1 John 1:5 (Part 1)

Ok, ladies and gentlemen, I finally decided to start blogging. Some of you may remember (well, at least I remember) that I started this blog about a year ago. I posted something about it on Facebook and said that I would start blogging. Well, things changed and it never quite took off as I had originally planned. Now, with some more time on my hands (finally graduated from school), I have time to get this thing rolling. I won’t bore you here with the details of what this blog is all about (see About Me), so let’s get started.

1 John 1:5 (Part 1):

Over the next several weeks, I am going to post some thoughts about 1 John 1:5, specifically the statement that "God is light." In this first post, I want to simply give some thoughts on English translations of the Bible, the Greek text of 1:5, and the content of 1:5 in the concluding thoughts.

The Greek Stuff:

1 John 1:5: “[1] Καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ ἀγγελία [2] ἣν ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ [3] καὶ ἀναγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν, [4] ὅτι ὁ θεὸς φῶς ἐστιν [5] καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία.”

This Greek discussion will take place in five parts, following the division of the verse above. The translation of each Greek word will be put in brackets next to that word:

But first, carefully note the literal English translation of this verse: “[1] And he/she/it is this the message [2] which we have heard from him [3] and we announce to you, [4] that the God light he/she/it is [5] and darkness in him not he/she/it is none.”

This is an unintelligible English sentence, if that is even an appropriate description. So, first lesson in Greek: do not buy into those that say an English translation has to be a literal translation of the Greek. That is impossible. Translators, thankfully, do not buy into this either. However, translators do have disagreements on translating Greek into English. English Bibles usually range from mostly formal (literal) to mostly functional (conceptual) translations (the more literal NASB to the functional NLT). However, even the more formal translations use some functionality because a literal translation is impossible. A translation that is highly formal (more “word-for-word” translation) attempts to stick to the original structure and meaning of the Greek as much as possible, and, meanwhile, a functional translation (“thought-for-thought”) attempts to translate the Greek with contemporary English in such a way that the English impacts the audience in the same way that the original Greek version would have impacted the original audience of the Bible.¹

In essence, the functional approach tries to minimize as much as possible any confusion that might result in reading an ancient document that contains idioms, words, and sentence structure that are foreign to contemporary audiences. This is good. These translations pull of a double translation, however, in some instances. They do not merely give the closest approximate English word for a Greek word, for example, but go further and translate the concept that the Greek word probably captures. The negative of this approach is that the translator inevitably brings his or her theological views into the translation, since many good theologians disagree on what concept a given Greek word might signify (e.g. the righteousness of God). Granted, all translations do this to a certain degree (e.g. “propitiation” in Romans), but it seems one should allow the reader to think through and wrestle with the original text as much as English allows. A translators view on a theological issue should not be confused with the text itself; this can occur with highly functional methods.
But the more formal translations do this anyways, as translators of the formal school must make decisions on the English structure that best matches the Greek structure, without following it exactly, and this can become interesting because multiple translation options are often available for the translator. The same applies for the meaning of the words, which often have multiple possible translation options. Just one example now (of word meaning): Does the Greek pistis Christou mean faith of Christ or faith in Christ (a very complicated and impactful debate)? Whatever translation one decides on, in the opinion of this theology student, translations from both schools of thought are important and should be used. One should read both the NLT (and Eugene Peterson’s The Message) alongside of the ESV and the NASB (or pick whatever translation that works).

Now, this discussion will get into some of the Greek.

“[1] Καὶ [and] ἔστιν [he/she/it is] αὕτη [this] ἡ [the] ἀγγελία [message]”: There are two possible translations of part one: either (a) “And this is the message” or (b) “And this message is.” The demonstrative pronoun αὕτη (this) could be taken as an adjectival pronoun, modifying ἡ ἀγγελία (“this message”). A demonstrative pronoun functions adjectivally when it is the predicate position with a noun; and a pronoun is in the predicate position in Greek when the pronoun agree with the noun in gender, number, and case, and the pronoun lacks the article, but the noun does not. Thus, it is translated as, “And this message is.” However, the pronoun could also be translated as a simple substantival pronoun (meaning a regular pronoun) and therefore read, “And this is the message.” Either way, the meaning does not change too much. However, the translation “this message is” makes the “message” seem as though it was previously presented in the letter, but the translation “this is the message ” presents the “message” as though it is about to be explicated. Since John explicates the message in the rest of the letter, translation (a) is the best way to translate part 1. Either way, this is an example of the trouble of translating the structure of the Greek into English. One knows what the Greek pronoun here means in English, but there is a decision to make as to how it functions syntactically (structure issue).

