah. So what's happening, again, it's a poetic prologue. We're actually restarting, and we're going to tell the same story of Jesus's incarnation to what happened, but we're now going to do it with a different set of images. And we're going to do it now, not with the language of Genesis 1, but with the language of the tabernacle, the story of God's presence coming to the tabernacle

in the book of Exodus. So the word becomes the Tabernacle, and the divine glory that went over the Tabernacle is Jesus. Then the next step in the story is all of a sudden back to John the Baptist again, bearing witness. And you're kind of like, this already happened. So John gives another speech, and then you get a third kind of movement to the second retelling of the story that's talking about how we received grace and truth through Jesus, and then you get a concluding line, which is verse 18. No one has ever seen God ever. The one and only God who is in the bosom or the lap of the Father, that one has made known. That's how the Prologans. So the whole point is that if you just look at it from a

narrative perspective, it seems like we retell the same story twice. But if you pay close attention, it's because we're cycling through the same basic idea, it's a summary of the book you're about to read, but through two different lenses as it were. So you can think about the story of Jesus using Genesis 1 and you get verses 3 through 13 from light to light entering the darkness, John the Baptist. Some people stay in the dark, some people receive the light and are born from above. That's take one.

Take two. Let's think about this whole story you're going to read in the rest of the book, but from the perspective of God coming to dwell with this people in the tabernacle. So now all of a sudden, Jesus is the divine glory light, not just the light of creation in day one, but he's the divine glory light. He comes to dwell among us. You get John the Baptist appearing again, which from a narrative perspective, you're like, he already came.

But you're like, no, no, we're retelling the story all over again. So here's John's role, he bears witness. And then after that, you get a group of we who received the word that came to dwell among us. That's like those who received and became the children of God in the first take, but now in the second take we receive grace and truth. And then you get another poetic, little four-line concluter about this no one's ever seen God, but there is this one, this child of God who's in the lap of his father, and that one has made known and then it ends.

So man, this thing's so, it just feels artsy. Yeah, it does. It intentionally artsy to make you force you to just keep rereading it like it's Jewish meditation literature. And I think that's entirely the point. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Okay, so I've been unpacking that, so what are things that seem unclear or maybe some questions that will get us kind of probing some of the issues here?

About the structure or just about any of the content? Well, maybe about the structure. Maybe if one of you wants to summarize the movements, what you see going on here. Yeah, you got the two tellings in a three-act structure. First telling is Jesus introduced as light, which on the Baptist comes, gives witness the light, and then there's the reaction of how are you going to react to the light. And then that's paralleled with the second three-act structure, but Jesus as the type of an echo. And it makes perfect sense. And then you gave us a chart so that you could actually just see

those two plays essentially, and the acts how they connect to each other. Yeah. Introducing Jesus as the light or the tabernacle, John bearing witness and then the reaction. Yeah, it's just very, very clear. And then it's just so full of all this, like you said, a Hebrew Bible imagery is just packed in here, all these hyperlinks, so you can just swim in here for a long time just thinking about this stuff. Yeah, and the first story is pulling from Genesis and creation, the second from Exodus and the Tabernacle. For me, the little oddity that I could never quite make sense of

until this hit me like a ton of bricks was the fact that John appears twice doing the same thing as if as if it hadn't already happened. Yeah. And this is just a good rule of thumb. When you're reading a story and it feels overly repetitive, usually that's a clue that there's some kind of design. There's a structure happening. Yeah. That feels funky if you read it only linearly. Right, right. It usually means that the text is designed to be read

in multiple dimensions, not just linearly, but then also read symmetrically. Yeah. That's actually a really good thing to point out because that happens often in the total rival. Yeah, that's right. Where you're just like, it just feels clunky in our English minds

because this is not how we would tell a story. It's like, you've told me that detail already. Right. Yeah, no, and usually the reaction is, these ancient authors, they're just so primitive and they can't just be clear and concise. Or different sources woven together accidentally overlapping. Yep, that's a very prominent view

about the composition of biblical literature, is the amalgamation of different sources and traditions, and it's incoherent. It actually doesn't make sense. And man, the greatest teachers I've had here are some colleagues of mine, Hebrew Bible, David Andrew Teter, and William Tumon, really brilliant Hebrew Bible scholars who

have helped me see that biblical literature is designed to be read both linearly, but then also, in multi-dimensions, there are often symmetrical patterns where your mind is joining together pieces that are connected not in linear sequence, but in a symmetrical sequence. Yeah. And the value out of that is, for here as an example, is now as you're realizing that the introduction of Jesus as the light is now connected, juxtaposed against Jesus as the tabernacle and the glory.

