[B-Greek] monogenes

Jim West jwest at highland.net
Thu Mar 9 07:05:24 EST 2006



Octavio Rodriguez wrote:
> Dear Sir:
> 
>   The greek word monogenes  is a compound of the words mono and genes. Many
> scholars say that genes is from ginomai rather than gennao. Other scholar
> say that the traditional ethymology from gennao is right.
> I think both positions at once can�t be true.
> What is the real root?. Is it wrong the meaning only-begotten?.
> 

Hello!
I'm not sure if your question, were it answered, would be relevant to 
exegesis or translation because it seems to suggest that knowing a words 
root makes clear its contextual meaning.  The "root fallacy" was long 
ago demonstrated to be problematic.  Monogenes, in its Johannine 
context, simply means "unique" or "one of a kind".  As my honored 
college Greek teacher said to us so many times so many years ago- "words 
have usage, not meaning".

Best,

Jim


-- 
Jim West

http://web.infoave.net/~jwest  -- Biblical Studies Resources



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