St. John's Gospel Analysis

The most helpful resource that I found whilst translating the first eighteen verses of St. John’s Gospel was also the most detrimental. At some moments, comparing my own translation to others could lead to a better understanding of the overall passage, but it could also become more muddled if the other translator and I had different ideas as to what the original text meant. There were, of course, other times where both the other translations and mine came to the same idea, but worded it differently, which is simply aesthetic. In its totality, St. John’s Gospel was a challenge to translate, through comparing, searching for vocabulary, and tying everything together in a way that didn’t sound like a child wrote it, I was given a deeper understanding
John’s, as I’ve translated it, starts with “In the beginning there was the word, and the word was of God, and God was the word”. Translation E matches closely with mine, the differences being “the Word was with God” (E, 1) and mine saying “of God”, and “the Word was God” (E, 1), mine saying “God was the Word”. The latter difference shows different emphasis. Translation E is emphasizing the Word itself with less emphasis on its divinity, whereas mine has focused on God, and the Word being “of God”. These are slight differences, and essentially communicate the same idea. However, in translation F there is a more glaring divergence. While it starts with “before the world was created, the Word already existed”, which is rather similar to my translation and, it continues to say “he was with God, and he was the same as God” (F, 1). Instead of repeating “Word”, this translation has given the Word a gender, and has personified it. In my translation, and in translation E, the Word is given a pronoun, and eventually the name Jesus Christ, but not until much later. Translation F has immediately articulated that the Word is a man “with God” (F, 2), leaving no room to assume the Word is anything else. My interpretation of λόγος, meaning the Word, is indeed much the same as that of translation F, and of E, that the Word does mean Jesus Christ. However, introducing the Word as a “he” so early on prompts unnecessary assumptions. “The Word” must be understood as “the Word”, it is the
Not because of its difficulty, or its grammar, but because there are so many ways it can be translated. Translation E translates it as “who was born not of human stock, or urge of the flesh, or will of man, but of God himself” (E, 13). Translation F says “they did not become God’s children by natural means, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their father” (F, 13). I wrote my translation as “those not of blood, and not of the pleasures of the flesh, and not of the will of man, but those of God’s creation”. This verse refers to those who believe through the λόγος, Jesus Christ. What I found interesting about this verse was that the meaning didn’t change at all between translations, and the differences between them seemed to be purely aesthetic. Translation F seems to make its point in the most straightforward way in saying that, no, these people weren’t made through human desires, but by God. Translation E and my translation were more similar, in that both of the translations emphasize that these people are not made of blood or flesh, nor are they born human wants, they are the creations of God. In writing my translation, I emphasized these points because it seemed to me more poetic that just outright saying “these people weren’t made by mankind, but of God”. None of these translations take any understanding of the verse away, so there’s a significant amount of room to make this passage