Understand that MineCraft is developed using Java. MineCraft is also cross platform on Windows, Mac and Linux. If you're to start anew, besides Java, what other programming language would you choose to develop a game similar or clone of MineCraft?
Python would be an excellent language to consider. A lot of MineCraft is based off of features users can add to it. While Java does make this easy, python is more user-friendly and readable, thus encouraging more people to contribute.