I'm pretty sure that most of you reading this aren't wrestling fans (I'm not either), and I'd really be surprised if any of you had heard of Freddie Blassie or his trademark insult slogan - "You pencil necked geek!" but in the 50s and 60s he was the quintessential villain in the wrestling ring, and perhaps the first wrestling superstar. As a kid growing up, I loved "hating" him.
His arch-nemesis was "The Destroyer", whose gimmick was a mask that kept him unknown, and everyone tried, unsuccessfully, to remove from his head.
He was my favorite wrestler, and his signature move was the "figure-four leg lock." If he got his opponent in that position, the match was over. It was a convoluted move, and the only way The Destroyer could actually use it was when the narrative of the match reached a climax and his opponent was so fatigued he couldn't stop it.
For some odd reason, I kept thinking about these guys as I wrestled with the prologue in this first letter from John. The English is difficult. The Greek, apparently, equally so. Is it possible to unmask the message lying under the language? Or will I end up in a figure-four leg lock of language? And how about you?
How to start? One of our helps as non-Greek speaking readers is the availability of multiple translations. The StudyLight website, www.studylight.org, is really helpful for doing this. When you first get to the site, be sure to set your preferences for which translation you want as your main reading choice, and at the bottom of the preferences page, you can choose which translations to show in the multi-translation window. After setting your preferences you can enter the passage to read, and click Search. The page you see will have the passage in your preferred translation. For each verse, there are text links to read the verse in context, in Greek, and a few other choices. The Multi-Translation link is the one to use for displaying parallel translations of the verses. You have to click through the verses one at a time, but it works.
So I cranked up StudyLight, and read from 3 parallels plus my standard: the NASB, the NIV, the NLT, and J. P. Green's Literal translation. Then I took a look at the interlinear to get even closer to the Greek words themselves. What you find when you do this kind of work, is that there are a lot of words added and removed for clarity's sake in a translation. In the NET Bible (not on StudyLight), verse 1 begins "This is what we proclaim to you..." which parallels what the NIV puts at the end of the first verse: "this we proclaim...". The NET Bible has these great footnotes that help one understand what's going on, that this phrase is inserted to make the English read more clearly. Its location in the NIV is more confusing than helpful to me, but the footnote in the NET, stating that the subject-predicate of the sentence is in verse 3 -- "we announce" -- was something I had discovered on my own from the literal translation. (And I'm glad to have that confirmation.)
The proclaim/announce verb was really important in helping me break this apart. As I read through the passage several times, trying to discover where the sentence began (and at this point I was not using NIV or NET, but the NASB and the Green Literal, that word kept popping up. Proclaim ... proclaim ... proclaim ... even an inserted phrase not in the Greek. I could picture heralds marching into a town, "hear ye, hear ye, hear ye." (Admittedly my picture is medieval and not 1st century, but still the same concept.) The heralds enter, and shout out, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and what our hands touched ..." That made sense to me.
Testament Read Through blog.
It's as if these were the answers to the question, "what have the heralds come to proclaim?"
This realization opened the first few verses for me, but it was coupled by a second observation, also of repetition. Whatever is being proclaimed, whatever it is John wants to talk about, it is for the sake of fellowship, used 4 times within 5 verses.
With those two observations in mind, and ignoring all other translations which may say what I'm going to say, here's the Green Literal translation, and the hook explication. (I don't expect this to be completely right, but I want you to see the process. The experts who have created the major translations are much better at this. But you should know that you can do this, too. And then you can go back and compare against the various translations.)
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and what our hands touched, as regards the Word of Life. 2 And the Life was revealed, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you the everlasting Life which was with the Father, and was revealed to us. 3 We announce to you what we have seen, and what we have heard, that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. 4 And we write these things to you, that your joy may be full.
5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and we proclaim to you: God is light, and no darkness is in Him, none! 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and we walk in darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of His Son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:1-8 J.P. Green's Literal Translation)
I'm only going to deal with the first four verses, usually labeled the prologue in most outlines, but I've provided the next four verses for some context. Here we go.
Start with verse three. Treat verses 1 and 2 as the blare of trumpets making certain we're listening. The words are important, but we'll get back to them. We have, then, a perfectly obvious declarative sentence, written by John using the royal we, or else writing on behalf of himself and the believers with him. "We announce to you what we have seen, and what we have heard, that you also may have fellowship with us." John is providing testimony to a reality he has experienced, and it's important that those who receive this message understand the reality -- seen and heard, not imagined. Those who do, enter into fellowship with the other believers, a fellowship with God, Father and Son. In verse 4, some manuscripts read "our joy" and some "your joy". Either way, the point is that everyone's joy increases as John shares his message and the fellowship is increased.
If you were reading the last paragraph carefully, you may have noticed the phrase "a reality he [John] has experienced." What was that reality? Well, that's the point of the music in verse 1, and the parenthetic statement of proclamation in verse 2. The music sings, "it's about this, it's about the Word of Life, that which was from the beginning, that which was real, we saw it, felt it, heard it, listen again, it was everlasting life made manifest, revealed to us, the everlasting Life that was with the Father." Jesus was real, John lived with him, and learned from him, and through him was revealed the eternal life of the Father.
The basis of the fellowship, then, is the reality of Jesus. That's the prologue. John then describes the measure of fellowship -- walking in light. The message he heard was that God is only light, and so fellowship with Him could only be in light. Well... that's the start of the rest of the story, but I've finished rasslin'. I hear the message of the heralds. I'm especially grateful for the promise of eternal life in the light. Even the greatest of athletes get old. And then it doesn't hurt to have a mask as your schtick.
later in life.
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