Jesus: Yahweh's "Only Begotten" Son?

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In John 3 we have

Other translations drop the word "begotten"



The Nicene Creed has the word "begotten" in it

http://www.confessingumc.org/our-story/ ... les-creed/



But now he is "eternally begotten?" What in blazes is that supposed to mean?



Do Christians believe that Jesus did come into existence by a process of reproduction?

And, that Jesus was the only son that Yahweh ever begot? Then how do the Christians explain away:



Those are the "sons of God" cumming in unto the daughters of men, and begetting giants. Jesus had to have had some brothers. Yahweh had to have begotten these sons, too. Not just Jesus.

Christian theology apparently falls apart completely.

I'm pretty sure what is meant originally by "sons of god" is unknown but there were multiple Jewish traditions that these were angels. Those traditions merge in the Book of Enoch which comes around 200bce or so. Some early jews and Christians liked the book but it's not in the official canon of either faith. I just listened to a podcast on first Enoch last week. In "Enoch's" version the flood comes as a direct result of these angels actions and the leaders of the angels involved are punished. Azazel and some other idiot.

In Enoch the giants eventually become something very similar to the descriptions of modern vampires. The are bound to the earth, can't escape, know no obstacles, drink blood, have particular interest in women as they were born of women, etc.

But the original author might have meant sons of god in the Greco-Roman sense. The Canaanite high god El had 70 divine children with Asherah and that predates any extant copy of the Hebrew bible by 1,000 years. It also matches the 70 tribes later represented by the sons of Noah. In the dead sea scrolls you get:

So Yahweh in this translation is just one of the 70 sons and Israel is his portion. These 70 sons, even Yahweh, would be available to make heroes as Greco-Roman gods would later do. It reads like El is still the high god and Yahweh is on the level of Baal Hadad, Yam, Mot, etc.. They haven't elevated him yet.

Mary was knocked up by the Holy Ghost, so obviously Jesus was God's "begotten" son.

He certainly wasnt adopted- if thats what you're asking about.



KilgoreTrout, a fictious sci fi author, who appears in Kurt Vonnegut novels wrote that God had his son crucified so we would all treat each other better. But the human race got the wrong message . Since the guy they crucified turned out to be the son of God humans interpreted the message as "don't mess with people who are well connected".

So the next time around God will allow a guy who really is just a mortal schmuck to get crucified, and then as he is being martyred God will come down from the clouds and announce that "I am now ADOPTING this guy as my son! So dont misstreat ANY body!".

I guess Vonnegut didnt have the nerve to announce that he was proposing an improvement upon "the Greates Story Ever Told". So he had his character speak for him.

But he did point out a possible theological advantage to adoption over 'begetting' .

I'm trying to remember which Vonnegut novel that was in, but I'm drawing a blank (if I had actually read the book with that passage in it). If it's from one of Captain Kurt's books I haven't read yet, I'd certainly appreciate a title.

Yep Christians believe Jesus Christ was a flesh and blood man. Christos is Greek for Anointed One. Gnostics considered him an Aeon, emissary of the Divine Realm and more a phantom than flesh but the Orthodox ruled them to be heretics.

Most "Christians" believe in the pagan Trinity, that Jesus is God himself, but in another one of his forms.

The Bible however says Jesus is Gods only begotten son, other scriptures that talk about Jesus says all other things came into exist through him, in Genesis it says"Let us make man in our image".

The thought being that the only thing God made on his own was Jesus, thats why he is his only begotten, all other things the two of them made together including the Angels who are still therefore "sons of God", but not only begotten.

Been scratching my head trying to recall myself (I read it a long time ago).

Ive only read two of his novels: 'Slaughterhouse FIve", and "the Sirens of Titan", so it mustve been one of those two.

I think it depends on the writer. Paul writes ~20 years after Jesus supposedly died and makes no mention of a virgin birth story at all. "Mark" writes ~20 years after that and makes no mention of a virgin birth story. Then "Luke" and "Matthew" copy "Mark" and the hypothetical "Q" source and give virgin birth accounts with very different details. "John" eventually throws in the eternally existing stuff.

David was an adopted son of god and some Christians believe that Jesus was too.

I've read Slaughterhouse Five, but not the other one.

That could also be a reference to the divine council that is mentioned several times. Yahweh and the divine bureaucrats that he later berates for not doing their jobs correctly. Or a remnant of a divine council from Ugarit or Babylonian mythology, where the many gods meet to discuss things.

It could also be a reference to an early Yahweh consort. Ashera or Anat. Ashera's stuff is sometimes kicked out of Yahweh's temple in the bible and pottery shards have been found with both names. Anat shared a 6th century BCE temple with Yahweh in Elephantine. But seeing as there are no extant copies of the Hebrew bible from that time we'll only get hints from archeology.

"Son of God" was a title given to all of the Israelite kings, from Saul down to whoever was the last one. There are two main theories of why Mark doesn't include a nativity account. One is that he believed in Adoptionism and was influenced by something that later writers like Eusebius and Clement called the "Gospel of the Hebrews" (of which no written text has apparently survived), which explicitly stated that Jesus was "adopted" as the son of God at his baptism in the Jordan.. This was also the belief of the Ebionites. The other theory is that no oral or folklore history of Jesus' birth had developed until the last 20 years of the first century, when Matthew and Luke were written, which could also explain why Paul makes no references to Jesus' origin. However, Paul met Jesus' brother James on at least 3 occasions, according to Acts, and you would think that he would have asked him about his brother's early life. But Paul also claimed that he had spoken to the risen Jesus, and got his marching orders straight from the source, and it's also pretty clear that he didn't have a lot of respect for James--or even Peter, for that matter. Reading between the lines of Acts, that feeling was probably mutual.

^^^
That was because Peter and James believed Gentiles had to become Jews first before they could become Christians - if at all - whereas Paul understood that there was no longer any reason why Jews and Gentiles should be separated. Peter later came around to Paul's thinking.

I didn't know about that Gospel of the Hebrews stuff. But I'm not sure if Saul is a son of god. I thought all the magic prophecy stuff stemmed from a special adoption for David. Thus the jews going all messiah crazy once Davids line ends.

Last edited by simon_says on 28 Mar 2014, 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is plenty of evidence from early Christians that Jesus was a Man who became gods adopted son at either his christening or later at his resurection. The concept of a virgin birth and absolute divinity comes later. The virgin birth comes out of the later ifantile concept that sexual intercourse somehow stains a woman, this then led Authorities to invent the virgin birth (how could Jesus be concieved in a somewhat sinful act) and then led to denials that he had siblings (how could Jesus mother then become stained by natural conception of later children). It gets even more ridiculous (if this is possible) with some claiming that His siblings were not even step siblings - the result of children from Joseph and a previous wife - because Joseph also needed to be a virgin.

Why did Joseph need to be a virgin?

A recent scholar has suggested he was an El (Canaanite deity) devotee, ie. El the Merciful. If that's the case it makes sense that his priesthood would be likened to something not only pre-Levitical but to essentially a pagan saint/king of Jerusalem by the name of Melchizedek. It would also explain the utter confusion that did people like Marcion's heads in looking at Jesus vs. Yahweh of the Torah.