Do you not think that those Jews familiar with Philo's Logos philosophy would have associated the Logos of John with the angel of the Lord who lead the Israelites through the wilderness, appeared to Abraham, etc etc.
Yes, certainly that was the Philonic understanding. That is why I disagree with aqwsed that Philo's Logos was merely an abstraction. He is refuting the Platonic Logos and ignoring it's adaptation by Jewish theologians.
As to the JW use of the term archangel for a prehuman Logos. It gets complicated. The 'angel' of God introduced into some OT scenes as an intermediary represented a particular school's approach to protecting the transcendence/immanence of God. Others used other means such as the Word, Glory, Spirit or Name as stand-ins/placeholders for God. While not likely intended, the sum of these efforts resulted in the 'second power' concept in late 2nd temple Judaism. The LXX cemented a connection with the Greek Logos.
Different readers took away many different variations on this theme. While some might have equated the 'Great Angel' with the Logos others did not. Some understood the Holy Spirit as the same as the Logos others saw them as separate emanations. Angels, as sons, are a big topic, but it might help to think of them as replacements for the council of gods/sons under El on one hand and at the same time as the hands, mouth and eyes of God on the other. They served two roles. It provided the Most High with a council to sit with and also separated him from material, profane, earthly things. Kaleb made some good comments regarding that. I wish it were simpler, but we are discussing a collection of writings from diverse schools of thought being reinterpreted centuries later by equally diverse sects.
I have mentioned that there is no question some understood Christ as the Great Angel or Michael through these connections. Revelation uses theophoric descriptions of various great angels and Michael all of which are separate scenes of divinity in action. It is also true that Yahweh was rolled into that mess of second power ideas. Remember the OG forms of Daniel 7 equate the Son of Man/Michael with the Ancient of days. That is the form the NT writers would have read. This explains why many OT allusions to Yahweh were identified with Christ in the NT
The JW understanding however ignores that all these names and characters were regarded as projections of the Most High and the complexity of the history of these expressions.
The question of identification of the Most High with Yahweh is another topic, but suffice to say some, like 2nd Isaiah, did and that has dominated JW understanding; but was not universally believed. Many still held that Yahweh was the God/son assigned to Israel by the Most High and therefore a second power like the Logos.
