Must Jesus be called “Son of God” in a Bible translation?

Q: “I recently read an online article that describes how some Bible translations in Muslim-majority countries are not using the phrase “Son of God” (Grk. υιος θεου) because the concept is too easily rejected within the Muslim worldview. Instead, certain Bible translations are using the phrase “Beloved Son who comes (or originates) from God,” with much greater success in terms of the numbers of people reading the Bible and believing the Gospel. What do you think––is this a good or bad change in language for a Bible translation?”

First of all, here is a link to the article being mentioned. It’s worth reading through, and I will write my response with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the contents. Second, I need to stipulate that there is a difference between theology (i.e. what is actually true about God) and language (i.e. how we say that which is true about God), and I would argue that theology transcends language. We as humans are limited by our bodies; that is, we cannot engage in theology except by using language, so there is considerable overlap between these things. But this does not blur the fundamental difference between the two, and that distinction is very important for the current question. We cannot “do theology” without using language, but human language cannot fully plumb the depths of theology. We are finite human beings who touch an Infinite Divine Being; or rather, He touches us.

The best answer I can give is that I believe both sides of this debate are correct. There is no such thing as an “equivalent” translation, languages are too complex for that. Any translation, of any kind, is a negotiation of the construals of conceptual worlds. This means that ALL translations require some level of negotiation between the two languages. So whether the term “Son of God” must be maintained in a translation really depends on what the translation sets out to do at the beginning. Not all translations are created equal. There’s lots more to discuss here, but the shortest answer is that both arguments are correct, depending on what “job” the translation is intended to do.

But speaking theologically, I think this debate really boils down to one thing. When Jesus said he was the “Son” of God, what did He really mean? I propose a thought experiment. Suppose an alien spacecraft landed in your back yard, and an alien came out, someone who had no frame of reference for understanding what the word “son” means. How would you explain to that alien what you mean when you say Jesus is the “Son of God”? Could you do it without using either your own father or your own son as examples, or are you as a human person bound by those biological realities in your linguistic communication? The issue is still a bit more complex than that, but I think the entire issue ultimately really is decided by that question.

Concerning the issue whether “Beloved Son who comes (or originates) from God” is acceptable over against the simple phrase “Son of God,” that depends on how strict the translation must be in terms of the rigorous of its faithfulness to creedal Trinitarian theology. Professor Horrell (quoted in the article) is correct when he affirms that the human father-son relationship is the closest thing we have in the physical world that can describe the relationship between Jesus and God the Father. However, we humans are made in the image of God, not the other way around. It is an error to think that the human father-son relationship communicates everything about the intra-trinitarian relationship between Jesus and the Father, because Jesus clearly says that he and the Father are one [whereas this is absolutely NOT true of human fathers and sons]. So the human father-son relationship is an incomplete analogy, but it’s the closest thing we have, and we cannot do without it. But at the same time, any kind of human linguistic expression is finally inadequate; we cannot truly understand a tri-personal being. We simply cannot; that’s all there is to it. So to answer my own thought experiment above, I affirm that our linguistic communication is genuinely bound by our biological realities, but our biological realities still fall short to express actual trinitarian theology.

But this theological question is really different than a translation question, because theology finally transcends Scripture alone. Scripture is merely one among a company of witnesses that profess theology — ultimately, our expression of theology must come from the incarnate Christ and not only the written Scriptures. Therefore, theology is like a globe that spins on three axes simultaneously: textual, i.e. it must be faithful to Scripture; historical, i.e. it must be faithful to the witness of Jesus Himself; and philosophical, i.e. it must express what is true and not what is false. So the question of what is acceptable in a Bible translation really is a linguistic issue more than a theological issue, although I would also confess that a Bible translation must not transgress the other witnesses (historical and philosophical) to proper theology. Take the Nicene Creed, for example. In theory, at least, the Nicene Creed could be superseded if the textual witness of Scripture, the historical witness of the Church, and the philosophical witness of human reason together demonstrated that the Nicene Creed does not accord with what Jesus proclaimed about God and about Himself.

So the bottom line is that all linguistic translations of Scripture are inadequate to express theology. The question is how much “inadequacy” is tolerable in any particular linguistic translation. In my opinion, there’s room for disagreement on this issue, depending on many, many factors. In the final analysis, I really think this is a *linguistic* issue more than a *theological* issue in the proper sense. But my personal opinion is that, both in the case of language and theology, the term “Son of God” must be retained, in spite of the difficulties it presents for other worldviews outside Christianity.