| En el principio era el Verbo | |
|
The Biblical accounts of the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke are well-known,
even to those who rarely step into a church. But another Gospel account of
Christmas is less well-known, probably because it takes the form of a somewhat
abstract theological treatise explaining the meaning of Christmas rather than
telling a story. That is an account in the Gospel of John, reproduced below
in Spanish with a vocabulary guide as an aid in either learning or translating. En el mundoestaba, y el mundo fué hecho por él; y el mundo no le conoció. A lo suyo vino, y los suyos no le recibieron. Mas á todos los que le
recibieron
potestad de ser hechos hijos de Dios, á los que creen en su nombre: Los cuales no son
engendrados de
sangre, ni de
voluntad de
carne, ni de voluntad de
varón, mas de Dios. Y aquel Verbo fué hecho carne,y
habitó entre nosotros (y vimos su gloria, gloria como del
unigénito del Padre),
lleno de gracia y de verdad.
The translation (the Gospel of John was written in Greek) is from the traditional
Reina-Valera translation, which comes from approximately the same era as the
King James Version of the Bible. It is interesting to note that Spanish has
changed less than English has during that time. The passage below is quite
understandable to those who know Spanish. But there are at least two differences
worth nothing: 1) An accent is used over the prepositiona, making it
á, and the fue form of ser, making it fué.
Those accents have disappeared from modern Spanish. 2) The literary
imperfect subjunctive form of verbs is used. The form
isn't used in speech today and seldom appears in modern writing.
A vocabulary list appears below the passage for words that are neither
basic to Spanish nor English cognates. And if you're using a browser
that supports JavaScript, you can get translations of boldfaced words bypassing
the mouse over them. The translation will appear in the status bar, usually
at the bottom of the browser window.
En el
principio era el
Verbo, y el Verbo era con
Dios, y el Verbo era Dios. Este era en el principio con Dios. Todas las cosas por él fueron
hechas; y sin él nada de lo que es hecho, fué hecho. En él estaba la
vida, y la vida era la luz de los hombres. Y la luz en las
tinieblas
resplandece; mas las tinieblas no la comprendieron. Fué un hombre enviado de Dios, el cual se llamaba Juan. Este vino por testimonio, para que diese testimoniode la luz, para que todos creyesen porél. No era él la luz, sino para que diese testimonio de la luz. Aquel era la luz
verdadera, que
alumbra á todo hombre que viene á este
mundo.
Vocabulary Guide
| alumbrar: to illuminate, to give sight
to the blind carne: figuratively, humankind; literally, flesh or meat Dios: God engendrar: to procreate, engender habitar: to inhabit hecho: participle of hacer, to make mundo: world la potestad: power, authority el principio: the beginning |
recibir: to receive resplandecer: to glitter, to shine sangre: blood la tiniebla: gloom, darkness, confusion unigénito: only begotten el varón: male, man el Verbo: the Word (in other contexts, verbo can mean "verb") verdadera: true, real la vida: live la voluntad: the will |
