Listening to the Multilingual God: John's PrologueSample

 "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."
— John 1:5

Every child remembers this impactful Sunday school lesson: the curtains of the classroom are pulled shut and the lights are switched off. In the pitch blackness, one small match is lit. And that tiny source of light illuminates the entire room – not brightly, but just enough to see. No amount of added darkness can change that. But with every additional amount of light, the room is illuminated more brightly. 

This is such a powerful reminder that opposites are not necessarily equally powerful. Light defeats the darkness, but not vice versa. Love is stronger than hate, but the reverse is not true. 

In the fifth verse of John's prologue, we see the same principle: the light that shines in the darkness cannot be overcome by the darkness. 

The word "overcome" used here may seem an odd choice, but many English translations have found other words to translate the Greek word katalambanó into English: apprehend, defeat, put out, extinguish, master, grasp, diminish, understand. overpower, quench, stop, comprehend, and perceive.

That range of translations into English beautifully demonstrates that there is no exact equivalent for the Greek word. It also allows us to see the benefit of having immediate access to a language like English with its approximately 900 different Bible translations.

Another language with just one translation uses a fascinating word here, also not an exact equivalent to the Greek. The Uma of Indonesia translate katalambanó with the word for "kill." Why? Because this word is also used for putting out a light or a fire—kind of like "extinguish" in English, except that the typical English reader wouldn't immediately associate extinguishing a fire with extinguishing a life.

It's an interesting parallel. With a darkness that could not overcome the light, was John actually referring to Jesus' death that would not ultimately kill him? Possibly not. But even so, perhaps a prophetic truth lies embedded in this language that most of us have never heard of. Spend some time thanking God today with the 20,000 speakers of Uma that the darkness cannot overcome—cannot kill —Jesus' life-giving light.