Monogenēs translated wrong John 3:15

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anrmenchaca47

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My wife is reading Lee Strobel’s book “A Case for Christ” and she came upon a chapter in which Strobel speaks with a Donald A Carson Phd. To put it in short, Carson mentions, btw he studied greek grammar, that monogenē was translated wrong. That is doesn’t mean ‘begotten’ rather it means ‘unique and beloved’ and that the New International Version is the correct translation of John 3:16. Is there any truth to this and if so why is the word ‘begotten’ used then? Thanks in advance
 
That seems the simplest and most literal translation out of context. However, monogenes was also used as a noun and in cases to refer to the only legitimate and unique child. For example, the Greek Old Testament that predates the Christian era refers to Isaac, son of Abraham, as Abraham’s monogenes. Doctor Carlson is avoiding context, as the term was used for legitimate, begotten children if they were the only one or a special case.
 
“Only begotten” is a good translation. “Unique” is close, but a bit of a stretch. “Beloved” is almost certainly not a way to translate that. There are at least four words the NT uses to mean “love,” and none of them are related to “gene.”

Please note that this is my initial observation and I haven’t had a chance to do further research at the moment.

-Fr ACEGC
 
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I don’t have a Greek dictionary at hand right now, so I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure “monogenēs” is a composite from “monos”, “only” or “unique”, and the verb “gennaô”, “to beget”.

“Only begotten” is a perfectly good translation.
 
In the NT, this word usually refers to Jesus as the only son of God. There are three passages in Luke, however, where it refers to other people’s only children:

• The widow of Nain’s son: As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her (Luke 7:12)

• The ruler of the synagogue’s daughter: For he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying (Luke 8:42)

• The healing of a boy with a demon: And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child” (Luke 9:38)

In the Greek OT, the Septuagint, the meaning is more fluid. Here the word can sometimes have the more general sense of solitary or alone, for example:

• Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress (Psalm 25:16)

But there are also passages where the Septuagint translators are already using the word monogenes in its NT sense:

• Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter (Judg 11:34).
 
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This explanation from 1959 of why the RSV changed from the begotten translation should be helpful.
The short answer is that through linguistic studies the second part of the compound has come to be seen as the word for ‘kind’ instead of for begetting.
 
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