Which is light. Yeah, which is light. And so now you're reflecting on that juxtaposition because you noticed this new dimension to the text. That's not linear, but is, I don't know what you would call it. Parallel, maybe. So parallel, yeah. It's also similar to the fact that John appears two times.

And what's interesting, the first time it says, he came to bear witness so that others might believe. And but it does leave you wondering, well, what did he say? Exactly, yeah. And so the second time he appears is just a short, John bore witness, and then you get what he said. And what he says is the one who comes after me

has been in front of me because he was before me. And that becomes a way of kicking you all the way back to he was in the beginning with God. It's a but those two little bits about John are actually meant to be joined together as one idea. Yeah. But they've been split apart so you can have a John bit in both sequences. Yeah, so this is a good point to make too that when you hear repetition and if you can outline it or see the text, that's super helpful, but when you hear repetition, you can consider those things parallel, like those pieces of the text, these like parallel chunks and there's repetition but there's also movement or something that's gonna be a little bit different.

So in the first part we went from he was the light and now we see his glory in the second part. With John you hear that he bears witness and now we hear what he is saying in the second section and in the the third section, we see some people reject him, some people receive him. And then the third part of that parallel section is just we have received him. And then the narrative moves forward after that. So there's a movement, even when there's repetition

and it still pushes the story forward. We totally appreciate this in music. Oh, sure, yeah, the typical. Yes, and then Bill builds on the tune, but in literature that this is something kind of unique to Jewish literature. I mean, I'm sure we'll find parallels. Actually, yeah, this was a rhetorical persuasion technique that is used in other ancient and recent literature. It's used in Greco-Roman literature, but it is used to a degree that as far as we know, it's pretty unparalleled in biblical literature in terms of the volume of literature that's organized both linearly and also in these symmetrical patterns. Yeah, and it feels more natural to find that, at least for me, in poetry, that, oh, we can

recall different sections of text. It doesn't have to be linear when I'm reading poetry. There could be repetition. And I think that's something that's really interesting as I've been reading more biblical narrative is that narrative actually works a lot like poetry in the Hebrew Bible. Yes. So even when it's telling a story, there are these poetic structures. Yeah, I wish we had time to just open up maybe one Hebrew Bible story and just show that really quick.

Actually, well, the first one. Oh, yeah, this one? Oh, yeah, this one. So we haven't gone there yet, but... We should. The design of the prologue, and this was a New Testament scholar, Mary Kolo, who's written multiple academic and popular books on the Gospel of John. I came across this way of seeing the literary design in her book called God dwells with us,

Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, Mind Blowing. Mary Kolo's book was the first scholar that drew attention to this for me. It was one of the things where I think about Genesis 1 so much, I can't believe I didn't see it. But her point, the literary design of the Prologue de John is exactly the literary design of the creation narrative of Genesis 1.

It has a little four line introduction, then it has two sequences of three that are parallel to each other. Yeah, and in Genesis 1, it's the six days. Six days. Days 1, 2, 3, and then days 4, 5, and 6, go back and parallel days 1, 2, and 3 in exact vocabulary in order. And then you get a short little poetic dense concluter that is in John's Prologue, open ended. So it's just kind of, it has a little short poetic introduction,

short poetic conclusion, and two triads of three that match each other. And the moment she pointed this out, or the moment I thought it was just like, oh, yes. And of course, he chooses the first words of Genesis 1 to begin it, but he's not just got Genesis 1 on the brain for the language and imagery. He's literally imitated the design structure.

Yes. Okay, now watch what Mary does here. This is really cool. So recall how in Genesis 1, the seventh day is about the completion. It begins by saying, and so we're completed. The sky is in the land, and so God bless the seventh day, He said it apart as holy. It's very much a note of conclusion, that little ender. Yeah.

And what she pays attention to is that John's little ender that stands in the same slot as day seven is intentionally non-conclusive. It ends with an incomplete sentence in Greek. So I'm just gonna read from her. She says, the six strophs, and stroph is her way of saying paragraph.

