[B-Greek] John 1:18

Dave Smith (REL110, 211,212) rel21x at charter.net
Thu Aug 24 15:54:15 EDT 2006


Friends and scholars,

The concept of the begotten-God was well known in early 2nd century
Christianity and used c. 132 C. E. or before by Justin Martyr, who equated
the son with the begotten-God and the Father with the
unbegotten/AGENNHTOS-God (Dialogue, 126). Justin illustrated this idea as
saying the son came from the Father as fire from fire (Dialogue, 128), to
show that the essence is/was not divided. This was only one of the concepts
that He attached to the son, another more significant was the SPERMATIKOS
LOGOS, which preceded the incarnation and whose influence Justin traced
through wise men and philosophers of the past.

The folowing are a few selections from Justin Martyr speaking with Trypho, a
Jewish man, to demonstrate that the idea of Jesus being the begotten/first
begotten/God and the Father being the unbegotten-God were used in early
Christianity and understood by Jewish hearers:

...for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God,
but all other things after Him are created ... For that which is unbegotten
is similar to, equal to, and the same with that which is unbegotten; and
neither in power nor in honour should the one be preferred to the other, and
hence there are not many things which are unbegotten: for if there were some
difference between them, you would not discover the cause of the difference,
though you searched for it; but after letting the mind ever wander to
infinity, you would at length, wearied out, take your stand on one
Unbegotten, and say that this is the Cause of all. Did such escape the
observation of Plato and Pythagoras, those wise men, "I said, "who have been
as a wall and fortress of philosophy to us? ' ( Dialogue, 5)

I shall not understand intelligently, but just as your teachers suppose,
fancying that the Father of all, the unbegotten God, has hands and feet, and
fingers, and a soul, like a composite being; and they for this reason teach
that it was the Father Himself who appeared to Abraham and to Jacob.
(Dialogue, 114)

For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would
not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable
God.(Dialogue, 126)

...the Father of the universe has a Son; who is both LOGOS and PRWTOTOKOS of
God, and indeed is God.. (1 Apology, 63)

The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all
things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the
Begetter...(Dialogue, 61)

For I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father of all
things, being begotten in a peculiar manner Word and Power by Him, and
having afterwards become man through the Virgin, as we have learned from the
memoirs.(Dialogue, 55)

Now I have proved at length that Christ is called God. (Dialogue, 124)

For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would
not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable
God. (Dialogue, 126)



Dave Smith
Hudson, NC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Thackery" <tthackery at gmail.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 09:54
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 1:18



I respectfully find the explanation lacking.  I point to Bart
Ehrman's response on the subject where this issue also ended in
stalemate:  http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/
html4/1998-01/22538.html

fin.
Thomas Thackery
California, USA

On Aug 23, 2006, at 11:51 PM, Harold Derksen wrote:

All,

Perhaps a bit of lenience will be granted for responding to the
subject raised here.

Hello Thomas,

A Jewish audience, or perhaps even an orthodox Christian audience,
may well understand that the only-begotten god ([hO] MONOGENES QEOS)
is not metaphorical but a literal description of the result of
Messiah’s obedience to his Father’s will. Briefly, that the pre-
existent theos (Heb. elohim), also known as the Angel of YHVH,
humbled himself by giving up his spirit-based existence, became
mortal (a man), and upon his resurrection from death was transformed
(born) into a spirit-based existence as before (Phil. 2:5-9) as a
generation of God the Father. Thus he became the only born god (theos
= elohim) to date (cf. John 3:6). Thus what was “born” was a new
creature (compared to the physical) and a true son of God, or bene
elohim as per Hebrew Scripture. In light of this, both the
translation and meaning are clear.

It appears the difficulty many have with the concept inherent in the
Greek term MONOGENES QEOS, comes from the narrow definition and
application that is often associated with the English word God and
the Greek word QEOS. Of course theological bias also plays a
significant role but it is hoped that Greek word structure and
grammatical considerations are what is strictly dealt with here.

Harold Derksen
DHS Bible Research Group
j4_12 at yahoo.com



Thomas Thackery <tthackery at gmail.com> wrote:

The translation and meaning of John 1:18 become clear when the
statement is accompanied with the rest of the chapter, book, and
ultimately library. This business of gods begetting gods is
commonplace for, say, Hesiod, but I strongly suggest that such a
notion posited to a Jewish audience would hardly (have been) or be
understood with out some major qualification---namely that a sole-
descendant "only-begotten god" ([hO] MONOGENES QEOS) is metaphoric
for the King Messiah. Within the context of the of the Johanine
account, and the rest of the Christian library, the "what" that was
born was clearly a son.

Groetjes,
Thomas Thackery
California, USA

---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek


Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great
rates starting at 1¢/min.

---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek



More information about the B-Greek mailing list