Jesus' Lineage

[Robert F. Smith]

That misses the point of monogenes, which is to indicate a special, favoured relation.

So, what is the Hebrew Vorlage of Greek monogenēs "only, unique"?  John 3:16, Heb 11:17, Jacob 4:5 "Only Begotten Son" seems to directly presuppose "your son, your only-one" (Hebrew ʼet-binkā ʼet-yĕḥîdkā).  However, there are a lot of scriptures which condition that phrase and expand on it, not to mention the fabulous dual-paternity birth stories I mentioned above.  

 

One might want to mention, for example, 1QSa/1Q28a 2:11-12 which has God “fathering, begetting” (Heb. holid) the Messiah of Israel: "when [God] has fa[th]ered the Messiah" ∥I Ne 10:17, 11:7,18,21, 13:40, II Ne 25:12-19, 26:3,9, Jacob 4:5,11, Alma 5:27,48-50, 7:11-13, 9:26-27, 12:33-34, 13:5-9; Mormon 5:14; cf. II Ne 17:14 (Isa 7:14), 19:6 (Isa 9:6).

 

4Q246 (4QpsDan Aa, 4QSon of God) Aramaic I "[He] shall be great upon the earth.... and all shall serve [him]...the [g]reat..," II "and by his name shall he be hailed (as) the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High" ∥Lk 1:31-32,35.  G. Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 3rd ed. (Penguin, 1987), 275; 4th ed. ( 121, 332); and in H. Shanks, ed., Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (N.Y.: Random House, 1992), 203-204 (J. J. Collins in BAR, Mar/Apr 1990; J. J. Collins, "A Pre-Christian 'Son of God' Among the Dead Sea Scrolls," Bible Review, 9:3 [June 1993], 34-38,57).  Israel Knohl, The Messiah Before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls, trans. D. Maisel, S. Mark Taper Foundation Book in Jewish Studies  (Berkeley: U.C. Press, 2000).

 

The specific intention seems clear.

 

Edited to add this from Hayim ben Yosef Tawil, , An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew (KTAV, 2009), 142,

 

While Speiser and NJPS render [yĕḥîd] (in Gen 22:2,12,16) as "your favored one," construed as a term of value, we suggest that [yĕḥîd] "the only child" refers in a legal sense to the only designated heir.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Robert F. Smith