[B-Greek] MONOGENHS in the fourth gospel

Leonard Jayawardena leonardj at live.com
Sat Sep 25 02:28:05 EDT 2010



Sometime ago, I argued under the above thread that MONOGENHS in the fourth gospel meant "best-beloved," citing, inter alia, Josephus 20:20 as supporting this understanding of this word.


I have reconsidered this matter since and now think that MONOGENHS in the fourth gospel has exactly the same sense that it has in all other occurrences in the NT: "only." Therefore the phrase MONOGENHS hUIOS in the fourth gospel (and 1 John) means "only son" and MONOGENHS QEOS in John 1:18 means "only god." As I explained in an earlier post, QEOS in MONOGENHS QEOS is a common noun.

I do not now think that there are any occurrences of MONOGENHS in extant Greek literature which support understanding MONOGENHS as "best-beloved" or "favourite." 


Leonard Jayawardena 		 	   		  


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