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What's the difference between 'logos' and 'logou'? 1 Pet 1:23

Logos appears approx. 39 times in NT. as word, reason, speaker, account, matter

1 John 1:1 '...concerning the Word (logou) of Life'

Logou approx. 27 times as word, reason, speaker, account, matter

The bible uses both words which seem to mean the same thing, but obviously there is a reason for picking one over the other in original texts.

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    I am struggling to understand this question. "logou" (of word) is just the genitive of "logos" (word). Please clarify the question.
    – Dottard
    May 31, 2020 at 10:38
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    Are you asking about whether "logos" is personified (as in John 1:1 and possibly 1 John 1:1), vs, not personified (as 1 Peter 1:23)??
    – Dottard
    May 31, 2020 at 10:44
  • I'm asking what the language difference is. Nothing more or ulterior. Explain it in simple terms please.
    – Steve
    May 31, 2020 at 11:20
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    Logos means word, and logou means word's.
    – Lucian
    Jun 1, 2020 at 2:40
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    @curiousdannii: The genitive of X is indeed X's.
    – Lucian
    Jun 3, 2020 at 3:57

3 Answers 3

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My "colleagues" are correct. This is essentially an easy question if you know Greek grammar. For the sake of argument, I will assume you have not formally studied Greek grammar—but of course, correct me if I am wrong.

The chart below shows you conjugated forms of the Greek word λόγος (‘logos’).

I am not a Greek professor, so I might have the Greek grammar police correcting me here, but I will try to break this down for you in a simple manner.

The chart has 5 rows—one row for each case: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, and Vocative... (and to complicate things further, some grammars will throw in Locative and Instrumental—but let’s keep things simple).

Nominative in the first row means the basic form of a word—unconjugated so you have ‘word’ (or a word) or ‘words.’

Genitive case in the second row expresses possession; so, you have ‘word’ or ‘words’ of [somebody]—word or words belonging to someone.

Dative case in the third row is the case of the indirect object; so you might have I say a word to [somebody].

Accusative case in the fourth row is used when the word is a direct object; so, you have ‘a word.’

Vocative is the case of direct address and it is lacking an example for ‘word’ because ‘logos’ is (typically) not used in the case of direct address

chart showing the Greek noun cases

I hope this helps to answer your question.

Sources:

Machen, J. Gresham. New Testament Greek for Beginners. The Macmillan Company, 1951.

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Koine Greek is a highly inflected language.1 With respect to substantives,2 this means that the ending of a substantive will change in spelling in relation to its case. This is called declension.3 Bullions defines case as “the state or condition of a noun with respect to the other words in a sentence.”4 Koine Greek is understood to have five cases: “the Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, and Vocative.”5

In a lexicon, words are generally arranged alphabetically according to lemma.6 The lemma of a substantive is its form as declined in the nominative case and singular number. Hence, one would find the word λόγος as a lemma in a lexicon.

Screenshot, LSJ, p. 1057

A substantive declined in the nominative case is generally used as the subject of a sentence. It could also, among other things, be a predicate nominative, functioning as a vocative, etc.7

Bullions, §137, p. 201

The genitive case has a variety of functions, by far more than the nominative. In 1 Peter 1:23, the word λόγου is declined in the genitive case because λόγου (the object of the preposition διὰ) is being governed by the preposition διὰ (διά).8 The preposition διά followed by a substantive in the genitive case can have several meanings, one of which is to indicate the means by which something is done.

On the preposition διά, Thayer notes,9

Thayer, p. 132–133, διά

Hence, διὰ λόγου can be understood as “by the word” or “by means of the word.” The preposition διά also governs objects of the preposition declined in the accusative, but that is not the case here, as we would instead read λόγον (accusative) instead of λόγου (genitive).10

In 1 John 1:1, the word λόγου occurs again, but this time, it is the object of the preposition περὶ (περί).

On the preposition περί, Thayer notes,11

Thayer, p. 501, περί

Hence, περὶ τοῦ λόγου can be understood as “about the word.” That is, “we have heard...about the word.”

What’s the difference between λόγος and λόγου?

Semantically, there is no difference in meaning; they are simply different cases of the same lexeme. However, syntactically, they differ as the subject of a sentence and the object of a preposition, respectively.

Long story short, introduce yourself to Koine Greek by investing in a biblical Greek grammar.12 You can return and re-read my answer. The cloud will have removed itself by then, and things will be clearer.


Footnotes

1 Black, Ch. 2, §12, p. 10
2 Aaron & Fowler, p. 902: “a word or word group used as a noun.” In Koine Greek, adjectives and participles may also function substantively (i.e., as nouns).
3 When a substantive inflects, it is said to decline. When a verb inflects, it is said to be conjugated. According to Wikipedia on “inflection”:

The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, and one can refer to the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, participles, prepositions and postpositions, numerals, articles etc., as declension.

4 Bullions, §11.3, p. 15
5 id., p. 16
6 Oxford English Dictionary, “lemma,” 2. c.,: A lexical item as it is presented, usually in a standardized form, in a dictionary entry; a definiendum.
7 Bullions, §137, p. 201
8 Oxford English Dictionary, “govern,” 13.: transitive. Grammar. Of a word, esp. a verb or a preposition: to have (a word or a case) depending on it; to require (a certain case or mood) in a dependent word.
9 Thayer, p. 132–133
10 id., p. 501
11 cf. Matt. 13:21: διὰ τὸν λόγον
12 William D. Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek is a decent introductory grammar of biblical/Koine Greek.

References

Aaron, Jane E.; Fowler, H. Ramsey. The Little Brown Handbook. 11th ed. London: Pearson, 2010.

Black, David Alan. Learn to Read New Testament Greek. 3rd ed. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009.

Bullions, Peter. The Principles of Greek Grammar: Comprising the Substance of the Most Approved Greek Grammars Extant, for the Use of Schools and Colleges. 21st ed. New York: Pratt, 1851.

OED Online. Oxford University Press.

Wilke, Christian Gottlob. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Being Grimm Wilke’s Clavis Novi Testamenti. Trans. Thayer, Joseph Henry. Ed. Grimm, Carl Ludwig Wilibald. Rev. ed. New York: American Book, 1889.

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There is really nothing mysterious going on here. As Dottard pointed out, this is just a simple matter of the grammatical use of a noun in the genitive case which demonstates possession as opposed to the nominative case which identifies the subject in a sentence. As the old saying goes, "Sometimes, a sigar is just a sigar."

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  • seriously! can you give an example that I might understand?
    – Steve
    May 31, 2020 at 12:19
  • Perhaps I could if I understood precisely what it is you are trying to figure out. Your question is nothing more than a grammatical one. Are you looking for some deep theological implication you feel may be attached to the use of the genitive case of logos? If that is what you are looking for, I am afraid you are going to be disappointed.
    – oldhermit
    May 31, 2020 at 12:26
  • for crying out loud. stop reading into it. Just explain the differences in plain English. Like you could explain the difference between run and ran for eg couldn't you? Well do the same for this
    – Steve
    May 31, 2020 at 12:47
  • It is really as simple as this. Grammatically, Peter could not use the nominative case in this verse. That would have been equivalent to saying, "I borrowed he car." Grammatically, this would make no sense. Rather, you would say, "I borrowed HIS car."
    – oldhermit
    May 31, 2020 at 13:05
  • @user48152 - As we have been trying to point out, "logos" and "logou" are exactly the same word with the same meaning. Logos is nominative, meaning it is always the subject of a sentence; Logou is genitive meaning that we are talking about something that belongs to or is associated with logos. That is all!
    – Dottard
    May 31, 2020 at 22:30

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