[B-Greek] only begotten
Mark Lama
markosl80 at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 9 17:45:35 EST 2003
Jason Hare <jason at hareplay.com> wrote:
The first part of it comes from MONOS, "only," and the second part from
GENOS, "class, sort, kind." See the following for a reference on GENOS:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?layout.reflookup=genos&doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2321920&layout.reflang=greek
MONOGENHS is "one of a kind," "unique," "special." It is often used to refer
specifically to only-born children, but in the sense that they are "unique"
(they have no siblings). It does not carry with it the notion of "begetting"
or "producing" (as in GENNAW).
Best regards,
Jason
[Mark]
But, Jason, the most basic senses of GENOS derive not from the idea of class or category, but from the idea of begetting, as the Liddell and Scott article that you reference clearly shows. One N as opposed to two N's is a matter of Greek etymology and morphology that I am not qualified to speak on without a reference work at hand, but I suspect that the basic idea behind the element -GENHS is indeed begetting
CARIS KAI EIRHNH,
Mark Lama
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