Ok In the beginning. "Instead he gave a new meaning to a word that was already in use. " I don't think so. He merely understood bara to be the "word" and the bar-a "The son who created" Logos is just the closest Greek word to what the Apostles were teaching from the Old Testament
When John the Baptist said "Lamb of God" John understood he was the Word of God from the Hebrew amar אמר. So he had two Hebrew sources from Genesis 1:1-3
Current Scholarship imagines that the apostles were Greek in their thinking. Their beliefs were founded in Hebrew scripture, that were taught by Jesus from Hebrew scripture, they mostly taught Hebrews in Hebrew synagogues. The book was written to give the baby Greek Christian church a peek into what they were doing 'over there' in the Hebrew church.
"Modern scholarship may be operating under a handicap with the assumption that John was culturally, philosophically and linguistically a Greek. If we apply a more plausible assumption; that he was thoroughly Jewish in culture, language, philosophy and education by Jesus, it would appear that "Logos" is merely the closest translation for the 'Word' amar אמר and the 'Word who created' bara ברא .