John 1:18

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• ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 1:18 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς, ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.

(Textus Receptus, Novum Testamentum, Theodore Beza, 5th major edition. Geneva. 1598)

• John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

(King James Version, Pure Cambridge Edition 1900)

• John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

(King James Version 2016 Edition, 2016) - buy the revised and updated printed 2023 Edition New Testament here

Commentary

Only Begotten God?

The Codex Vaticanus has the corruption μονογενὴς θεός (only begotten God) here in John 1:18.

P66 and P75 both read θεός. In the Alexandrian tradition, scribes used Nomina Sacra abbreviations (ΥC/ΘC). ΥC for son and ΘC for God.

Support for the reading 'uios' ('son')

- Uncials: A (5th century), E, F, G, H, Delta, Theta, Psi (these last 7 codices from the 8th and 9th centuries);

- Miniscules: family 1, family 13, 28, 157, 180, 205, and numerous others;

- Lectionaries: majority;

- Ancient versions: several Old Latin mss. (including "a," 4th century), the Vulgate, the Curetonian version of the Old Syriac (3rd-4th century), the Harclean and Palestinian Syriac, the Armenian and Ethiopic versions, the earlier of two Georgian versions (9th century), and the Old Church Slavonic version;

- Church fathers: Hippolytus (d. 235), Letter of Hymenaeus (about 268), Alexander, Eustathius, Chrysostom, Theodore, Tertullian, Jerome, and countless others.

Old Latin

The Old Latin manuscripts of John 1:18 read, "deum nemo uidit umquam. unigenitus filius. qui est in sinu patris. ipse narrauit." The word "unigenitus" means, "only begotten, only; of the same parentage." (Dr. John C. Traupman, Latin Dictionary, 323).

Church Fathers

Many early church writers quote the verse as it stands in the Textus Receptus including Theodotus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Hymenaeus, Alexander, Eustathius, Eusebius, Hegemonius, Ambrosiaster, Faustinus, Athanasius, Titus-Bostra, Gregory Nazianzus, Ambrose, Chysostom, Synesius, Jerome, Theodore, Augustine, Proclus, Varimadum, Theodoret, Fulgentius, John-Damascus and Priscillian.

While the majority of orthodox church fathers support the reading monogenes heios, so also do the majority of existing Greek cursive manuscripts. The reading contained in the majority of uncials (such as A, C3, K, W, Q, Y, D, P, X, and 063), Old Latin, Latin Vulgate, and the Old Syrian also support the reading monogenes heios. ^[1]

Many modern Greek dictionaries falsely define the Greek monogenes as “unique” or “one of a kind” or “only”. Because Westcott and Hort were faced with the false teaching of God being “begotten” or “born” from something, they had to invent a new definition of “monogenes” (only begotten), so they changed it to “unique” or “one of a kind” to fit in with the Vaticanus manuscripts error. Monogenes is from "monos" and "genos" meaning exactly - "only" & "begotten". This is elementary to all who know real Greek, to etymologists, and historians. But because there is a bias to cover us for their favorite manuscript in John 1:18 without making known the utter corruptness of Codex Vaticanus, they redefined it to fit in. After a while this new definition permeated new versions, so that now in most places “only begotten” is called “one and only” or “unique” in many common verses such a John 3:16.

Other

The Codex Vaticanus has the corruption μονογενὴς θεός (only begotten God) here in John 1:18 instead of the usual μονογενὴς υἱός (only begotten Son). Many modern versions have redefined monogenes to mean unique in the place of the historical only begotten

"Moreover, that the Son of God was not produced out of what did not exist, and that there never was a time when He did not exist, is taught expressly by John the Evangelist, who writes this of Him:

'The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.' The divine teacher, because he intended to show that the Father and the Son are two and inseparable from each other, does in fact specify that He is in the bosom of the Father." (W.A. Jurgens, The Faith Of The Early Fathers, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, p. 300).

Augustine

Augustine (430 AD) wrote:

"For Himself hath said: No man hath seen God at any time, but the Only-Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Therefore we know the Father by Him, being they to whom He hath declared Him." (Homilies On The Gospel According To St. John, XLVII:3).

Dean Burgon

Dean Burgon believed that the reason that the Revised Version committee including Wescott and Hort did not include it in their version because they were ashamed of the reading:

“We are offended at reading (against S. John 1:18) – ‘Many very ancient authorities read God only begotten:’ whereas the ‘authorities’ alluded to read ‘monogenes Theos’ – whether with or without the definite article prefixed – which, as the Revisionists are perfectly well aware, means ‘the only-begotten God,’ and no other thing. Why then did they not say so? Because, we answer, they were ashamed of the expression.” John William Burgon, Dean of Chichester College, The Revision Revised, pg. 182.

Burgon also gives us some insigth into possible reasons for the texts corruption:

"It will be remembered that St. John in his grand preface does not rise to the full height of his sublime argument until he reaches the eighteenth verse. He had said (ver. 14) that ‘the Word was made flesh,’ &c.; a statement which Valentinus was willing to admit.

But, as we have seen, the heresiarch (Valentinus) and his followers denied that ‘the Word’ is also the Son of God. As if in order to bar the door against this pretense, St. John announces (ver. 18) that ‘the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’: thus establishing the identity of the Word and the Only begotten Son. What else could the Valentinians do with so plain a statement, but seek to deprave it?" John William Burgon, Dean of Chichester College, The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, pg.215.

