"Son of God" is a biblical phrase from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), and the New Testament. According to Christian tradition, it refers to Jesus, whom they believe to be the only begotten son of God. The term was widespread during the life of Jesus, as Roman emperor Augustus was known as the "son" of the deified Julius Caesar including on coins minted in his reign.

"Son of God" in Judeo-Christian terms

In the Tanakh

In the Tanakh, the phrase "son(s) of god" has multiple meanings:

• The Hebrew phrase Benei Elohim, often translated as "sons of God", describes angels or immensely powerful human beings. See Genesis 6:2-4 and Job 1:6. Many Bible scholars believe that this reflects usage in pre-Biblical near-eastern mythology.

• It is used to denote a human judge or ruler (Ps. lxxxii. 6, "children of the Most High"; in many passages "gods" and "judges" seem to be equations). In a more specialized sense, "son of God" is a title applied only to the real or ideal king over Israel (II Sam. vii. 14, with reference to King David and those of his descendants who carried on his dynasty; comp. Ps. lxxxix. 27, 28).

• Israel as a people is called God's "son", using the singular form (comp. Ex. iv. 22 and Hos. xi. 1).

In the Tanakh the term itself does not connote any form of physical descent

In Judaism the term "son of God" is rarely used in the sense of "messiah." Psalm 2 refers to God's appointed king of Zion as both God's messiah and like a son .

In the Deuterocanon and Pseudepigrapha

This literature contain a few passages in which the title "son of God" is given to the Messiah (see Enoch, 55:2; IV Esdras 7:28-29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9); but 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 iv. 10).

In Judaism, it is through such personal relations that the individual becomes conscious of God's fatherhood, and gradually in Hellenistic and rabbinical literature "sonship to God" was ascribed first to every Israelite and then to every member of the human race (Abot 3:15, 5:20; Ber. 5:1; see Abba). In one midrash, the Torah is said to be God's "daughter" (Leviticus Rabbah 20).

In the New Testament

Depending on context, the expression "son of God" (or "child of God") is used in the New Testament either in reference to people who follow God, or in reference to Jesus as the messianic king. As an example of the first usage, John's Gospel says, "as many as believed him, he gave the right to become children of God" (Jn 1:12; cf 1 Jn 3:1). As an example of the second usage, which is widespread in the New Testament, Jesus is asked at his trial "Are you the Son of God?" (Lk 22:70). For examples of this usage in other books see Mt 14:33; Mk 1:1; Jn 10:36; 20:31; Acts 9:20; and Heb 1:5. That "son of God" sometimes means "messiah" (rather than "godly person") in the New Testament, is also acknowledged in the Greek lexicon of Walter Bauer.

The question

Some suppose that the phrase "the only begotten son" (John 3:16) is another rendering for "the beloved son." The Septuagint translates ("thine only son") of Gen. 22:2 by "thy beloved son." But in this translation there is apparently a special use of the root, of frequent occurrence in rabbinical literature, as a synonym of ("choose," "elect"); the "only begotten" thus reverts to the attribute of the "servant" who is the "chosen" one.

Some say that the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John have given the term "son of God" a meta-physical and dogmatic significance. Many hold that the Jewish Alexandrian Logos concept has had a formative and dominant influence on the presentation of the doctrine of Jesus' sonship in the Christian writings. The Logos in Philo is designated as the "son of God"; the Logos is the first-born; God is the father of the Logos ("De Agricultura Noe," § 12; "De Profugis," § 20).

A few biblical scholars hold that in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus never styled himself the son of God in a sense other than that in which any righteous persons might call themselves "sons" or "children" of God. However, since in Matthew's Gospel God himself specially speaks from heaven to call Jesus his Son (Matt 3:17), and since the devil assumes that the true "son of God" can perform miracles (Matt 4:3), and since Jesus says he will judge all men (25:31), the Gospel of Matthew does not simply present Jesus as a good man. According to this theory, all the authors of the New Testament and all the first century followers of Jesus which these earliest Christian books of the New Testament represent, collectively misunderstood a basic claim of Jesus, while all who did understand happened to leave no surviving records. Many scholars find this theory historically unconvincing.

Christians believe the Resurrection of Jesus vindicates Jesus's claim to a unique relationship to the Father.

In modern English usage

In modern English usage, the Son of God is almost always a reference to Jesus Christ, whom traditional Christianity holds to be the son of the Judeo-Christian God, eternally begotten of God the Father and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit: God the Son. Not all Christians hold to the idea of the trinity, however.

"Son of God" in other belief systems

Human or part-human offspring of deities are very common in other religions and mythologies.

In the Rastafari movement it is Haile Selassie who is considered to be God the Son, as a part of the Holy Trinity by insistent followers (he himself has never accepted the idea officially or otherwise).

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest recorded legends of humanity, Gilgamesh claimed to be of both human and divine descent.

Another well-known son of a god and a human is Hercules.

In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas is sometimes referred to as "goddess-born"; his mother was Venus.

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 actual deities as well.

See also

• Son of Man
• trilemma

Hijo de Dios Figlio di Dio Zoon van God Syn Boży Filho de Deus 聖子