Everything about Son Of God totally explained
Son of God is a phrase found in the
Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), various other Jewish texts and the
New Testament. In the
holy Hebrew scriptures, according to
Jewish religious tradition, it's related to many diverse subjects, as to
angels, humans and even all mankind. According to most Christian traditions, it refers to the relationship between
Jesus and
God, see
God the Son, as well as a relationship achievable by believing Christians: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they'll be called sons of God."
Similar terminology was present before, during and after the
Ministry of Jesus and in his
cultural and historical background. The Roman emperor
Augustus was called "divi filius" (son of the deified
Julius Caesar): "Divi filius", not "Dei filius" (son of God), was the Latin term used. In Greek, the term
huios theou was applied to both, but, while
huios theou is used of Jesus three times in the New Testament, he's usually described as
ho huios tou theou, not just "a son of God", but "the son of God".
It is generally agreed that the language Jesus ordinarily spoke was
Aramaic, even if he perhaps also spoke some
Greek (see
Aramaic of Jesus). The lack of primary sources in Aramaic about the life of Jesus makes it impossible to determine whether he himself or others referred to him in that language as "a son of God" or as "the Son of God" or neither.
Historians believe
Alexander the Great implied he was a
demigod by actively using the title "Son of
Ammon–
Zeus". (His mother
Olympias was said to have declared that
Zeus impregnated her while she slept under an oak tree sacred to the god.) The title was bestowed upon him by Egyptian priests of the god
Ammon at the
Oracle of the god at the Siwah oasis in the
Libyan Desert The title was also used of
wonder-workers.
While in a
polytheistic culture rulers and heroes were called sons of
Zeus or
Poseidon or
Apollo or some other god among many, Christians, being
monotheists, consider Jesus to be the son of the only God there is.
By historical method
In the
Gospels, the being of Jesus as "
son of God", corresponds exactly to the typical
Hasid from
Galilee, a "pious" holy man that by divine intervention performs
miracles and
exorcisms, an opinion not shared by all (see, below, "Son of God" in the New Testament).
"Sons of God" according to Judaism
In the
Old Testament, the phrase "son(s) of God" has an unknown meaning: there are a number of later interpretations.
Our translation most likely comes from the
Septuagint, which uses the phrase "Uioi Tou Theou", "Sons of God", to translate it.
- The Hebrew phrase Benei Elohim, often translated as "sons of God", is seen by some to describe angels or immensely powerful human beings. The notion of the word as describing non-divine beings most likely comes from the Targumic Aramaic translation, which uses the phrases "sons of nobles", "Bnei Ravrevaya" in its translation. See Genesis 6:2-4 and Book of Job 1:6.
- It is used to denote a human judge or ruler (Psalm 82:6, "children of the Most High"; in many passages "gods" and "judges" can seem to be equations). In a more specialized sense, "son of God" is a title applied only to the real king over Israel (II Samuel 7: 14, with reference to King David and those of his descendants who carried on his dynasty; comp. Psalm 89:27, 28).
- Israel as a people is called God's "son", using the singular form (comp. Exodus 4: 22 and Hosea 11:1).
In
Judaism the term "son of God" was used of the expected "
messiah" figure. Psalm 2 addresses someone as both God's messiah (
anointed king) and God's son.
In the Jewish literature that wasn't finally accepted as part of the Hebrew Bible, but that many Christians do accept as Scripture (see
Deuterocanonical books), there are passages in which the title "son of God" is given to the anointed person or
Messiah (see Enoch, 55:2; IV Esdras 7:28-29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9). The title belongs also to any one whose piety has placed him in a filial relation to God (see Wisdom 2:13, 16, 18; 5:5, where "the sons of God" are identical with "the saints"; comp. Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] iv. 10).
It has been speculated that it was because of the frequent use of these books by the
Early Christians in polemics with Jews, that the
Sanhedrin at Yavneh rejected them around AD
80.
"Son of God" in the New Testament
Throughout the
New Testament (see "New Testament passages", below) the phrase "son of God" is applied repeatedly, in the singular, only to
Jesus. "Sons of God" is applied to others only in the plural. The New Testament calls Jesus God's "only begotten son" (, ), "his own son" . It also refers to Jesus simply as "the son" in contexts in which "the Father" is used to refer to God.
John Dominic Crossan's interpretation
John Dominic Crossan writing in
God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (2007), says, early in the book, that "(t)here was a human being in the first century who was called 'Divine,' '
Son of God,' 'God,' and 'God from God,' whose titles were 'Lord,' 'Redeemer,' 'Liberator,' and 'Saviour of the World.'" "(M)ost Christians probably think that those titles were originally created and uniquely applied to Christ. But before Jesus ever existed, all those terms belonged to
Caesar Augustus." Crossan cites the adoption of them by the early Christians to apply to Jesus as denying them of Caesar the Augustus. "They were taking the identity of the Roman emperor and giving it to a Jewish peasant. Either that was a peculiar joke and a very low lampoon, or it was what the Romans called
majistas and we call high treason. "
Emperor Augustus as son of a god, not Son of God
In 42 BC,
Julius Caesar was formally deified as "the divine Julius" (
divus Iulius), His adopted son, Octavian (better known by the title "
Augustus" given to him 15 years later, in 27 BC) thus became known as "divi Iuli filius" (son of the divine Julius) or simply "divi filius" (son of the Divine One), because of being the adopted son of Julius Caesar. He used this title to advance his political position, finally overcoming all rivals for power within the Roman state. The title was for him "a useful propaganda tool", and was displayed on the coins that he issued.
