FOOTNOTES:

^a Traditionally, ‘Word.’ The Greek word is logos. While ‘word’ is one of a long list of possible ways to translate logos, it has become something of religious jargon and loses its ability to convey the meaning intended in this passage. It is also used many times throughout John, and the uses are somewhat different. There is strong historical precedent for translating it as ‘conversation.’ According to Victoria Loorz in Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred (2021), “Up until the fourth century, Boyle points out, theologians and bishops and translators consistently translated the Greek word logos into Latin, the language of the church, as sermo, which means not ‘word’ but ‘conversation.’ Sermo indicates not a one-way sermon but a lively discourse, a dialogue, a manner of speaking back and forth: a conversation. A noun created from the root verb serō, which means to weave or join, sermo is the intimate living of life together, living among, familiarity, intimate conversation, the act of living with. Sermo was the Latin translation that best fit the meaning of logos” (p. 109). It seems to be ‘conversation’ or ‘discussion’ or ‘what was discussed’ or ‘what was said in the conversation.’ A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition (BDAG) lists the definition of logos as “a communication whereby the mind finds expression.” Incorporating this definition into the understanding described by Loorz leads to the experience of God communicating the divine consciousness in a way meant to be understood, received by hearers and seers (verbs for ‘see’ occur dozens of times in John, including what is usually translated as ‘know’ or ‘understand’ which more literally means ‘has seen’) in a sacred conversation that transforms the consciousness of those in conversation with God. In the Hebrew Bible, torah and davar seem to have related meanings. Davar has also traditionally been translated as ‘word.’ One example of its use is in Exodus 20:1. It’s about divine communication here, other types of communication in other contexts. According to Wilda C. Gafney in Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (2017), “The Torah is instruction, revelation, and sometimes law. Torah (with a capital T) is the first five books of the Scriptures and all that is in them: story, song, genealogy, geography, legal material, and lessons from the ancestors. Torah (with a little t) is instruction and jurisprudence. So, while there is torah in Torah, not all Torah is torah, and there is torah outside of the five books of the Torah! Toroth (plural of torah) can be found in any of the many genres of Torah. [. . .] The Torah is a locus of divine revelation (and divine self-revelation). The word torah comes from the verb y-r-h, ‘to throw’ (e.g., ‘to cast lots’) or ‘to shoot’ (arrows). With regard to torah, y-r-h also means ‘to throw’ rain or instruction from the heavens; [. . .] In a mystical sense, Torah can be seen as an embodiment of divine Wisdom and for some as the Word of God (with a capital W)” (p. 17). The connection with Wisdom is also strong. While the Bible primarily uses logos in this sense of conversation or what is said in a discussion or as communication, another way it was used in the Greek speaking world had to do with ‘logic’ or philosophy or ‘wisdom.’ Much connection has been made between the logos here in John 1 and the personified Lady Wisdom (Chokmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek) in Proverbs (see especially Proverbs 8).

^b Some translations put this final phrase of verse 3 as the end of the rest of the sentence in verse 3 (such as the NET and ESV) instead of as the beginning of the sentence stretching into verse 4 (such as the NRSV and NJB). There has been much debate about it, but the more reliable Greek manuscripts end the sentence this way.

^c Reference to Psalm 36:9

^d The word ‘and’ (kai) is present here, but the flow in English is better as two simple independent clauses.

^e There is an intentional repetition of words in the Greek here. ‘Person’ is the same anthropos that was translated here as humanity in verse 4, and ‘came into being’ is the same ginomai that was used three times in verse 3, but it is not the same word as ‘came’ (erchomai) in verse 7.

^f The preposition here is eis, which can be translated as most do as ‘into,’ it seems to assume a metaphysical perspective to use ‘into’ here. The word can also mean many other English words, such as ‘to,’ ‘toward,’ ‘at,’ ‘for,’ ‘in,’ ‘so that,’ ‘against,’ and others. Eis can also indicate advantage/benefit, being translated as “coming for the benefit of the whole world.”

^g In other places, and perhaps here would be appropriate also, this word kosmos has been translated as ‘world system.’ It is not about physical existence as opposed to heavenly realms or life after death. It is about existing in the universe at all or about being present in the way things are within ‘the world as we know it.’ In John, it seems often to be about all the people who make up the world, as it clearly is about in John 3:16, but other times about the ‘world sytem’ and sometimes used in a way that could be either. Because of that, this translation sometimes uses ‘whole world,’ ‘world system,’ and ‘world’ to translate kosmos. Any time any of those three words or phrases appears, kosmos is what it says in the Greek, and it would be worth seeing which makes the most sense as it is read.

^h The word kosmos appears in this verse three times and is translated once as ‘whole world’ and twice as ‘world’ for the sake of flow in reading.

