(Facts?) of Personal Interest

[The information below was stolen directly from my professor's lecture; although it may read like I know a lot about the ancient Greek language and history, I don't. In fact, this information comprises about 90% of what I know about them. Nevertheless, I found it cool and wanted to share =)]

Today, I learned that of the many books in the New Testament the only 'sermon' like ones are 1 John and Hebrews. [I'm not sure if this is actually true; our Greek professor told the class the information. Feel free to correct me.] This was exciting news as my deep affection for 1 John and Hebrew, two of my favorite New Testament books, now makes sense - they were poet/academics!

Hebrews and 1 John's status as homiletic texts is not totally surprising given the distinct styles of these books compared to the rest of the new testament; nonetheless, it's still interesting to note that this status, at least in the case of 1 John, I learned, is not just just a product of style, but also structure - not only does John read like a homily, it is intentionally presented as such. In the John 1:1, we find at the end of a series of relative clauses, the phrase, περὶ του λύγου τῆς ζωῆς [transliteration: peri tou logou tes zoes; roughly, concerning the word of life]. Apparently, this typical, 1st century declaration was used in the introduction of all homiletic texts at the time. Writers would inform readers of the their topic by placing the main idea/subject directly after περὶ τοῦ. Thus, the writer of 1 John declares his main topic to be λύγου τῆς ζωῆς (the word of life) when he writes, περὶ τοῦ λύγου τῆς ζωῆς.

Now comes the really interesting question: what the heck does the writer mean by 'the word of life'?