Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Bucky Ball]

For a Jew, the phrase "son of God" did not mean what Christians turned it in to.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articl...son-of-god

"The Pious as Sons of God.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha contain a few passages in which the title "son of God" is given to the Messiah (see Enoch, cv. 2; IV Esdras vii. 28-29; xiii. 32, 37, 52; xiv. 9); but the title belongs also to any one whose piety has placed him in a filial relation to God (see Wisdom ii. 13, 16, 18; v. 5, where "the sons of God" are identical with "the saints"; comp. Ecclus. [Sirach] iv. 10). 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 iii. 15, v. 20; Ber. v. 1; see Abba). The God-childship of man has been especially accentuated in modern Jewish theology, in sharp contradistinction to the Christian God-sonship of Jesus. The application of the term "son of God" to the Messiah rests chiefly on Ps. ii. 7, and the other Messianic passages quoted above.
The phrase "the only begotten son" (John iii. 16) is merely another rendering for "the beloved son." The Septuagint translates ("thine only son") of Gen. xxii. 2 by "thy beloved son." But in this translation there is apparent a special use of the root , of frequent occurrence in rabbinical literature, as a synonym of ("choose," "elect"; see Bacher, "Die Aelteste Terminologie der Jüdischen Schriftauslegung," s.v.); the "only begotten" thus reverts to the attribute of the "servant" who is the "chosen" one.
It has been noted that the Gospel of John and the First Epistle of John have given the term a meta-physical and dogmatic significance. Undoubtedly the Alexandrian Logos concept has had a formative and dominant influence on the presentation of the doctrine of Jesus' sonship in the Johannean 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 [ed. Mangey, i. 308]; "De Profugis," § 20 [ed. Mangey, i. 562]). In all probability these terms, while implying the distinct personality of the Logos, carry only a figurative meaning. The Torah also is said to be God's "daughter" (Lev. R. xx.). At all events, the data of the Synoptic Gospels show that Jesus never styled himself the son of God in a sense other than that in which the righteous might call themselves "sons" or "children" of God."

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There are many historical records of Pilate.
http://paulbarnett.info/2011/04/the-ques...us-pilate/