Logos in Greek philosophy: Heraclitus and the Stoics, with a note on Heiser

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 BC) spoke of a logos that always is and by which all things come to pass, though people fail to grasp it (frag. 22 B1 DK), and that is common to all (B2). The Stoics made the logos the active, rational principle pervading matter, which they identified with God (Diogenes Laertius 7.134).

Implies A Greek reader in Ephesus would recognize the word, so John may have chosen a term that spoke to Jewish and Greek hearers alike.

Says The Word was πρὸς τὸν θεόν (pros ton theon, "with God," 1:1–2), all things came to be through him (1:3), and he became flesh (1:14).

Implies These statements set John's Logos apart. A Word who is with God and through whom everything was made stands outside creation; the Stoic logos is immanent in matter and cannot become flesh at one point in history. What John says of the Word matches the OT word and Wisdom, so the resemblance is verbal and the content comes from the OT.

Uncertain Michael Heiser reads OT passages where "the word of the Lord" comes or appears (Gen 15:1; 1 Sam 3:21) as visible manifestations of YHWH, and links them to John's Logos and to later Jewish debates over "two powers in heaven" (The Unseen Realm, chs. 16–17; by reference). It fits John 1:18 well, but parts rest on contested exegesis and later rabbinic sources, so the team treats it as a line of inquiry, not established background.