It's a paragraph in poetry, a stroph, a group of lines that makes up a paragraph in poetry. Thanks. So she says, the six strophs or paragraphs of John's prologue, like the six days of creation in Genesis 1, require one final act to bring it to completion. This act will begin in verse 19 after the prologue, as the gospel narrative of God's final work

that began with the incarnation will culminate in the life and the death of Jesus. Until the story of Jesus' final work has been told, therefore, there can be no seventh day to the prologue. But utilizing the structure of Genesis, but also breaking from its pattern, the very design of the prologue asserts there is still something more yet to come. Okay, so to get this, when Jesus is on the cross and his final words are, it is finished.

The Greek word he uses is the same root word as the seventh day in Genesis and so we're finished. The sky is in the land. Wow. It's so cool. So she's convinced, I mean, you get her argument here, that the G.S. is death and then the empty tomb is the seventh day. Yeah. Completion to the prologue.

So it becomes a bookend around the entire account. Isn't that rad? It's like new creation made complete. Yeah. I'm certainly persuaded. I'm going to go to the last sentence of the prologue. And then maybe if you want to go back and we can unpack some of the stuff going on in the six paragraphs. But the last sentence of it is in the translation that I've put here, no one has ever seen

God. So it's kind of stating a core claim of the biblical tradition. And this actually comes from something God said to Moses, I'm outside, I. When he's in the cave, no human can see me and live. Yeah, that's why he has to see us back instead. And what passes in front of him is the glory of the Lord. What he sees as the glory,

which of course is what John is saying, that's what Jesus is. So this is John's way of making the classic Jewish Christian-theist move of saying, even when God reveals part of God's own self to us, it's not like we can ever comprehend the divine being in all of its majesty. We're only ever seeing or experiencing a part. So no one can ultimately see God. However, this story is going to be about how the one and only God, what does that mean?

Well for John, the one and only God is includes the one who is in the lap of the Father. So in the opening, little four lines, he called the pre-incarnate Jesus the Word of God, and he's God and with God. So now here, he's using a different metaphor to make the same point, just like a word can be God's word, but also distinct from God. So also, you have a child who's in the lap of the Father,

who's both God and distinct from God as Father and Son. And then the last line is an incomplete sentence in Greek, which is that one, that is the one and only God who sentence in Greek, which is that one. That is the one and only God who is in the lap of the Father. That one has, and uses a Greek word exegeto, which means, it's where we get the English word exe-Jesus, which means to bring out the meaning, to make known the meaning. And so in Greek, he says, that one has exegeto.

He's brought out the meaning, but there's no object to the verb. In Greek. The meaning of what? The meaning of who or what? And all of our English translations can't tolerate that incomplete ascent. So they supply the object, which is he has made him known. That is, the son has made known the father. And that is what John means.

Yeah. But he hasn't supplied the ending of the sentence precisely so that you read the story to find out what the son is going to make known. What the object of that release. But it's kind of one of these funny. It's the story. I get why the translations need to create a complete sentence,

but at the same time, is actually undoes what John I think is trying to do. Anyway, it's great. Yeah, so rad. Yeah, that's cool. So the intro and conclusion to the prologue are making the similar point that the word or the one and only God, how Jesus is being referred to here, as the word and the intro, the one and only God and the conclusion, was both God and with God. Yeah. Both God and distinct from God. With different images, first the word and then second with the Son and the Father. The Son, yeah, the child. Yeah, two different metaphors that are trying to get at the same reality. So let's double click on that and talk about that a little bit. So previously we all three of us walked through Proverbs 8

and it's this reflection on God's wisdom personified as Lady Wisdom. And we made the observation that the way Proverbs 8 is designed is to make God's wisdom in the slot of God's Word in Genesis 1. And the Spirit in Genesis 1, yeah. And Spirit. As God creates order out of chaos, He does that through his speech and then through the Spirit of God, the Ruh of God, the God's life energy.

And we talked about how there's this very Jewish way of thinking about God, which is when you experience God, and you mentioned it earlier, Tim, you can't see God, but you are experiencing God, not something less than God, but it is separate than God. Or distinct. I've come to find the word distinct, to be the only English word. Ah, distinct. It says, both enough, but not too much. Yeah.