ⁱ Or ‘know’

^j Or ‘were committed/committed themselves’ or ‘gave allegiance’ or ‘were faithful’

^k Literally, ‘his/its name.’ The pronoun is the same in Greek for both masculine and neuter. The phrases ‘in his name’ and ‘in your name’ and ‘in my name’ appear several times throughout John. In many places, it has been translated as something along the lines of ‘as his representatives.’ Some places, like here, that way to translate it does not work well. When the phrase is describing an action, it works. When, as here, an action is being directed toward ‘the name,’ the English word ‘name’ has been included. The concept of ‘name’ in scripture is more than the set of sounds or letters used to designate who is being discussed. It refers to their identity, character, and sometimes authority or cause which that person represents or leads. For instance, here, it could be loosely translated to mean something like “placed their trust in what it claimed to be and what it stood for.”

^l Literally, ‘bloods’

^m Or ‘husband’s’

ⁿ This list of three sources seems to be a reference to Wisdom of Solomon 7:1-2, “I also am mortal, like everyone else, a descendant of the first-formed child of earth; and in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, within the period of ten months, compacted with blood, from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage” (NRSV). [The Hebrew calendar was a lunar calendar, so the months would have been 28 days, not 30/31, making it refer to 40 weeks.] These three elements symbolized what was thought it took physically to create a child: uterine lining, sperm, and sex. The point here is that it is emphasizing a different kind of becoming children that is not about biology.

^o Or “became a body.” The word is sarx, which traditionally has been translated as ‘flesh.’ It essentially means “the stuff bodies are made of,” and often ‘body’ is the most appropriate way to translate it.

^p Or ‘residence’ or ‘dwelling’ or ‘place to stay.’ Echoes of the Tabernacle from Torah seem to be present here, referring to where the presence of God settled.

^q Literally, ‘he was first of me,’ so maybe ‘he preceded me.’ The verb ‘was’ is a past imperfect tense, meaning it was an ongoing state of being first in comparison with the author. All this language about being first, or ahead, or after in this section as well as throughout the Greek scriptures can be used either about sequence of time (chronology) or about sequence of rank (authority). It seems to be used here and elsewhere in a play on words where both meanings are used.

^r ‘Christ’ is the English version of the Greek christos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word meshiah, which comes into English as ‘Messiah.’ Both christos and meshiah literally mean ‘anointed’ which was a symbolic gesture that identified someone as being appointed by God for a specific role, especially kingship over Israel.

^s Reference to Malachi 4:5-6

^t This is a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15 and the “Prophet like Moses” who was anticipated.

^u Or ‘make the road for the Lord straight,’

^v Or ‘carries away’ or ‘removes.’ ‘Lifts off’ is used here to highlight that the image is one of lifting off and removing a burden, as was one of the two primary metaphors for ‘sin’ in the Hebrew Bible (burden and debt).

^w The word hamartia is traditionally translated as ‘sin.’ The actual meaning is an archery term for missing the target; it’s a metaphor. According to Wilda Gafney (2017), “The Torah is a locus of divine revelation (and divine self-revelation). The word torah comes from the verb y-r-h, ‘to throw’ (e.g., ‘to cast lots’) or ‘to shoot’ (arrows). With regard to torah, y-r-h also means ‘to throw’ rain or instruction from the heavens” (p. 17). Therefore, ‘missing the target’ seems to have to do with deviating from the path that Torah traces for those who follow it. The English word ‘sin’ has too much baggage—too many presuppositions attached—for it to be read with curiosity as a fresh message. It needs to be defined, not just repeated. Something like “ways of missing the target” could work as a fairly literal translation. I chose ‘deviations’ because it shows something is out of place, not in sync with something, and moving away from the desired direction. Jesus seems to use it in a sense of deviating from the direction provided by the Hebrew Bible, both ‘according to the spirit’ and ‘according to the letter,’ which sometimes can be difficult to follow until we learn to recognize the patterns of what Jesus prioritizes. It leaves open numerous possibilities for how things are out of place, and there are many, including behaving in ways out of step with the Lord’s teaching or having a life impacted by others living out of step with the Lord’s teaching or even something like being disabled, which has nothing to do with behavior or personal failing but still leads to being ritually unclean for temple worship and carries significant stigma, including assumption that it’s a result of judgment for some kind of wrongdoing.

^x Literally, ‘he was first of me,’ so maybe ‘he preceded me.’ The verb ‘was’ is a past imperfect tense, meaning it was an ongoing state of being first in comparison with the author. All this language about being first, or ahead, or after in this section as well as throughout the Greek scriptures can be used either about sequence of time (chronology) or about sequence of rank (authority). It seems to be used here and elsewhere in a play on words where both meanings are used.

^y Traditionally, ‘Spirit.’ The Greek word pneuma can be translated into English as ‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ and ‘wind.’ This is also true of Hebrew (ruach), Aramaic (rukha) and Latin (spiritus). The concepts of these things in the minds of Hebrew and Greek speakers were not nearly as distinct as they are in English. They are separate enough to use word play in John 3 in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, but the sense that the ‘spirit’ is the ‘breath of life’ within each living being must not be ignored in understanding how the scriptures, and how the air and sky (heavens) are used to describe where spiritual reality is present (in the wind). Whenever ‘Life-breath’ or ‘spirit’ referring to God’s spirit or the spirit within people that provides them with life, the reader would be aided to think of Genesis 2:7—“Then the LORD God fashioned the human, humus from the soil, and blew into [its] nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living creature” (Altar, 2019).

