[[Category: Project]] <font face="TimesNewRoman">While John’s prologue is unique among the gospels, the first five verses of the book of Acts is comparable John's prologue. Also, the opening verse of 1 John, or the book of Hebrews have similar prologues. But in these 18 verses, John compresses the Gospel into a condensed form. He gives the setting; he states the theme; he introduces the main character and he relates the elements of conflict. Every good novel must have conflict to make a plot. And here the conflict is between belief and unbelief.  We find that the language of these opening eight verses is more formal than is true in the rest of the book. And there are some scholars that feel these verses are an adaptation of some early Christian hymn. Reading through these 18 verses, we note the pattern that is involved. Verses 1-5 talk about “the Word.” Verses 6-8 speak about John the Baptist. Verse 9-14 again underscore “the Word.” Verse 15 refers back to John. And then the concluding verses 16-18, come back to “the Word.” So, it’s the word, and John and the word, and John, and then the Word. That is the pattern, or the structure of these opening verses.  It is very possible that John may have written he narrative of his gospel first, and then came back to summarize all of it in these opening verses. But he very clearly in these opening verses, shows the mission of the word—who he is, referring to him as word, and light and life. Telling why he came—to make known the Father; to reveal God. How he was received—there were twofold responses of either belief, or unbelief. What he did in terms of giving light and giving life, and coming with grace and truth. What he revealed—all focusing around the mission of the Word.  What is the meaning of this term ‘Logos’ or word? The scripture makes a distinction between the Word of God written—which of course refers to holy Scripture—and the Word of God incarnate, which refers to Jesus Christ. It interesting that John holds back in his use of the name Jesus Christ in this prologue. Instead he gives him a different title. And what an unusual name for Christ—"The Logos”—the Word. Apparently, he did not coin the term. He did not make-up a new word. Instead he gave a new meaning to a word that was already in use. There is wide spread speculation among the theologians as to the roots as to the origin of this term. Where did it come from? There are some who say that it comes as a carryover from Greek philosophy, the philosophy of Philo the Jew. He was an Alexandrian, allegorizing, philosopher in the first century who used this word logos about 1300 times in his writings. And yet it is never clear whether Philo meant an abstract impersonal force, or whether he meant the divine thought behind the universe. It is unclear as to his meaning even though he uses the term so frequently. Unique to the autoptic gospel is John’s use of repetition (arguably a poetic device) early in his Gospel narrative. From the beginning, his provocative anaphoric use of use of “word” serves to conjoin the notions of the term ‘logos’(λόγος) (Greek for ‘word’) and the repetition serves to “underline the thought he would communicate.” John’s penchant for Hebrew parallelism is a prominent hallmark of style in the first ten lines of his gospel narrative. This parallelism whether meant to capture the attention of Hellenized Jews, or simply be thought provoking to any audience also serves to set John’s narrative apart from its synoptic cousins which share more provincial openings. Beasley-Murray (1987) posits the “poetic quality of the prologue is observable, even in translation.” And, in fact, C.F. Burney (1922) maintains John’s poetic style is indicative of an “Aramaic original.”