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A couple years ago, in an effort to both enliven my Bible reading and practice language skills long underused, I bought a Bible in Spanish. At first, I was delighted by how well I followed some familiar passages. But I also quickly recognized my English-centric assumptions. My Spanish Bible was an NVI, or Nueva Versión Internacional—theoretically something of an equivalent to the NIV I grew up reading. But the NVI kept surprising me. Take the first seven words of John: En el principio ya existía el Verbo. Hear, if you will, the record scratch in my brain the first time I read that verse. I had expected Palabra for Word. But there was Verbo: In the beginning was the Verb.
As native or fluent Spanish speakers will know, verbo, in addition to meaning “verb,” can indeed mean “word.” (The gracious reader will, I hope, remember that I called my language skills long underused.) Furthermore, those familiar with other Spanish-language translations of the Bible will know that there’s no consensus on the use of Verbo here. Some translations use Palabra. I’m not qualified to comment on the accuracy of various accounts of translation history, let alone opine on the “correct” translation of the word, but I will say this: after el Verbo, I’ll never read John 1 the same way again.
I’m not interested in casting aside the many rich interpretations of Christ as Word, only in taking the edges off the definition. Where Word carries flavors of message, edict, and truth, Verbo is both harder to pin down and more concrete. It’s harder to pin down because action runs, to put a twist on an old saying, deeper than words. It’s more concrete because actions have effects, which we can witness even if we weren’t there for the cause. Actions leave evidence we can explore for ourselves.
What if we saw the life of faith as, in part, detective work? What if we set out to follow the trail of this Verbo, to wonder at all the evidence and testimony we have? Consider what this Verbo did and does. Vino a lo que era suyo (came to what was his), se hizo hombre y habitó entre nosotros (became a man and lived among us), vive en unión intima con el Padre (lives intimately connected to the Father).
What if, like good detectives, we held off on profiling our suspect? Not because we refuse to say the name of Jesus or consider the meaning of Christ, but because considering the pure and original action of the Verbo ought to sweep our breath away and still our tongues, no matter what language we speak.
