Darkness is Not the Concept

Posted on October 1, 2004 in Myths & Mysticism

It’s the fashion among Fundamentalist Christians, goths, and Hollywood film makers to think of the term “darkness” as a synonym for evil. In revisiting and rethinking the first chapter of John, I don’t think so. Part of the problem is that our translations of the Greek New Testament don’t get the full meaning of the words. Arbitrarilly, translators chose either “overpower” or “overcome”. But, as I noted before, the verb in the phrase “a Light that the darkness could not overpower” can also be translated as “comprehend” or “understand”. Which suggests something very different: those who are ignorant, who do not open themselves to the knowledge exist in darkness.

Here’s another translation problem. The word logos is usually translated as Word. But it can also mean Idea or Concept. The Darkness doesn’t get the Concept. It isn’t horned Satans: it’s ordinary folks like you and me. Too many self-professed Christians persist in abiding in the Darkness. They don’t get Christ or the Beatitudes (see MT 092904). Christ didn’t address himself to those who raped, pillaged, and chased after children in Tiberius’s villa. He spoke to those who thought that because they worked and saved — the folks who grumbled about paying their taxes and made a great show of being holy — believed that they were the Beloved of God. A study of Scripture shows that they reside in the Darkness of which John the Apostle speaks. They aren’t getting the Concept.

Darkness is Ignorance, willful or unconscious. It’s obsession with the letter and rejection of the Spirit as “impractical” or “unpatriotic”.