^z The word here is Ouranos, which primarily means ‘sky.’ It is used to refer to the visible sky that includes the son, moon, and stars, clouds, rain, and wind. It is also used to symbolize where the spirit of God is and where other forces of power are, whether human powers such as Caesar or other non-human, unseen beings. To be able to include both of those uses, this translation uses ‘the heavens’ which is a mostly outdated English word that simply means ‘the sky.’ The capital-H word ‘Heaven’ as a destination for people after they die does not reflect the meaning here, or possibly anywhere in scripture.

^aa This explanation provided by the author is interesting and helpful. It seems to be more about conveying its application than its strictly linguistic definition. The linguistic root is something more like ‘great one’ that was used as an honorific given to respected teachers.

^bb Or ‘residing’ or ‘remaining’ or ‘being present’ or ‘living’ in the sense ‘where do you live?’ referring to the location of one’s home.

^cc Literally, ‘it was about the tenth hour.’ The hours of the day started at sunrise, around 6am. There is speculation that the significance of including this statement was that it implied they stayed the night so that the events of verses 40-42 would have taken place on the following day. However, it is not explicit in the text when they took place.

^dd Traditionally, ‘Simon.’ However, this is the Greek spelling of the Hebrew name Simeon. A long history of antisemitic bias has gone into subtle translation decisions, such as translating names into English from their Greek lettering rather than their Hebrew origins, or sometimes taking more extreme leaps like translating Iakobon as James instead of as Jacob when it is about New Testament figures but maintaining it as Jacob when it is about Hebrew Bible figures.

^ee Literally, ‘him’ but with so many names here, replacing it with ‘Jesus’ was done for clarity.

^ff The Hebrew word meshiah was transliterated (transferred into the letters of another language) into Greek here, but Greek has no letter to represent the ‘sh’ sound and no way to represent an ‘h’ sound anywhere but at the beginning of a word, so in Greek it looks like messia. It also has an ‘n’ at the end (appearing as messian) to represent its syntactical function as the object in the sentence but not as part of the root word itself.

^gg The lowercase ‘c’ here is intentional. The people of this time did not have an expectation of a singular Christ that embodies such a large idea with that word as readers understand today. It would be appropriate to capitalize it later in the letters written by Paul and others, but here it was equivalent of ‘king.’ They were expecting the next divinely appointed king but not The Divine King whose reign would never end.

^hh Both Cephas and Peter mean ‘rock’ in Aramaic and Greek, respectively. The name ‘Cephas’ appears in the book of Acts and some of the letters included in the Bible.

ⁱⁱ Literally, there is no name here. ‘He wanted’ is a third person verb without a name or pronoun explicitly included here. ‘Jesus’ is the subject of the next sentence, so the intention is clear here, and it is added for clarity for English readers.

^jj Many people believe Nathanael is the same person called Bartholomew in other places. ‘Bartholomew’ means ‘son of Tolmai’ which indicates it was probably his surname, not his personal name.

^kk This is a quotation of Psalm 32:2. A more literal translation is ‘deceit.’ The implication is that Nathanael is faithful the nation, to the family of Israel, to God’s people and, by extension, to God. In English, ‘true’ can mean genuine but can also mean faithful, and it seems to have a connection in Greek as well, though not in the literal definition but rather in how it is used.

^ll These were both political statements. ‘Son of God’ was a title for Caesar, the heir to the empire descended from Julius Caesar who was thought to be divine.

^mm The verb pisteuo can mean one of four basic concepts: ‘trust,’ ‘be faithful,’ ‘commit,’ and ‘give allegiance.’ While the latter three are more easily identified as being closely related concepts, ‘trust’ is also intertwined. Pisteuo, while technically having more than one usage, seems to capture all the meanings in most instances, though with one direction featuring more prominently than the others. For instance, here, there is both a sense of committing to allegiance to Jesus that is exemplified in ongoing faithfulness and a willingness to trust Jesus that leads to the decision to commit to him.

ⁿⁿ Traditionally, ‘greater.’ Literally, it means ‘bigger.’ It is often used in scripture to mean ‘more impressive’ or ‘more important’ or ‘more significant’ or even ‘more powerful’ or ‘treated as more important,’ which would be translated as ‘more respected’ or something along those lines.

^oo Reference to Genesis 28:10-17

^pp This title seems to be a reference to Ezekiel, where it appears 93 times (and 14 times in other places in the Hebrew Bible). Ezekiel uses it as a reference to himself, speaking—like Jesus—about himself in the third person instead of saying ‘I.’ It seems to emphasize something about being human, though it also carries a sense of ‘truly human’ the way humans were intended to be as the image of God. Many people assume Jesus’ use of it is a reference to Daniel 7:13 and claim it emphasizes divinity. It emphasizes humanity and being messiah. Note that in Daniel 7:13, the ‘son of man’ is meeting God, not being God, and is being given a royal and everlasting authority and role.