From the Greek New Testament: ̓Eν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.

The common English translation: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

There are a few things that get lost in translation: 1) The verb ἦν (was) is in the imperfect tense, which means a continuous state of being or existence. 2) The preposition πρὸς (translated as with) is taking the accusative case: τὸν Θεόν (God). With a noun in the accusative, prepositions imply motion or movement, and here we could translate the middle phrase as: and the Word was (in motion) upon, towards, along with God. 

Thirdly, let’s take a look at what ὁ Λόγος meant to those who spoke Ancient Greek. In my unabridged Ancient Greek Lexicon (and you thought I was joking about being a language geek! 🙂 ), there are nearly 3 full 8″x 10″ pages dedicated to the meaning and translation of λόγος. It’s packed meaning includes: an account, reckoning, value, consideration, relation, ratio, correspondence, explanation, debate, reason, reasoning, discourse, law, rule, reflection, deliberation, the process of thought, a continuous statement, fable, story, speech, statement, verbal expression, words (in the Lexicon: “rarely a single word”), talk, report, description, dialogue, divine utterance, and oracle.

In Being and Time, Heidegger focuses on λόγος as meaning discourse, and as he says, “to make manifest what one is ‘talking about’ in one’s discourse.” He connects his discussion on λόγος to making visible the truth or dis-covering the hidden, the covered: “because λόγος is a definite mode of letting something be seen” [through talking about it, discourse]. To talk about something, to discuss, to debate, to tell a story, etc. we can only expose, uncover, and bring things to light.

All the meanings of λόγος above require relationship – between speaker and listener, or between some observer/receiver and the source of information/words. Heidegger points out, “because λόγος can also signify that which, as something to which one addresses oneself, becomes visible in its relation to something in its ‘relatedness’, λόγος acquires the signification of relation and relationship.”

If we take λόγος to mean words, sounds, and thoughts, and we break that down into vibrations or vibrating energy, we can begin to feel the full meaning of λόγος. Einstein proved that everyone and everything, especially when broken down to the most basic constituents, is energy: E=mc2. And everyone and everything in our lives is in relationship on some energetic level. With this in mind both a more ancient and modern translation to John 1:1 could be:

In the beginning was always energy, and the energy was in motion (vibrating) along with God, and the energy was God.