“[2] ἣν [which/what] ἀκηκόαμεν [we have heard] ἀπʼ [from] αὐτοῦ [him]”: Part two modifies the first part. The “message” is one “which we have heard from him.” The Greek word ἀγγελία (angelia) occurs two times in the New Testament only. It is not clear from the word alone, then, that the message is the gospel message, but it is clear that this is the case because (a) the message was received from him, Jesus, and (b) this meaning best fits with John’s purpose in writing this message: to assure his readers that they have eternal life. The gospel is the message that gives assurance of salvation. The rest of part two is simple. ἣν (hen) is a relative pronoun, probably best translated as “which.” ἀκηκόαμεν (akekoamen) is a perfect active indicate first person plural verb. The perfect tense communicates something done in the past with continuing effects in the present. ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ (ap autou) is a prepositional phrase that means “from him.” This is pretty straightforward. It should be noted that if part 1 above were translated with option b, then the relative pronoun would probably be translated as “what.” The complete translation, then, of (1) and (2) would be the following: “[1] And this message is [2] what we have heard from him.”

“[3] καὶ [and] ἀναγγέλλομεν [we announce] ὑμῖν [to you]”: This is also simple to translate. The message is one that John is announcing to his readers in the present. The verb ἀναγγέλλομεν (anangellomen) is a present tense verb. Now, it should be mentioned that Greek verbs do not primarily communicate tense as in English. They communicate aspect. This is tough to explain, so that will be deferred until another post, but the present tense communicates the imperfective aspect, which means it tells the reader that the action is an ongoing action. Moving along, the Greek word for “to you” (humin) is a second person plural pronoun in the dative case, which is why it is translated with a “to.” A dative typically functions as the indirect object of a sentence.

“[4] ὅτι [that] ὁ [the] θεὸς [God] φῶς [light] ἐστιν [he/she/it is]”: A ὅτι (hoti) clause introduces a dependent clause, and this particular one modifies the previous main clause, telling the reader the content of the “message.” Here, John uses a predicate nominative construction. A predicate nominative is a syntactical construction in which a nominative noun (a nount that typically functions as a subject) is predicated of another nominative noun using a “to be” verb; ἐστιν (estin) is that “to be” verb. The article, ὁ (ho), identifies the subject of the predicate nominative; it acts as a grammatical marker. The Greek article has many functions, so it is not always translated into English using the English definite article (“the”). So, here is yet another example of why one should not translate Greek literally. John is not trying to say “the God,” but simply “God.” Anyways, the predicate nominative often is used to describe a quality of the subject. This is what is happening here. God possesses the quality of “light.”

“[5] καὶ [and] σκοτία [darkness] ἐν [in] αὐτῷ [him] οὐκ [not] ἔστιν [he/she/it is] οὐδεμία [none]”: The final part of this verse indicates that God has no darkness. It reads, “And darkness is not in him at all.” The Greek word οὐδεμία (oudemia) acts as a double negative, but a double negative in Greek emphasizes the first negative. It does not cancel out the first negative, as in English, but strengthens the negative. Thus, John is emphatically saying that God does not have any darkness in him. This is why it is best to translate the second negative with “at all.” It makes that emphasis explicit, and it makes more sense than saying “none” at the end (“and darkness is not in him none”).

Concluding thoughts:

First, as already alluded to above, there is not a single perfect English translation. The KJV and ESV (Elect Standard Version anybody?) are not thee translations to read. They all make some theological judgment calls in the process of translation in order to communicate to the reader in modern English. And they all make decisions to translate some word or sentence in this way as opposed to that way. In fact, please, read multiple translations. It will benefit one's Bible study.

Now, about the text: The writer of 1 John is coming out as a eyewitness of Jesus (as well as the rest of the "we"). He heard the message from Jesus himself, and now he is passing on the message to his community. Many scholars believe that 1 John is a clarification of the Gospel of John. The community that received that Gospel is in the midst of a schism because of it, and the author of John and 1 John is clearing up any misconceptions about his Gospel. Therefore, the author of John is also a direct eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. Anyway, the author says that the message he received is that "God is light." So, what does it mean to call God "light"? That will be the topic of the next post and some posts after that. This student believes that it does not mean what one might think, that God is righteous and not evil. The good news of the gospel is not that God is righteous and not evil (although he is that as well). Stay tuned . . .

_______________________________

^{1. J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Appraoch to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 34-35.↩}