Philip Schaff

Even the liberal scholar Philip Schaff agreed:

"The Gnostics of the second century, especially the Valentinians and Basilidians, made abundant use of the fourth Gospel, which alternately offended them by its historical realism, and attracted them by its idealism and mysticism… Valentinus himself (according to Tertullian) tried either to explain it away, or he put his own meaning into it…

"In the Gnostic systems, especially that of Valentinus, "pleroma" signifies the intellectual and spiritual world, including all Divine powers or aeons, in opposition to the "kenoma," i.e., the void, the emptiness, the material world… They included in the pleroma a succession of emanations from the Divine abyss, which form the links between the infinite and the finite; and they lowered the dignity of Christ by making him simply the highest of those intermediate aeons." Philip Schaff, First Period: The Church Under The Apostles, Chapter XII. (emphasis added).

"Valentinus or Valentine is the author of the most profound and luxuriant, as well as the most influential and best known of the Gnostic systems… He was probably of Egyptian Jewish descent and Alexandrian education… He made much use of the Prologue of John’s Gospel and the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians; but by a wild exegesis he put his own pantheistic and mythological fancies into the apostolic words, such as Logos, Only Begotten, Truth, Life, Pleroma, Ecclesia…

Tertullian says his heresy ‘fashioned itself into as many shapes as a courtesan who usually changes and adjusts her dress every day.’" Philip Schaff, Second Period: Ante-Nicene Christianity, Chapter XI. (emphasis added).

George Vance Smith

Most modern version supporters claim that no doctrines are affected by the changes of modern versions, George Vance Smith was a Unitarian scholar who worked on the RV translation committee and wrote a book explaining that the new RV readings favor Unitarian doctrines. He called it: Texts and margins of the revised New Testament: affecting theological doctrine briefly reviewed. He shares some candid thoughts about the doctrinal impact or, potential doctrinal impact of changes in the RV, some of which reflect changes in the base-text and some of which are translational.

Smith stated in relation to the John 1:18 reading "only-begotten God" which the ERV revisers only placed in the margin that "there is nothing at all unlikely in the supposition that this may be the true original reading of this verse" (p. 19). Yet he nevertheless regarded that reading as "a greater blow than the popular or orthodox theology of our day would have been able to bear" (p. 17).

This reading which Smith considered inimicable to orthodox theology is now printed as the primary reading in the Nestle and UBS editions, and as a result dominates in modern English translations.

Allen Wikgren

Nestle-Aland Committee Member Allen Wikgren who served on the UBS-4, quoted in Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary On The Greek New Testament, 2nd edition, pg. 170.

"It is doubtful that the author (i.e., John) would have written monogenes theos, which may be a primitive, transcriptional error in the Alexandrian tradition."

Bart Erhman

Modern Versions

Most modern bible versions such as the NIV and NASB, that are translated corrupted texts read “God” instead of “Son.”

• NASB: “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
• ESV: “No one has every seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known."

NIV

The corrupt NIV is continuously changing:

NIV 1973 - "No man has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

NIV 1984 - "No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known."

NIV 2011 - "No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."

Dr. Edwin H. Palmer, who served as the executive secretary of the Committee on Bible Translation for the New International Version, had this to say concerning this passage:

"A striking case of where the KJB, following bad Greek copies of the original text, changed the original is (sic) John 1:18. The KJB says, 'No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' John 1:18, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, is one of those few clear and decisive texts that declare that Jesus is God. But, scripts, altered what the Holy Spirit said through John, calling Jesus 'Son.' Using the archaic language of the KJB, the verse should read: 'No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' Or to say it in a modern and elegant way: 'No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only [Son], who is at the Father's side, has made him known' [NIV]." (The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation Kenneth L. Barker editor, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986, p. 143).

James White

James White who is a critical consultant for the Lockman Foundation's New American Standard Bible^[2] believes that monogenes theos is the correct reading as he says in his article "Purpose and Meaning of "Ego Eimi" in the Gospel of John "In Reference to the Deity of Christ"^[3] that :"John describes Jesus as the unique God (monogenes theos) in John 1:18." Also

"The only "Him" in the context is Jesus; hence, for John, Isaiah, when he saw Yahweh on His throne, was in reality seeing the Lord Jesus. John 1:18 says as much as well."

It is not only supporters of the Textus Receptus or King James Version that believe "only begotten God" is a scribal error. There is also division between modern textual critics as to whether μονογενὴς θεός should be the correct reading.

Greek

Textus Receptus

• 1550 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (Stephanus)

John 1:18 in Beza's 1598 Greek New Testament

• 1598 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς, ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. (Beza)

Other Greek

• 1881 Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν είς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. (Westcott and Hort)

References

• 1. John 1:18 - "only begotten Son" by Thomas Holland
• 2. "Lockman Contributor Page". The Lockman Foundation. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
• 3. Ego Eimi Purpose and Meaning of Ego Eimi in the Gospel of John In Reference to the Deity of Christ by James White

External Links

• Monogenes by Scott Jones
• Begotten Son by Scott Jones
• Metzger on John 1:18

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