In the NASB version of 1 John 1:2, "manifested" appears twice:
and the life was
manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was
manifested to us--
The NLT version reads as so:
This one who is life from God was
shown to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and announce to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was
shown to us.
They translate "manifested" as "shown." Often we're
shown something. Is that how we're to think of "manifested," or did John mean something more? To find out, it's helpful to do a word study. First, I'll go through the steps of doing an online word study. For those of you who have access to a
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and
Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary, I'll run through how to use those tools, too. Either way, we can gain new insights into the meaning of this word, and we'll understand more fully what John is saying in this verse.
If you're going to do this word study online, it might be helpful to print off this blog, so that you won't need to keep switching windows.
There are other sites where you can do word study, but today we'll use
www.tgm.org/bible.htm.
On the home page, you'll see four different types of studies you can do.
Go down to the third one, the word/phrase search.
Type in "manifested" and click on the search button.
You'll be shown a list of all the Bible verses that have this word in them.
At the top of the list, on the right hand side in little letters, there's a box to check if you want the
Strong's numbers to be shown next to the words in the verse. Click that box.
Now, scroll down to 1 Jo 1:2. "Manifested" appears in red, since it's the word that you said you were searching for.
What small number appears to the upper right of "manifested"?
I found #5319. That's its
Strong's number.
In case you're wondering why it's called a
Strong's number, you can find out more about James Strong and his exhaustive concordance at these two sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%27s_Concordance and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Strong_(theologian).
Remember or copy that number somewhere and return to the home page.
Beneath the word/phrase search, you'll find "Enter a Strong's Number."
Enter the number 5319 in the box.
Since this word is found in the New Testament, that means that John wrote it in Greek. Therefore, we would need to look in a Greek lexicon or dictionary in order to find out its meaning. Click the box next to Greek, then click Search.
You'll now see "Lexicon Results" for G5319.
The English word "manifested" was translated from the Greek word "phanaroo."
Look down the page to the section called "Outline of Biblical Usage."
Here you find meanings for
phanaroo. Which one seems to best fit the context of 1 John 1:2?
I would choose choice e--to become known, to be plainly recognised, throroughly understood.
Think about that meaning in 1 John 1:2.
And the life
became known, was plainly recognised, thoroughly understood, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and to us
became known, was plainly recognised, thoroughly understood. To get a fuller appreciation of the meaning of "manifested," notice above this section where it says
Vines. Click on
View Entry. Notice what more you learn about the meaning of this word. At the end of the definition, you'll notice that you can learn more by going to "APPEAR, A, No. 4." Click on that, find the A section, and scroll down to #4. What do you learn? Jump to the bottom of the blog for a short discussion.
For those using the book forms of
Strong's and
Vine's:
Find "manifested" in the concordance in the front of
Strong's. Under it, you'll find listed snippets of all the Bible verses that have that word in them. "Manifested" is abbreviated as "
m" in the passages. To the left of each snippet, is the biblical reference that tells where in the Bible you can find that passage. The first is Mk 4:22. That means the book of Mark, chapter 4, verse 22. Scroll down until you find the 1 John passages that contain "manifested." 1 John is abbreviated as 1 Jn.
Find the snippets that correspond to 1 Jn 1:2. What number appears after each?
I found G5319. The same number is written after each, meaning that each was translated from the same Greek word. The G stands for Greek. The New Testament was mainly written in Greek, and the Old Testament was mainly written in Hebrew.
In the last half of
Strong's, there's a Hebrew dictionary, also called a lexicon, and a Greek dictionary.
Turn to the Greek dictionary and find G5319.
When you find it, you'll see the Greek word in Greek first. Then you'll see it as
phaneroo. In italics, you'll see its definition:
to render apparent (literally or figuratively). After that, you'll see other English words that are sometimes used to translate
phanaroo.
To get a fuller understanding, it's helpful to look the word up in
Vine's, too.
My copy of
Vine's has Old Testament words first and New Testament words second. Since 1 John is in the New Testament, look up "manifest" in the NT section.
You'll notice that there's more than one Greek word that might be translated as "manifest." Go down the list until you find "phanaroo 5319." Since it's not an adjective, you need to look under the section called
Verbs. In the first paragraph, we learn that it means "to make visible, clear, manifest." In the second paragraph, we see that it means "to uncover, lay bare, reveal." At the end of the section, it refers us to APPEAR, A, No. 4.
Look up APPEAR, A, No. 4. Remember that you're looking it up in the New Testament section in the second part of the book. If you look it up in the front part, you're in the Old Testament section, and you won't find what you're looking for.
Once you're there, you'll find: "To be manifested, in the Scriptural sense of the word, is more than to "appear." A person may "appear" in a false guise or without a disclosure of what he truly is; to be manifested is to be revealed in one's true character."
In doing this word study, you're getting a better understanding of what this particular word meant for John's listeners or readers. Why is it useful for us to understand the passage as the believers to whom John wrote understood it?
Some of the deceivers that John was warning the believers about preached that to be saved one had to acquire hidden knowledge and that only special people could receive this hidden knowledge. How is what John saying in these verses refuting these claims of the deceivers? Is the Word of Life hidden? Is it something that can't easily be accessed by people?