The word applied to Julius Caesar as deified is "divus", not the distinct word "deus". Thus Augustus was called "Divi filius", but never "Dei filius", the expression applied to Jesus in the
Vulgate translation of the New Testament, as, for instance, in
1 John 5:5
, and in earlier Latin translations, as shown by the
Vetus Latina text "Inicium evangelii Ihesu Christi
filii dei" preserved in the
Codex Gigas. As son of Julius Caesar, Augustus was referred to as the son of a god, not as the son of God, which was how the monotheistic Christians referred to Jesus.
Greek didn't have a distinction corresponding to that in Latin between "divus" and "deus". "Divus" was thus translated as "θεός", the same word used for the Olympian gods, and "divi filius" as "θεοῦ υἱός" (theou huios), which, since it doesn't include the Greek article, in a polytheistic context referred to sonship of
a god among many, to Julius Caesar in the case of the "divi filius" Augustus. In the monotheistic context of the New Testament, the same phrase can refer only to sonship of the one God. Indeed, in the New Testament, Jesus is most frequently referred to as "
ὁ υἱὸς
τοῦ θεοῦ" (
ho huios
tou theou),
the son of
God.
Jesus as divine
In mainstream Christianity the title of Son of God is used to describe Jesus as a divine being and a member of the
Trinity. This is expressed, for instance, in the
Nicene Creed, which refers to Jesus as God's only Son, true God from true God, who took human form in the flesh. This view interprets the New Testament as referring to or implying the deity of Jesus in, for example,, which quotes as addressing him as God, and in, where Jesus states, "Before Abraham was, I am", seen in this view as referencing God's name "I am", revealed in Exodus 3:14.
Jesus as godly
Another view is that, in the
Synoptic Gospels, Jesus styled himself the Son of God in the same sense as a righteous person was sometimes referred to as a son or child of God (though not
the son of God), as in . Since New Testament books present Jesus as without sin, those who hold the first view, that of Jesus as divine, can hold this view too, but not as an exclusive interpretation.
Christians as children of God
In the
Gospel of John, the author writes that "to all who believed him and accepted him [Jesus], he gave the right to become children of God" [John1:12]. The phrase "children of God" is used ten times in the New Testament. To these can be added the five times, mentioned above, in which the New Testament speaks of "sons of God". The New Testament speaks of no individual Christian as it speaks of Jesus, as
the son of God, not just
a son of God.
"Son of a god" in other belief systems
Human or part-human offspring of deities are very common in other religions and mythologies. A great many pantheons also included genealogies in which various gods were descended from other gods, and so the term "son of a god" may be applied to many deities themselves.
Ancient mythology contains many characters with both a human parent and a god parent. They include
Hercules, whose father was
Zeus, and
Virgil's Aeneas, whose mother was
Venus.
In the Greek and Roman cultures in which early Christianity expanded after first arising within Judaism, the concepts of demi-gods, sons or daughters of a god, as in the story of
Perseus, were commonly known and accepted.
In the
Rastafari movement, Haile Selassie is considered to be God the Son, a part of the Holy Trinity. He himself never accepted the idea officially.
In the Epic of
Gilgamesh, one of the earliest recorded legends of humanity, Gilgamesh claimed to be of both human and divine descent.
According to the
Radha Soami Satsang Beas teachings, known as
Sant Mat or Teachings of the Saints, "Son of God" refers to a living Master who connects souls with the Creator through the
Shabd or Holy Spirit.
New Testament passages
The devil or demons calling Jesus Son of God
υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (huios tou theou)
ὀ υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho huios tou theou)
[ὀ] υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ([ho] huios tou theou) - vocative case is normally without article
Humans, including the New Testament writers, calling Jesus Son of God
θεοῦ υιός (theou huios)
υιὸς θεοῦ (huios theou)
- (of doubtful authenticity)
-
-
ὀ υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho huios tou theou)
his son", meaning God's - equivalent to ὀ υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho huios tou theou)
Attributed to Jesus himself
ὀ υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho huios tou theou)
Unclear whether attributed to Jesus himself or only a comment of the evangelist
ὀ υιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (ho huios tou theou)
- - with "μονογενής" (only-begotten)
Jesus referred to as ὀ υιός (ho huios)
etc.Further Information
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