Originally Posted by bob_chasm

Code, my take on this passage is a little differerent. The verse says that the Christians say ... and Jews say .... . This verse is not criticizing the Arabs for saying Jesus and Uzair are the son of God. As such we have to understand what the Christians and Jews mean by the phrase son of God and why Allah is telling them not to say it. I believe the Quran is demonstrating Allah's knowledge of language and culture of people other than the Arabs in this passage. That he understands the distinction between how the phrase son of God, means two different things to these two different people in history. In the case of Christianity, the phrase suggests divinity. So, Allah tells the Christians not to call Jesus the son of God, because he was not divine. To Jews, the phrase 'son of God' refers to a scholar and not a prophet. So, Allah tells the Jews not to call Ezra a son of God because he was not just a scholar, but a prophet. To understand this one has to know that Christians regard Jesus as God and Jews regard Ezra as a scholar but not a prophet and how these people use this phrase. This is something that Allah knew but the Arabs did not.