[B-Greek] MONOGENHS in the Fourth Gospel

Leonard Jayawardena leonardj at live.com
Fri Jun 25 05:41:55 EDT 2010


Under an earlier thread on above the subject, I expressed my view that MONOGENHS in John ... meant "only begotten," as it is rendered in some translations. Further study on the use of this word in both biblical and non-biblical literature has convinced me that I was wrong. This word does not mean "only begotten" in the fourth gospel, but is the semantic equivalent of AGAPHTOS in Genesis 22:2 (LXX):


LABE TON hYION SOU TON AGAPHTON, hON AGAPHSAS, TON ISAAK ...


AGAPHTON translates the Hebrew word "yachid," which has the sense "only" in this passage in Genesis ("your son, your only son" in spite of Abraham having other children at this time).


The divine declaration "This is my beloved son" in the gospels clearly contains an allusion to the above Genesis passage and, if these words were originally spoken in Aramaic, "beloved" presumably translates a word in Aramaic related to the Hebrew "yachid." The writer of Hebrews, who generally follows the Septuagint, calls Isaac Abraham's MONOGENH (Hebrews 11:17), as does Josephus (1:122). It is evident from this that AGAPHTOS and MONOGENHS are close synonyms.


Josephus calls Izates, a son of Monobazus (king of Adiabene) by Helena his MONOGENH (Josephus 20:20), though Monobazus had an elder son by the same wife and other children by other wives. Clearly, Josephus calls Izates MONOGENHS in the sense of "best-beloved," or "favourite."

The preceding context of the first occurrence of MONOGENHS in the Fourth Gospel (1:14) is Christ giving power to those who believe in him to become children of God, who are born by the will of God (1:12-13). Against this context, MONOGENHS is best understood as meaning that Jesus is the best-beloved among many other children of God. Not only is this sense of this word adequate for the Fourth Gospel but it is also theologically supported amply by both this Gospel and the rest of the NT. Consider, for example, the par excellence use of the article in the following cases:


1. hO hYIOS TOU QEOU, or simply hO hYIOS--of Jesus, as the pre-eminent son of God among other sons of God, i.e., the believers.

2. hO GENNHQEIS EK TOU QEOU (1 John 5:18)--among those born of God, Jesus is the pre-eminent.

A similar idea of the pre-eminence of Christ is indicated in hO ARCWN TWN BASILEWN THS GHS (Revelation 1:5), where the BASILEIS are the followers of Christ.

With regard to John 1:18, there is uncertainty as to whether MONOGENHS QEOS or MONOGENHS hYIOS stood in the original. There are arguments in favour of both readings.

The meaning for MONOGENHS in the Fourth Gospel advocated in this post, i.e., "best-beloved," "special," "most precious," etc., would tend to support the latter reading since, as shown above, this word in that sense is closely associated with hYIOS in known examples of the use of this word. The words hO WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS, too, I think, support hYIOS rather than QEOS being the original. However, assuming MONOGENHS QEOS is the original, let me suggest an interpretation for this phrase.

We can understand MONOGENHS QEOS as something like "beloved god," in which "god" is a common noun. How so? In the teaching of the Bible, the followers of Christ, too, are QEOI since they partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4, QEIAS KOINWNOI FUSEWS) and are conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29, EIKWN TOU hYIOU AUTOU), just as Christ bears the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4, EIKWN TOU QEOU). Paul prays that the Ephesian christians be filled with all the PLHRWMA TOU QEOU (Ephesians 3:19), the same fullness of God that indwelt Christ (Colossians 1:19; 2:19). In the same Gospel, the judges of Israel are called QEOI (John 10:34), citing Psalms 82:6 (cf. Leviticus 21:6, where judges who acted in God's name are called "God").

Why MONOGENHS QEOS rather than MONOGENHS hYIOS in 1:18? What is in view in this verse is Jesus' role as the revelator of God. Until Christ came and revealed God to man, no one had seen God. And he who has seen Christ has seen God (John 14:9), because he himself is God (John 1:1; 2:28) and only God can reveal God to man. Jesus was God in a qualitative sense--an exhaustive demonstration of this truth is not possible in this forum--and, in this way, QEOS in 1:18 can be a common noun like "brother" or "son" in that Jesus is one QEOS among many QEOI. This makes it possible to sustain basically the same sense for MONOGENHS in 1:18 as in the other "Johannine" passages and 1 John 4:9. Perhaps MONOGENHS is used in 1:18 to evoke the close association this word has with sonship (the connotation), which is why MONOGENHS QEOS is immediately followed by hO WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS, so that the effect is something like "the beloved divine son"?

(Incidentally, in view of the viabibility of the above interpretation for MONOGENHS QEOS as well as the fact that the consensus of textual criticism is in favour of this reading, I would opt for it as being the original reading.)


Leonard Jayawardena 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service.
https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969


More information about the B-Greek mailing list