Saturday, March 8, 2014

Trinity: Is Jesus "Begotten"? *

You may as well be the one who brings up the "only begotten son" subject.  Even with Muslims who I thought should have known better, I discovered that they thought that Christians believe that God had inappropriate relations with Mary to beget Jesus.  This misunderstanding is motivated by verses in the Quran and is also part of the prevailing cloud of anti-Christian polemics that Muslims spread.

The King James Version famously translates John 3:16 like this:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son...
--John 3:16 (KJV)

Modern versions translate this in various ways and usually have footnotes, but English-speaking  Muslims have focused on this phrase to justify this attack.

 One of the reasons we still use the KJV is that it is a word-for-word translation, and, since the words have not changed much, it is hard to improve on it.  And so, in this case they naturally translated the word "Monogenēs" as "only begotten".

However, it is really not that simple.  "Monogenēs" only occurs a few times  in the New Testament, and is rare in ancient literature.  You can't use a word that has unclear meaning, and  is not even part of the topic of this verse to justify a doctrine.

Muslims sometimes say there are thousands of sects of Christianity.  Indeed, it seems every possible way to interpret the Bible has been described, given a name, debated, and dismissed by one group and adopted by another.  But I am unable to find a sect that believed that God had carnal relations with Mary at any time in history.  Muslims haven't either.




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