Some people are tripped up on the word “begotten”.  The thought goes “If Jesus is begotten by God then he can’t very well BE God.”  Some even go so far as to say that Jesus was created by God.

     The Greek word for begotten is “monogenes” [μονογενεσ], which is a compound word.  The first part is easy, mono meaning “one”.  There is no Greek word exactly “genes”, so the translators decided it must be a form of the word “gennao”, which means to beget, bear, give birth to.

     However, as we continue to learn more about the Greek language of 2000-years ago, we've realized that “genes” does not come from the verb “gennao” but rather the noun “genos”, which means kind, class or family.  It’s where we get the words gene and genre from.  Thus “monogenes” means “one of a kind”, “unique”, “the only one in it’s class” and not “only begotten”.  You could say a Platypus is “monogenes”, it’s the only one of it’s kind, there’s nothing else like it.  

     We get further confirmation for this from Hebrews 11:17 where Isaac is called Abraham's "monogenes" son.  We know that Isaac was not the only son of Abraham, there was the older Ishmael.  But Isaac was the only "son of promise", so in that way he was a unique, one of a kind son. 

     Most of the modern translations have moved away from "begotten".  The NIV and HCSB render it "one and only Son" and the ESV and CEV say "only Son".

     Jesus was not begotten, He is the creator of all things.  He is monogenes, there's nothing else like him.