Before I wrote my software, I studied ancient Greek with Robert Schmidt (philosopher, mathematician, physicist and translator of ancient astrological texts). The problem with translations is that the semantic fields often overlap so that there isn't a direct 1:1 correspondence for a word to a single meaning. The multivalent nature of the Greek language creates multiple meanings often times. That's why it's considered the language of philosophy because it's multivalence allows you to think in multivalent ways.

Fundamentalists often want to restrict the meaning of a given word. For instance "En arche, en kai ho logos..." (didn't look this up so it might be off because this is off the top of my head) translates as "In the beginning was the word". But logos has several meanings and when it was translated into Latin in the middle ages, the word "ratio" was used, which also has meanings such as "balance, proportion, relation, word", and ratio is an English transliteration. The "word" translation is a narrowing down of the meaning.

So the meaning of the passage could sound like this:

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God".

One could also translate like this:

"In the beginning was due proportion and the proportion was with God and the proportion was God".

Or...

"In the beginning there was balance and the balance was with God and the balance was God".

I believe there is an esoteric message here because when something was stated in a threefold manner, it was said to have something to do with completion. For instance in Arabic culture, if something isn't said 3 times, it's not complete... and of course with that is the idea of the Holy trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).

Just my two cents...