
When John called Jesus “the Logos” in chapter 1 of his Gospel, did he have the Greek philosophical term in mind, or was he simply using the Greek generic term for “word” as he uses in other places in his New Testament writings? This is the operative question.
Scholars debate just how much the Greek philosophical concept of logos he had in mind when he used the term to describe Jesus Christ.1 In this post, I aim to show that in calling the Logos of God, John had both the Old Testament idea of God’s Word and the Greek idea of Logos in mind, especially as developed by the Stoics and Philo of Alexandria.
We are almost at the end of a series of posts with the theme “logos” that started in Post 33. Next, I will be discussing Justin Martyr’s use of the idea of logos. After that, I will either pick up where I left off with the Presocratic philosophers, namely Parmenides. In the meantime, I went down the logos rabbit hole in Post 33 and came up five posts later in the Gospel of St. John. It’s a funny thing where Greek philosophy can lead. And we are only at the beginning of our journey. So, please enjoy this post.
Continue reading “38. St. John Declares that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Logos – Creator of the Universe”