Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 1:18
The only begotten Son, or the only begotten God. The manuscripts do not agree and the difference is enormous.
John 1:18, in every translation this tool compares.
Two different problems wearing the same coat. First: two old copies of a letter say different words, so which did your grandmother write? That is a manuscript question. Second: what did she mean by the word she used? That is a dictionary question. Usually you only have one of these at a time. Here you have both, in the same clause.
Because it is the only place in John 1 where the manuscripts themselves disagree about something this weighty, and it stacks a textual question on top of a lexical one. If you want to understand why your footnotes exist, this is the verse to learn them on.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Modern versions read the only God, or God the one and only, or the one and only Son who is himself God. Each is a different decision about the same clause.
μονογενής monogenes · G3439
Two things are happening at once. First a textual split: the earliest papyri and the great uncials read monogenes theos, while the majority of later manuscripts read monogenes huios. Second a lexical question: monogenes is traditionally rendered only begotten, from a supposed link to gennao, to beget, but the second half of the compound is more likely genos, kind or class, giving one of a kind.
English has to resolve both questions before it can print the sentence. There is no way to write a clause that is undecided between Son and God, or between begotten and unique.
When versions differ on a noun this weighty, check whether the split is textual or lexical before assuming an agenda. Here it is both at once, which is rare, and each question has a separate body of evidence.
Son has the weight of tradition, the majority of manuscripts, and the fact that John calls Jesus the Son constantly. God has the earliest manuscripts and is the harder reading, which usually counts in its favour, and it closes the prologue where it opened, with the Word being God. Only begotten is the older lexical reading and one of a kind has the better etymology.
- monogenes theos in P66, P75, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus; monogenes huios in the later majority
- monogenes of Isaac at Hebrews 11:17, who was not Abraham's only son, which bears on the lexical question
- Septuagint usage of monogenes for yachid, only or precious
