Isaac was not Abraham's only begotten son

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Vasallus said:
I’ve got a few bibles. I don’t find “only begotten” in any of them.
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seagal said:
That’s what it says in the RSV, that’s what was read in church today. In The Word Among Us it says “only son” (I don’t know which version they use).
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seagal said:
I have the second Catholic edition of the RSV and it clearly says “only begotten son”. Also, that is what was read in church this morning because that’s where I first started wondering about it. Besides, even if it said “only son”, that obviously isn’t the case because of Ishmael.
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Vasallus said:
Well the only places I find “begotten” is in the explanations of the verse, not the actual verse. Be that as it may, context is always important. If you back up a little, Ishmael was sent away, presumably forever. So at that point Isaac was Abraham’s “only son.”
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The Genesis translation of “only begotten” is an error; the Hebrew original clearly says simply “only,” which at this time Isaac was. As Vasallus correctly points out, Ishmael and his mother had been sent away, probably a decade earlier.

Abraham later had six other sons by a subsequent wife, but that’s another subject for another thread. At the time of yesterday’s reading, Isaac was his only son at home, but not his only begotten son.
 
DaveBj said:
The Genesis translation of “only begotten” is an error; the Hebrew original clearly says simply “only,” which at this time Isaac was. As Vasallus correctly points out, Ishmael and his mother had been sent away, probably a decade earlier.

Abraham later had six other sons by a subsequent wife, but that’s another subject for another thread. At the time of yesterday’s reading, Isaac was his only son at home, but not his only begotten son.
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I would like to ask how you determined that “begotten” is “clearly in error?”

I’m not trying to challenge but am sincerely interested.

My understanding is that there is not a single Hebrew original but several including the Samaritan and Masoretic texts.

I hope you can help me understand because the DR contains the word begotten while the KJV and its variants do not.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
I would like to ask how you determined that “begotten” is “clearly in error?”

I’m not trying to challenge but am sincerely interested.

My understanding is that there is not a single Hebrew original but several including the Samaritan and Masoretic texts.

I hope you can help me understand because the DR contains the word begotten while the KJV and its variants do not.

-Tim-
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Because it’s not in the Hebrew, nor is it in the Septuagint. As a matter of fact, the Septuagint doesn’t even have “only,” only “beloved.” Apparently Jerome chose to expand the meaning of the Hebrew “only” to “only begotten,” which is an error both linguistically (I just said why) and historically (because at time Abraham had begotten two sons). Since the D-R was taken from the Vulgate, the error transferred. The KJV translators went back to the Hebrew. Granted, the manuscripts that were available to them were not as old as the ones that are available now, but that is not relevant to the wording in the vers that we are talking about.

If you can find a Hebrew version that says “only begotten,” I would be pleased to see it.
 
DaveBj said:
Because it’s not in the Hebrew, nor is it in the Septuagint. As a matter of fact, the Septuagint doesn’t even have “only,” only “beloved.” Apparently Jerome chose to expand the meaning of the Hebrew “only” to “only begotten,” which is an error both linguistically (I just said why) and historically (because at time Abraham had begotten two sons). Since the D-R was taken from the Vulgate, the error transferred. The KJV translators went back to the Hebrew. Granted, the manuscripts that were available to them were not as old as the ones that are available now, but that is not relevant to the wording in the vers that we are talking about.

If you can find a Hebrew version that says “only begotten,” I would be pleased to see it.
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Thanks for the response. I appreciate it.
 
In Hebrews 11:17 we have Isaac referred to as “only begotten” in the Greek. I think the OT Vulgate reference to “begotten” is just a case of dynamic equivalence over formal equivalence during translation. The meaning was expanded because Isaac was the only son of Sara’s union with Abraham. Sara had no other son and God’s promise was to Abraham and Sara. The fact that Hebrews is using it as a point of agreement shows this understanding was accepted by Jews.

Is the word begotten ever used in the Torah? I don’t think it is, so it just may not have been a word that was commonly used if at all until generations after Moses writing it.
 
The ISA program has:

Gen. 22:2 - and-he-is-saying take-you! please! son-of you **only-one-of you **whom you-love Isaac and go-you! for you to land of the Moriah and [offer] up-you him! there for ascent-[offering] on one-of the mountains which I-shall-say to you.

Gen. 22:2 -
a. son of you, only one of you, whom you love
b. son of you, [the] only one of you whom you love (not likely, because we know he cared about Ishmael)

Gen. 22:12 - and he-is-saying must-[not-be] you are stretching-[forth] hand of you to the lad and must-not-[be] you-are-doing to him anything that now I-know that fearing-one-of Elohim you and not you-kept-back son-of you only-one-of you from me.

Gen. 22:12 -
a. not you kept back son of you, only one of you, from me
b. son of you, only one of you from me. (Is God Himself gave Abraham Isaac, so he is the only legitimate son?)

Thinking on this problem a while back, it seemed like the distinction may come from Ishmael being Abram’s - but Isaac is Abraham’s.

Kinda like Jacob had 12 sons and 1 dau, but Israel had Joseph and Benjamin. However, I’m not sure how it computes for the two children of Joseph that Jacob? adopted … to ‘replace’ Reuben and Simeon. Gen. 48:1-11 is very strange - both Jacob and Israel are mentioned in different circumstances (but that would be another thread).

Gen. 22:16 - and he-is-saying in me I-swear averment-of Yahweh that because which you-did the thing the this and not you-kept-back son-of you only-one-of you:

No ambiguity on this one, for me.
 
irenaeuslyons said:
In Hebrews 11:17 we have Isaac referred to as “only begotten” in the Greek. I think the OT Vulgate reference to “begotten” is just a case of dynamic equivalence over formal equivalence during translation. The meaning was expanded because Isaac was the only son of Sara’s union with Abraham. Sara had no other son and God’s promise was to Abraham and Sara. The fact that Hebrews is using it as a point of agreement shows this understanding was accepted by Jews.

Is the word begotten ever used in the Torah? I don’t think it is, so it just may not have been a word that was commonly used if at all until generations after Moses writing it.
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I had to work backwards from KJV English. In the Torah it is used three times as part of a compound verb (like “have begotten”). Those references are Gen. 5:4, Num. 11:12, and Deut. 23:8. There is one usage as an adjective, “begotten of thy father,” in Lev. 18:11.

By contrast, the present tense verb “beget” shows up three times in the KJV translation of the Torah, and the past tense form “begot” not at all.
 
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