Jesus as the Son of God by Luther Engelbrecht & Ernest Hahn Introduction Muslims believe that God is one, that there are no gods except the God. They may contend that even though Christians claim to be monotheists, they actually believe in more than one God. Since Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God, they therefore err like other people of ancient or modern times who have believed in a plurality of gods or the sons and daughters of God. So often Muslim-Christian religious discussion breaks on the topic of Jesus' Sonship. The Christian affirms that Jesus is the Son of God; the Muslim denies that Jesus is the Son of God. Both simply agree to disagree, each convinced that he is right and the other is wrong, as they go their separate ways. But is there another alternative? In suggesting that there is, the following questions are proposed: Has the Christian truly understood what Jesus' Sonship means to the Muslim and why the Muslim rejects it? Has the Muslim truly understood what Jesus Sonship means to the Christian and why the Christian affirms it? On this topic, which for centuries has been notorious for generating more heat than light, could both agree to explain their relative positions more fully and to listen to one another more intently and courteously? The intention of this essay is to help both Muslims and Christians to penetrate a little deeper into the Biblical concept of Jesus as the Son of God and the significance of this idea for Christians. At the same time, it is hoped that this essay, as it unfolds, demonstrates at least some sensitivity towards a truly Muslim position on this vital topic. Where it needs correction or amplification, gladly let Muslim friends provide it. Biblical Meaning of "Son" To understand the Biblical meaning of Jesus as "the Son of God", first we must examine the Biblical use of the word "son". In the Bible, "son" is a term expressing an intimate relationship with someone or something; basically, it indicates origin, but it is also used to express close association or identification with persons or things. Even when indicating origin, this term does not limit oneself to one's father and mother. One may be called the "son" of the following: his father and mother, his family, his tribe, his people, his place of birth (city or country), and the time or circumstance of his birth. The if "father-son" terminology is also used in connection with kings and their vassals or subjects, masters and servants, teachers and disciples, and almost any situation in which someone is subordinate to or dependent on someone else. The basic requirement of the "son" is to honour and obey his "father", but he should also love him and emulate him. The term "son" is used in many other ways in the Bible, some of which are connected with origin but others of which mainly express some sort of association with or resemblance to persons or things. A large, somehow homogeneous group may be called "sons" (occupational and ethnic groups especially). Sometimes characteristics or qualities themselves are personified and regarded as having "sons" - those who possess that same characteristic or quality. Still also other uses of the term "son" in the Bible reflect the versatile and imaginative use of this term especially in the Hebrew language. A complete list of the various uses of the term "son" in the Bible would be too long for this essay. A few of its more idiomatic uses are listed below, with their literal meanings and the translations of the Holy Bible, New International Version (or The New English Bible or Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version). Old Testament Reference: Expression (as literally in the original text) -- Meaning (as found in the translation) Genesis 5:32: "son of five hundred years" -- "five hundred years old" Genesis 15:3: "a son of my house" -- "a servant in my household" Deuteronomy 25:2: "a son of stripes" -- "deserves to be beaten" Judges 19:22: "sons of Belial" -- "wicked men" I Samuel 20:31: "a son of death" -- "he must die" I Kings 20:35: "sons of the prophets" -- "a company of prophets" (NEB) II Kings 14:14: "sons of pledging" -- "hostages" Job 41:28: "son of a bow" -- "arrow" (NEB) Isaiah 60: 10: "sons of a foreign land" -- "foreigners" Lamentations 3:13: "sons of a quiver" -- "arrows from his

My name is Greg Ledbetter, I am a veterinarian by training, I have been a dairy producer for 20 years, before that I was raised on a cattle ranch in central California. I graduated from the University of California at Davis in 1977 with a degree in veterinary medicine I also have a post doctorate degree in epidemiology from UC Davis. I’ve been a veterinarian since graduating from school but got interested in Dairies while attending vet school. While I was practicing in Southern California in the Chino Valley I observed numerous problems, environmental problems, run off things like that. I didn’t really get interested in those per se until I started working with the Dairy association in Idaho. Before that I was just interested in practicing preventing disease issues like that on dairies. I came here as a result of some of my clients relocating to Idaho. I fell in love with Idaho and moved here in 1983. California, I believe is behind Idaho in dairy regulation, that’s my opinion but I believe it would prove to be true, dairies were attracted here because of low land costs and the ability to expand. As we look as some of the issues with growth, I had the opportunity to serve on the Jerome County planning and zoning commission back in the 80’s when we drafted the first livestock containment ordinance and that was triggered by the fact that we had dairies building very close together, large numbers of animals per square mile, things like that. I believe that was one of the first issues we had: how do we spread these facilities out to minimize the impact of a large number of animals to a large geographical area. Another issue, certainly going along with that, I believe the dairies were doing a good job at containing waste water at that point in time although there is room for improvement. Certainly we do not have the requirements to store water for the length of time we do today, and minimize wintertime application and out of that came the need for, we recognized the need for nutrient management to manage the ground for the optimum use of dairy waste, and not manage it for disposal of dairy waste. I believe that the dairy industry in Idaho is one of the most progressive state industries that we have seen. One of the factors that has contributed to that is that every dairyman in the state belongs the Dairymen’s association, that gives us great ability to work together to be proactive and find solutions to these issues as they present themselves. Certainly the dairy MOU was born out of the mid snake nutrient management efforts of the mid-90’s and that was the first attempt by the entire dairy association to really be proactive and call for regulation of themselves. The DEQ was a minor player the EPA had the lead because they regulation the National Polution Elimination System so the DEQ was not a major player, they would do some investigations, they would respond to some complaints, but we had a very difficult time, to be honest with you working with DEQ and EPA because their primary goal was to generate fines, my opinion again, and to generate headlines to further cause rather than improve the environment. The rise in compliance really came after the dairy MOU, the environmental initiative for dairy program in the mid 90’s when the State Department of Agriculture began to enforce the rules and regulations. The reason for that was the Department of Agriculture already had a dairy bill individual on every dairy at least twice a year for their grade a inspections, for their fluid milk and sanitation regulations, it was just a logical outcome or a logical outshoot of that to have those same regulators, the same inspectors doing their environmental inspections while they were on those dairy facilities. That is what led to the increase in enforcement, awareness of the dairy producers to say ‘he we need to do what is right here’ ect. Certainly dairy waste, especially manure has always been valuable as a natural fertilizer, when the first dairies began to come up here in the early 70’s and 80’s they were actually able to trade manure for products like straw from the farmers, which gave the manure quite a bit of value. As the dairy cattle numbers grew, in relation to the number of acres in close proximity to those dairies the value of the manure went down in part just because of the ratio of cows to acres, but also the fact that commercial fertilizer was so inexpensive and actually requires less management impact to manage than managing manure on a farm does. Now with the rise in fertilizer costs we are truly beginning to see, our farmers are beginning to see a true value from manure as a natural fertilizer and more important as the dairy compost farmers are producing as an alternative to fresh manure, that allows us to haul the compost to farms that are not in close proximity to a dairy. The odor issue actually grew out of the dairy MOU which required us to store all of our wastewater for a period of 189 days,