John 1:2

Οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν Θεόν.

RBT Greek Interlinear:

Strongs 3778; Houtos; Οὗτος; This; DPro-NMS

Strongs 1510; ēn; ἦν; was; V-IIA-3S

Strongs 1722; en; ἐν; within; Prep

Strongs 746; archē; ἀρχῇ; origin/source; N-DFS

Strongs 4314; pros; πρὸς; toward; Prep

Strongs 3588; ton; τὸν; the; Art-AMS

Strongs 2316; Theon; Θεόν; God; N-AMS

RBT Hebrew Literal:

The Origin as Self

This one was within the origin toward the God.⁴

Julia Smith Literal 1876 Translation:
This was in the beginning with God.

LITV Translation:
He was in the beginning with God.

ESV Translation:
He was in the beginning with God.

Footnotes

4

αὐτός The True Self

The phrase completes the circuit, and sounds as if John is speaking of himself, i.e. this one. Why would he be redundant in his writing?

The pronoun αὐτός, used "inordinately" throughout the New Testament, is a word that fundamentally denotes one’s true self, often distinguishing the soul from the body (Od. 11.602) or, conversely, the body from the soul (Il. 1.4). It functions reflexively as “self” and, in oblique cases, as a personal pronoun (“him, her, it”).

It emphasizes individual identity in contrast to others, such as a king vs. his subjects (Il. 6.18), Zeus vs. the other gods (Il. 8.4), or a warrior vs. his weapons (Il. 1.47).

With the article (ὁ αὐτός, ἡ αὐτή, τὸ αὐτό), it signifies "the same" or "the very one."

In prose, αὐτός can appear without the article for proper names (αὐτὸς Μένων, X. An. 2.1.5) and is used impersonally in phrases like αὐτὸ δείξει ("the result will show," Cratin. 177). It also expresses volition (“of one’s own accord,” Il. 17.254) or personal presence (“in person,” D. 1.2).

The most frequent noun word used in the NT is not "God" (θεός), found 1,317 times, but rather αὐτός the self, found over 5,600 times. The only words more frequent are "and" (9,000 times) and "the" (20,000 times).