March 31st, 2025
123. John 1:18 in the ESV, EHV, and NIV
The ESV is a translation that desires to keep a very stable text, with minimal changes. (The EHV’s goal is similar). Recently, however, the ESV’s Translation Oversight Committee offered an 18-page list of changes. Most of the changes are very minor.
The change that seems to have drawn the most attention was the change to John 1:18.
ESV 2016 | ESV 2025 | |
No one has ever seen God; the only God,1 who is at the Father’s side,2 he has made him known. | No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who1 is at the Father’s side,2 he has made him known. | |
1 Or the only One, who is God; some manuscripts the only Son | 1 Or seen God; the only God who; some manuscripts seen God; the only Son, who (see verse 14) | |
2 Greek in the bosom of the Father | 2 Greek in the bosom of the Father |
The EHV reads
No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is close to the Father’s side, has made him known.
Some witnesses to the text read the only-begotten God.
The NIV reads
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
but the only Son, who…
The ESV translation oversight committee itself tagged this as one of its most significant changes: “The only God” has been updated to “God the only Son,” with “God” corresponding to theos and “only Son” to monogenēs. This translation incorporates the concept of descent (which is an implication of monogenēs in context) and maintains concordance with the other occurrences of monogenēs in the New Testament.
There are two main issues here. Should the text read Son (huios) or God (theos)? Does monogenes carry within it the connotation expressed by the traditional rendering only begotten, or is it best rendered by only, one and only, or unique?
On question one, the NIV and EHV read Son. At first glance it appears that the ESV reads Son, but they seem to say that they did not get the rendering Son from the Greek word huios but from the implications of monogenes. The UBS textual commentary accepts theos as the more difficult reading and regards huios as assimilation to the more common expression only begotten Son.
Below is a chart of the witnesses for μονογενὴς θεός (pink) and μονογενὴς υἱός (orange).
The reading μονογενὴς θεός (only-begotten God) has some significant early witnesses. (See the pink highlighting.) Papyrus 66 and papyrus 75 are early, as is syriac p, and of course, Aleph, and B. It is not surprising that most scholars who favor (or add extra weight to) the Alexandrian witnesses would favor this reading. Yet, even there, most of the other early witnesses for that reading are divided. Those witnesses are marked green. Clement is one example.
The reading μονογενὴς υἱός (only-begotten Son) seems to be dominant in North Africa, Gaul/Italy, Asia Minor, and Syria (Antoch).
Palestine (Caesarea) is quite divided.
The chart demonstrates which is the earliest and most widespread reading, yet "some witnesses" do support the other reading. It demonstrates what led the EHV to put “only-begotten God” in a footnote to the text.
The one variant that seems to fit the new ESV text is μονογενὴς υἱὸς θεοῦ (“the only-begotten Son of God”). That variant appears in our chart in blue in old Latin q, and also in 1/3 of Irenaeus (Latin), 1/11 of Origen witnesses. It does not seem from their explanation that they were choosing this rather rare variant.
Lately, most of our questions on New Testament textual choices have been dealing with passages in John's Gospel. Please read or review this FAQ that deals with another textual question, but explains some things that apply to this question:
The last part of that FAQ explains one reason why (without downgrading any witnesses), we should not overlook a reading in the Gospel of John that comes early from Ephesus (Asia Minor). The Byzantine and Lectionaries testimony is particularly useful with John.
A Second ESV Question on John 1:18
On question two, “Does monogenes carry within it the connotation expressed by the traditional rendering only begotten?” the NIV has the one and only. The ESV has only. The EHV is alone in retaining the traditional rendering only begotten, and it explains this in a footnote to John 3:16: “The expression translated only-begotten Son means either that Jesus is the only one of his kind, the one and only (Luke 9:38), or that he has a unique, unchanging relationship of oneness that existed between the Father and the Son from eternity (John 1:18; 14:11; Hebrews 1:5). This second nuance is also reflected in the wording of the Nicene Creed which says that Christ is begotten of the Father from eternity. See FAQ 26 on the Wartburg Project website about the translation of only-begotten.” Our main reason for preserving only-begotten is to preserve the connection between the translation and the language of worship, creeds, and theology.
One other phrase in this passage that catches translators’ attention is the phrase traditionally translated in the Father’s bosom. Because of the contemporary connotation of bosom, translators look for something else. The ESV has at the Father’s side. The NIV has is in closest relationship with the Father. The EHV has close to the Father’s side.
A Second Change to the ESV
ESV 2016 | ESV 2025 | |
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to1 your husband, but he shall rule over you.” | To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for1 your husband, and he shall rule over you.” | |
1 Or shall be toward (see 4:7) | 1 Or to, or toward, or against (see 4:7) |
The EHV reads: “Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you.” At Genesis 3:16 it adds a lengthy note: “If there had been no fall into sin, the relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, would have been pure joy. Because of the fall into sin, it is now a mixture of joy and sorrow, love and hate. This passage has been understood in two ways, both of which agree with the rest of Scripture. The woman will have a loving desire for her husband, but he will at times disappoint her by not leading her in a loving way. The woman will resent her husband’s headship, but he will remain the head. In neither case is this a statement of how things should be, but an announcement about how they will be because of sin. What had been a purely loving relationship is corrupted by selfishness from both sides. For a statement of how the relationship should work, read Ephesians 5:22-33.”
The ESV committee changed their ESV 2016 translation of the Hebrew preposition 'el from contrary to back to the original ESV 2001 translation for —which provides a more natural translation in continuity with the historic stream of formal equivalent English Bible translations, and which preserves the range of interpretive options in the Hebrew. The ESV change seems to have the same purpose as the EHV note: to preserve the range of interpretive options in the Hebrew. Contrary to limits the understanding to hostility on the part of the woman.
Addendum: The ESV 2025 Changes
The committee made text changes to 36 Scripture passages involving 42 verses, resulting in a total of 68 word changes. Given that there are nearly 757,400 words in the ESV, this represents a change of about one word per 11,000 words in the ESV text. In addition to the above text changes, a limited number of changes were made to 57 footnotes, and a few additional changes were also made to punctuation in 14 verses.
Ten changes or so could be called corrections of typos, but they are mostly minor matters like placement of verse numbers, parenthesis, quotation marks, etc.
A clarification that occurs about 10 times is changing the expression the meaning of the Hebrew word is unknown to the meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain. This makes sense since if the meaning was unknown, it could not be translated.
Other issues are break-up of long sentences, paragraph breaks, minor style changes, etc.
The complete list of changes is available at the following link if you wish to make your own evaluations.