Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Gregory and Carol Yeager <cgyeager AT mwci.net>]

Rolf Furuli writes:

> The problem, however, is not lexical but rather theological. The word
> prototokws taken in is plain meaning of "the one who is born first"
> strongly suggests a partitive genitive i Colossians 1:15, and this again
> places Jesus among the creatures - something  which is disgusting for those
> believing in the trinity. Therefore, systematic searches have been done to
> find another meaning of bekor/prototokws, and the meagre result (shown
> inthe lexicons) is Psalm 89:27 which adds nothing to the lexical meaning of
> the word.
> 
Indeed it is theological.  Your use of words like "disgusting" betrays
theological interest as well.  However, we aren't after the lexical
meaning, but the meaning in its context.  And prototokos, like many
words, can be ambiguous - especially in poetry, like the Colossians text
and in the Psalms.  

If we try to nail every use of every word we find in antiquity, and then
limit those words to "only" their "one" lexical meaning, a meager
translation we'd receive, and one no truer to the original at all

Pax 
Greg Yeager
Dubuque Iowa