Yeah. It is God, but it's also something distinct from God. It's reaching out to me. And so the one image is of a word. So when I give a word, that's my thoughts and desires and it's that coming out from me. But once that word comes out, it's distinct from me. It can go do stuff. Yeah, the word can get captured on a page and then it can live outside of my life. And then in Genesis 1 it goes out and it creates. This is pretty intuitive for if you say,

I would like something to drink, and then that creates an effect in the room. And so maybe then one of your boys is in the room and he hears that word and he's like, Oh, Dad, there's like a fizzy water in the fridge. And then all of a sudden your word went out and interacted with another and then like something happened in the world

based on this thing that came from you. And it's you, he's interacting with you. You're a word. You're a son in that example. But really, he was interacting with something distinct from you, which was your word that came out. And this is this very Jewish way of thinking about interacting with and experiencing God. Yeah, and it's rooted in the Genesis, one creation narrative where God speaks things

into existence. So God's word goes out and creates. Yeah, it's a fundamental conviction of the biblical portrait of God, which is Israelite and Jewish that becomes Christian, is that God is other than creation. God precedes creation. The God's own being is the ground.

In other words, God's not a part of creation. So anytime I interact with God here within creation, it's because some aspect of God has reached out to me that's not the whole of God, but it is a part of God. But once I'm here in creation interacting with it and that it becomes a part of me, then it's both God and distinct from God. So it's God's wisdom, God's Word. And so it makes sense for John to say the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Which sounds, depending on your view of reality, could sound like a just a crass contradiction and logic. How could something be with something and also that thing? If it's with it, it's separate from it. To which John, I think we'll just say, I'm inviting you into a different view of reality. For those two plus two, that makes five. One plus one equals one. Yeah, yeah.

Or one plus one plus one. Equal. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so, but just notice, he's doing heavy-duty, theological, philosophical thinking here, in the form of poetry, through poetic parallelism, which is just quintessential, biblical thought, you know. Well, when growing up reading this,

I think I was much more distracted by Greek philosophy, because the Greek word is La Gosse, and there's a whole tradition in Greek philosophy around La Gosse, and there's a whole tradition in Greek philosophy around La Gosse. And so, I just really thought John was trying to translate Jesus into Greek philosophy. Sure. And what it seems like is that was just totally missing the boat. Like, he's using a Greek word, but he's thinking in Hebrew.

Sure. However, I also think he was obviously a very sophisticated intellectual mind that produced this text Yeah, yeah, obviously It boggles the imagination to think that he didn't also know that by using the word Lagos That he was creating an account that would have traction With any educated Greek aromen who's you know read some of the classics in Plato and so on. So I think it's more about that John could use a word that has traction in two cultures

and mean everything implied with it. And you know, part of this is what's tricky is that for many English speakers who don't ever learn another language or don't grow up having to be multilingual, it's hard to have an imagination to think that you could think in two languages and two cultures at the same time. But anybody who's grown up multilingual, this is just, it's normal. And if you're clever, you know how to communicate to multiple audiences at once. Yeah. Or sometimes he may may just or the authors may be doing that without

even thinking about it. They're just using the categories that they they know that are familiar in the world around him. Yeah. So intuitive. So here I've just got but it was just a quick little sketch here. This is an quote from George Beasley Murray who wrote the commentary on John and the word biblical commentary series. He's got a long quote. And he's talking about the the genealogy, the heritage of this word, the Greek word logos, in its history and Greek philosophy. So he says, for the great philosopher, Heraclitus, the logos is the omnipresent wisdom by which all things are steered. It's the divine word received by the prophet, and it becomes almost is the omnipresent wisdom by which all things are steered.

It's the divine word received by the prophet, and it becomes almost equivalent to God in Heraclitus' writings. For the Greek stoic philosophers, the logoth is the common law of nature. Imminent in the universe, maintenance, unity, the divine fire, or soul of the universe.

In Filo of Alexandria, so here's a Jewish philosopher who had mastered the Greek philosophical tradition. He exploited the concept in a striking way. He saw the logos as the agent of creation, and he distinguished the logos as a thought in the mind of God, his eternal wisdom, and its expression in making a formless matter into a universe. The Logost is the medium of divine government of the world. It's the captain pilot of the universe, according to Fire Law.

