Hymn to the Word
| John 1 | |
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← Luke 24
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John 1:21-28 on Papyrus 119, written about AD 250.
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| Book | Gospel of John |
| Bible part | New Testament |
| Order in the Bible part | 4 |
| Category | Gospel |
John 1 is the first chapter in the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this gospel.
Papyrus 75, page containing the end of Gospel of Luke (chapter 24:51-53) followed by the beginning of Gospel of John (chapter 1:1-16*)
Papyrus 120, John 1:25-28
Codex Bezae, John 1:1-16
Codex Alexandrinus, John 1:1–7.
The first chapter of the Gospel of John has 51 verses and can be divided in three parts:
The first part (verses 1-18), often called the Hymn to the Word, is a prologue to the gospel as a whole, stating that the Logos is "God" ("divine", "god-like", or "a god" according to some translations). This portion of John's gospel is of central significance to the development of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Comparisons can be made between these verses and the narrative of Genesis 1, where the same phrase In the beginning first occurs along with the emphasis on the difference between the darkness (such as the earth was formless and void, Genesis 1:2) and the light (the ability to see things not understood/hidden by the darkness, John 1:5).
John Wesley summarised the opening verses of John 1 as follows:
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