Begotten Or Unique?

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only [monogenes]  Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

Where as more traditional translations have always read,

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." [KJV]

A more notable place for this distinction between translating "monogenes" as either, "only" or "only begotten" is in John 1:18, which reads,

"No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known."

John 1:18, In Greek [monogenes is underlined]

"θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο."

The words translated "The only God" are "monogenes Theos".

So which is the better, more accurate rendering of this koine Greek term? Traditionalists have long pushed for the continued inclusion of "begotten" in these texts as the KJV has it. But is this the most accurate way of translating "monogenes"?

I can attest from personal experience that Jehovah's Witnesses and other Arian and Unitarian groups are in favour of the traditional English translations. These fit their theological agenda of purporting Jesus Christ as not fully Divine (or not Divine at all ), but rather a created Person. Begotten, for them means simply created, born or made and this they gladly accept as the best rendering of "monogenes". We note that every theological persuasion that has the presupposition tnat Jesus was not fully God, or the presupposition that Jesus was a created Person by God (as in the case of the Mormon church and the Muslim religion) these make the case for translating monogenes as 'only begotten' rather than 'unique' or 'only'.

This word also appears elsewhere in the New Testament:

"By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promise was about to sacrifice his one and only [monogenes] son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." — Hebrews 11:17-19 (NIV)

In contrast with John 3:16, here the NIV (1973) does not have an explanatory footnote offering "only begotten" as a possible alternate rendering, but it is the same Greek word "monogenes".

We do however understand that the author of Hebrews is not intending here to say that Isaac was Abraham’s only-begotten son, this would make no sense since the Bible clearlyteaches that Abraham begat Ishmael as well as Isaac and had many other sons after the death of his first wife Sarah (Genesis 25:1-2). But monogenes is used here to convey that Isaac is "one of a kind", "one and only", or "unique" because Isaac was indeed special. Abraham's wife, Sarah, was too old to have a child but she nevertheless became pregnant and it was through Isaac that the promise of the blessing to Abraham would come.

Dr. James R. White notes,

The key element to remember in deriving the meaning of monogenes is this: it is a compound term, combining monos, meaning only, with a second term. Often it is assumed that the second term is gennasthai/gennao, to give birth, to beget. But note that this family of terms has two nu’s, νν, rather than a single nu, ν, found in monogenes. This indicates that the second term is not gennasthai but gignesthai/ginmai, and the noun form, genos.

G. L. Prestige discusses the differences that arise from these two derivations in God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952), 37-51, 135-141, 151-156.

Genos means "kind or type", ginomai is a verb of being. Hence the translations "one of a kind," "one and only," "of sole descent." Some scholars see the -genes element as having a minor impact upon the meaning of the term, and hence see monogenes as a strengthened form of monos, thereby translating it "alone," "unique," "incomparable."

An example of this usage from the LXX is found in Psalm 25:16,

"...turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely [monogenes] and afflicted:" (NASB)

(White, The Forgotten Trinity [Minneapolis, MN, Bethany House Publishers, 1998], pp. 201-202, fn. 27)

The LXX (Septuagint) is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament that existed in Jesus' day and was the text that the Apostles and Jesus most often used when quoting the Old Testament. This translation of the Hebrew scriptures offers invaluable insight into our Greek New Testament words by illustrating how Hebrew words were translated into Greek by the Jewish scholars. It is apparent that to the Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew scriptures didn't equate monogenes with the concept of "begotten" as they happily employed it when conveying loneliness in Psalm 25. What we can conclude is that because the Hebrew word for lonely was translated into Greek as monogenes this clearly indicates that in Jesus' day the term monogenes meant "alone," "unique," or "incomparable."

Jesus is the only-begotten of The Father, and at the same time the eternal Word, existing forever before and after along with the Father [God] "προς τον θεον" [John 1:1]. This is undoubtedly true but we must allow the original words of scripture to have their meanings derived from the context they were used. Jesus is called the unique Son and if John 1:18 is permitted to speak its truth, Jesus is also the unique God who is at the Father's side.

The lexical* information for Monogenes is as follows:

The New Testament Greek Lexicon 

Strong's Number:  3439 = μονογενής

 from (3441) and (1096)

Transliterated Word - monogenēs 

Phonetic Spelling - 'mon-og-en-ace'

Parts of Speech - Adjective

  Definition 

1.     single of its kind, only

1.     used of only sons or daughters (viewed in relation to their parents)

2.     used of Christ, denotes the only begotten son of God

Soli Deo Gloria

C.C.I.

[The article appearing on the website http://answering-islam.org/Who/jesus_monogenes.html has been of great assistance in compilng this piece].

* Copyright Statement

The New Testament Greek Lexicon based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the "Theological Dictionary of the New Testament." These files are public domain http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=3439