So there's just a quick sketch of this, the word Logost actually was really active in Greek philosophy. So you really can't come at it from both traditions. For sure, yeah. And understand what John is doing. And both traditions seem, they seem really similar too. Yes, I think so. The Hebrew or the biblical Hebrew understanding of God's speech going out creating order, and that being a parallel idea to God's eternal going out creating order, and that being a parallel idea to God's eternal wisdom,

creating order, and those things being almost equivalent to God. Yeah. Yeah, they seem really, really overlapping or just similar ideas, yeah. What you're saying is that a Genesis 1 in its own way, and now John, by activating the Hebrew of Genesis 1, he's saying Genesis 1 is making a contribution to the same topic that's happening in his world in Greek philosophy, which is what is

ultimate reality and what's the relation of the ultimate divine reality to our contingent, you know, constantly changing and adapting world that we live in. And so the word logos, the word, is the word that's used. So it's as if he's kind of, he wants to show how Genesis 1 makes a contribution to that conversation to his day and then make a claim about Jesus, the Jesus is that word. Yeah. So I'm trying to rehabilitate your background, John, to say like, I don't think that was off.

It may be, I have imbalanced. Maybe it was because in your background, however, maybe the, what was really going on in the Hebrew of Genesis 1 wasn't fully emphasized. And so what you heard is about Greek philosophy, but it's actually both at the same time. Well, I think what I, by not seeing the Hebrew thought, I think there was this general trend of me not seeing these Jewish ideas and then relying too heavily on Greek ideas.

And where that got a lot more messy was an idea of the soul. Ah, I see. And that kind of stuff. But that's a whole nother. Yeah. They've been talking about for years now. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Okay, so here's something interesting.

You guys want to see something else is cool? Yeah. It also seems like John is using not only Genesis 1 to try and unpack the significance of Jesus. He's also doing a whole biblical theology of characters in the Hebrew Bible that function as these divine agents who are God and distinct from God at the same time. So we've talked about some of them. So in Genesis 1, you have this phrase in the beginning, Elohim created the skies in the land, you have the spirit of Elohim out there in the dark waters, and then Elohim speaks a word. So right there, you have Elohim, the spirit of Elohim, and

then Elohim's word. That's in Genesis 1. In Proverbs 8, which we did a whole conversation, the three of us on, Proverbs 8 is itself hyperlinking to Genesis 1, and in the slot of the divine word and spirit, Lady Wisdom speaks up in Proverbs and says, Yahweh brought me forth or possessed me at the beginning of his way. Before his ancient works, there I was from the beginning. I was beside him. So John is for sure drawing on that when he talks about the word that was God and was beside God or with God. And also in the lap of the Father in that depiction of Lady Wisdom as a child growing up with God. Yeah, that's right. So when he starts talking about all things came into existence through that word, there's a whole network of texts in the Hebrew Bible that

talk about this idea. So we have the Word of God, this Genesis one. We have the wisdom of God, that's Proverbs, but then also look at this little lion in Psalm 336 that says, by means of the Word of Yahweh, the skies were made and by the breath of his mouth, the spirit of his mouth, all of their host. So the author of Psalm 33 is doing the same thing. He's blending the spirit and the word and the wisdom. This is all like one. And so this is all happening within the Hebrew Bible itself. Yeah. Okay, so this blew my mind. So in Jewish tradition, just like when Alexander the Great did his thing, storm the ancient world 300 BC and he spread the Greek language. Everybody started using the Greek language. In the same way,

in the era before Alexander the Great, when the Persians were running the show, Alexander stalled the world empire from the Persians. Yeah, he borrowed that idea. The Persians were using Aramaic, a form of international Aramaic, which is a Semitic language. So that's not a native Persian language, native Persian language is Farsi, it's Persian, but they used Aramaic as the international language. And so that became so widespread in that early period that many Jewish communities started translating the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic,

which is kind of like going from like French into Italian. There's something there, you know, they're both very closely related. That's all right. So these early Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible are called Targams, or Aramaic Targams. So one of these very early, it's called Targams Neophyte of Genesis 1. I'm just going to read a translation of it from you, and then we can talk about it. So this is a translation made by Jewish scholars

for Jewish communities. Around what time? Ah, it's a million dollar question. Targam is very difficult to date. Targam Neaphidi seems to emerge right after the second temple period, which means that it is reflecting a way of reading the Bible from the temple period around the time of Jesus and before. So you could actually translate it two ways, the Aramaic on two ways, and I think it's on purpose. So I'll start with the first one.

