Sound and sense …

… The Sacred Bonds of Sound by Sarah Ruden. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

This prompts me to suggest a social meaning to the vital term Logos, usually translated as “Word,” in the Book of John. The term is connected to mathematics, whose power and prestige thinkers since before Plato had been emphasizing: some things are demonstrably and eternally true, in all languages and to all people at all times and places; the Logos in John is the reasoning of God and eternity; it creates and transcends the physical universe. But the Logos can also be “the compelling story”; it can be the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection, accounts spread around the world through word of mouth in the lingua franca of the Koine Greek dialect, and on cheap papyrus paper. Like a times table, the story is simple, essential information, accessible to anyone who “has ears.”

I continue to feel  that the old English translation of the Latin Mass is better than the clunky one they use now. "It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation …" is just much more sonorous than the current tin-eared one (which I can't quite recall).  As for Logos, I think it interesting that the Chinese translation of the prologue to John's Gospel is "In the beginning was the Tao and the Tao was with God and the Tao was God." It works for me.