So this is a translation and an interpretation of Genesis 1, 1, 2, 3. So it reads in Aramaic, from the beginning, by means of wisdom, the sun of Yahweh, completed the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and unformed, desolate of man and beast, empty of plants and trees, darkness was spread over the abyss,

and a spirit of mercy was from before the Lord blowing over the waters. And the word of the abyss, and a spirit of mercy was from before the Lord blowing over the waters. And the word of the Lord said, let there be light, and there was light according to the decree of His Word. It doesn't feel like a translation. Yeah, the targum, especially targum neafiti, it's like gum, it's a paraphrase. It's like the message. It is.

It's like gene feeders, it's an interpretive paraphrase in Aramaic. It's like, it's a paraphrase. It's like the message. It is. It's like Gene Peterson's the message. It's an interpretive paraphrase in Aramaic. But do check the first line from the beginning. Yeah. By means of wisdom. By wisdom. The sun of Yahweh completed the heavens and the earth. Yeah, they're just, they're tracking with all of this.

That is cool. It is cool. Now, here's the thing. Is that the word sun in Aramaic is exactly the same sequence of letters as the word create, barah, in Hebrew. So there's multilingual word place going on. You could equally translate this Aramaic translation

of the Hebrew Bible to read from the beginning, by wisdom, the word of Yahweh created and completed the heavens and the earth. Which makes a little bit more sense that they would get there first. Sure, but the question is, is it that inconceivable for a Jewish author who steeped in the whole Hebrew Bible to conceive of God's word and wisdom and child, son? Yeah. And you're like, man, where are you there in Proverbs 8? Where wisdom is the child of the creator, participating in present there.

And all of a sudden, John won. You feel like, oh, John won. Yeah, he didn't invent some new thing. That's it, that's it. He's drawing on a way of thinking about how God relates to the world that has deep roots in the Jewish tradition, their way of thinking about God. The root is in the Bible itself. And the innovation is not saying that God would interact and enter into relationship with creation.

The innovation is saying, Jesus of Nazareth. Is that person? Is that? Yeah. That's where the shocker comes. Yeah. So there's still a shocker in John 1. And the shocker isn't because it's a person

necessarily. It's because it's uh it wasn't a king who ruled Israel. It was someone killed as a rebel. Yep. How could that be the son of Viaue, the word, and the lap of the father? And of course that's exactly what he's setting you up for. Is that that scandal? And think that's why think okay let's now range broader in the in the prologue. The whole of the each set of the sequences it's about the light or the glory entering into creation. There was a venerable, honorable witness to it John the Baptist who was honored, he was a controversial figure, but you know, kings cared what John the Baptist thought, Eric did, the Pharisees sure did. So he was a public figure who bore witness to the light, but yet the light entered the darkness and a whole bunch of people wanted nothing to do with the

light. How does that work? And that's going to be like the surprise or the crisis that he wants to tell as well. That's what happens when the light enters the darkness and some stay in the dark and some will find themselves born as new kinds of humans. Yeah, what does John mean here when he talks about the light and the darkness? What are those concepts here? I mean, I know he uses these words throughout all of his writings. Yeah, I mean, I think as you follow darkness

through the Gospel of John, it comes up quite a bit. And it becomes an image for the spiritual, non-human, animating forces of evil and darkness. It's akin to the spiritual powers in the Hebrew Bible, where the principalities and the powers in Paul's thought. And it's the anti-creation forces. If God's word is drawing people in to participate in the ordering of the world,

the darkness is a part of what is dragging humans back into destruction and disorder in chaos. And so John sees the rejection of Jesus by the leaders of Israel in his execution as an attempt of the darkness to overcome the light. And of course with empty tomb in the resurrection, the whole story is going to be about how the darkness couldn't overcome the light. At least I think that's what's going on. Yeah, so I mean here it sounds like he's already looking forward to the death of Jesus by saying the darkness did not overcome it, but also drawing on just those those two maybe ways of life creation, new creation in Jesus this new life where the light is shining into humanity and all the Genesis, all of this Genesis repetition or illusion. So there's new life and new creation in Jesus and then there's the anti-creation or the Decreation forces of darkness in the world too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think in Genesis 1, the light doesn't

eliminate the darkness. It's sort of like contains it and then every day contains a cycle of light and dark But the darkness doesn't overcome it the sun always comes again leading up to the seventh day that has no evening Like all the day. I remember we've talked about this for all the days of creation in Genesis 1 Have and there was evening and morning, but the seventh day has no evening It's like the light wins on the seventh day and I think that's what John's capitalizing on that momentum of their reach as a moment where darkness is not able to overcome the light anymore. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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1.5% 1.5% You know, when I read this prologue, I feel like John the Baptist, the witness, is, it surprises me a little bit and I'm a little underwhelmed by the role of John the Baptist. Like, I think I don't have a good understanding of why it's so important to the authors, to put right here central two times that John bore witness. Yeah, it's like, you're talking about a cosmic conflict. Yeah. Good and bad. And they're like, and there's this dude, John.

Yeah, like what's the significance of coming as a witness? My hunch here is this is where the fact, the historical facts on the ground are meeting with the cosmic narrative that John wants to plug G.S. a story into. So in other words, all four gospel authors make very certain to give the first moments of the stage to John the Baptist. Yeah.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So I think this is kind of a bedrock in the eyewitness traditions of when you tell the story of Jesus, the first thing we want to say is it all, like when this thing went public, it was all that thing that started with John. And so that's where you start the story. So to me, it's pretty cool, because what it shows is that

he's not just waxing eloquent and doing cosmic biblical theology and just making it all up. He's actually telling the way we tell the Jesus story anchored in first century history, but he's doing it in like a cosmic tune with the Genesis and Exodus. So I've come to see that underwhelming bit is actually really cool because it's anchoring all this really high-flying cosmic stuff, but anchoring it in actual events. Yeah, and maybe it's also illuminating this ancient value of the eye witness testimony also and the the biography style

Totally if it relies on witnesses so heavily, you know, and actually man We haven't even talked about this but almost all the key words and images here in the prologue are you can trace them right on through Get a concordance and they become big motifs through so light and dark life and death concordance and they become big motifs through. So light and dark, life and death, but the witness. So John's the first witness and then there's this big theme of people saying, Jesus, you know, your own witness, your witness doesn't count. And Jesus says, well, my deeds are my witness. And the father is a witness. And the Samaritan woman bears witness to Jesus. And so the witness is a big metatheme in the Gospel. So is birth and the sons of God, the Torah of Moses, glory, grace, belief,

those who believe in his name. So he's also seeding all the key ideas. They're gonna be at work throughout the rest of the account. Yeah. Can we talk about this verse 14? Just because it's so significant. The idea that Jesus is being called the Tabernacle here, the dwelling place. I know you, I'm sure you guys have podcasted about that before. And I actually, the image that comes to mind is the heaven and earth video that we've made where it doesn't Jesus become the Tabernacle with legs. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think I'm pretty certain I need to

take a few more long walks on this one, quite a few probably, but more with about how the Tabernacle was perceived, how Israelite thought about the Tabernacle, because the Tabernacle itself was an embodiment of divine glory, not just the cloud that went over it, but all the gold and the jewels, and the curtain that had the heavens woven into it. And so the tabernacle was itself a kind of incarnation of God's splendor. Yeah, what this would mean is that when John says

that Jesus tabernacled with us or dwelt among us, it's not just that he came and dwelt with us, dwelt, dwelt. Hmm, dwelt. dwelt. But it's also that he was the incarnation of God. Yeah, okay. If anybody wants to nerd out, this was a really cool resource. It's by Scholar C. T. R. Hayward Hayward called the Jewish Temple a non-biblical source book.

So he's compiled together all of the writings or references or descriptions of the temple in all of Jewish literature outside the Bible. To kind of put together how did Jews think about the temple? And man, his mind-blowing feels like they were like John's friends. The way they talk about the temple is using very incarnational language. That's cool. And so again, what I think it shows is that John is using categories that have traction with his Jewish neighbors to say, listen, we all know the tabernacle was like

where God meets Earth. And Jesus was that. It's not just the glory cloud that Jesus is the embodiment of. He's the actual tent. Yeah, that is interesting. And you've described the tent before too as this like microcosm of creation. Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. Where all creation is meant to be God's temple, but it isn't in some way that it hasn't come to fulfillment, and so the temple is a way to present that reality. With all the garden imagery in the temple, that's the center of creation or new creation 1.5% Yeah, is there anything else that you really wanted to touch on, Tim? Oh, maybe just a quick thing about the Torah. Following on the, obviously the figure, the biblical character at the center of the tabernacle

story is Moses. Yeah, because Moses gets the blueprints for the tabernacle, but he also gets the law. Yeah, he gets the laws of the Torah, and he sees the glory when he's in the cave, and that's precisely the moment God reveals himself saying, Yahweh, Yahweh, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, overflowing with loyalty, loyal love, and truthfulness or faithfulness. So look down at verse 16 and 17 of the prologue, he says, for from his fullness and his for sure is referring to the word. So from the words fullness, and his for sure is referring to the word. So from the words fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. We've been getting a lot of grace from the God of Israel for a long time.

For the Torah and grace here, meaning gifts. Yeah, just generous, over abundant, that's the fullness, the overflowing generosity of God. And the Torah is a gift. Yes, what he says, he names the first gift. The Torah was given through Moses, gift number one. Yeah. What a wonderful gift. The revelation of God's will.

Some people think this is in contrast to what comes after. And so it's like, we got the Torah, but how much better is grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah. So some people see a contrast there. Right. The Torah is like not a gift and Jesus is the ultimate gift. And I think that's exactly the opposite of what he's saying. Yeah. The Torah was a gift through Moses. Yeah, and that's that's because of verse 16. It says it calls both of those things grace. Whether. Yep. Whether it says grace upon grace or grace and place of grace, they're both gifts. They're both graces. Yeah.

Gif number one, the revelation of God's will through the Torah, Gif number two, the revelation of God's own generosity and truth through the Messiah Jesus. And this language of fullness or overflowing with generosity and truth, This is for sure. Exodus 34, 6 and 7. Yeah, the attributes that God reveals on Mount Sinai. Yeah, this full of grace and truth, that that is the Greek translation of full of. Yeah, loyal love. Loyal love and truthfulness. Yeah, and truthfulness. So man, what's great is, so Jesus is not only the embodiment of the tabernacle in the glory, he's the embodiment of the character of Yahweh revealed the Moses when he forgave the Israelites from the golden calf, which is kind of cool to think through.

This is in this panel that's parallel to the first take of the story, which is where many of his own reject him. Yeah, the rebellion. But many receive him. Yeah, rebellion. But many receive him. Yeah. So God's response even to his own rebellious people is to keep giving gifts. Well, ultimate gift is the generosity through Jesus Messiah.

Sent even to people who didn't recognize him, but it was God's gift anyway. Yeah. Man, this is so awesome. I, every time I come to the prologue, I feel like there's so much, not just deep theology and philosophy, but it's like moving, what he's trying to communicate about this

guy he knew. I mean, like John knew and loved this guy who got killed and then who he somehow had this crazy encounters with and saw the empty tomb and it just blew categories for everything. And now he's trying to share with us the most important thing he could tell us before telling the story of Jesus. And this is it. Yeah, I'm struck by how deep and complex it is, theologically how much it references the Hebrew Bible,

but also how many maybe basic or foundational claims it's making about the person of Jesus. Like this is maybe where we would go if we want to understand Jesus is God and there's a father, there's a son, he became flesh, he dwelt among us, he reveals the full person of God. These are really foundational claims about the person of Jesus and they're also woven into this complex structure that reflects the Hebrew Bible.

It's a great example of a New Testament author and a follower of Jesus who was so in love with Jesus and so saturated with the Scriptures in his mind and heart that when he writes about the Jesus he loves out comes this. And yeah, what a gift. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week we're jumping back into our paradigm series. Hi Tim and John, my name is Emily and I'm from Kansas City. How would you describe the difference between the scriptures being inspired versus an era to someone who comes from a tradition that emphasizes an erudity?

So what's funky about the term anerrant is it's a reverse way, it's a negative, it doesn't have errors. So you could just flip it over and when you flip it over and think about this idea, then we come to where scripture itself develops vocabulary for it, that scripture is truthful. Today's podcast was produced by Cooper Peltz. Our editors are Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley, and the show notes are by Lindsay Ponder. Our theme music is from the Bantents. The Bible project is a nonprofit we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story

that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of many people all over the world just like you. So thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Somia and I am from India. Hi, this is Curtis from Atlanta, Georgia. I first heard about the Bible project in 2017 and I've been using the Bible project as a study tool to prepare for illustrations and sermon notes. As a pastor, I love directing people to the Bible project to help them learn and grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus Christ. I first heard about Bible project is through Facebook. My favorite thing about the Bible project

is the visuals and the narration that weaves into a beautiful storytelling session. We believe that Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts, passes, and more at BibleTroject.com. you