Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Gregory and Carol Yeager wrote:


>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

Dear Gregory and Carol,

All of us are influenced by our own theology or lack of such. We should
however, strive to argue on the basis of lexical semantics, grammar and
syntax and not on the basis of theology, and bias should never be defined
on the basis of theology but rather on the basis of language!!! My use of
"disgusting" was a kind of lament or sigh, saying in effect: "Why can't
they accept the overwhelming evidence of the one meaning of
bekor/prwtotokos in the OT and the NT?"

 Have you ever tried to look at the 120 examples of bekor and the 132
examples of prwtotokos in the OT and and the 8 examples of prwtotokos in
the NT? If you do, you will find that more than 95% of the examples
definitely have the *literal* meaning "the one who is born first".  Among
the rest there is not a single example where the point of departure is
anything but "the one who is born first".  Job speaks in 18:13
metaphorically of "death's firstborn", but the anchor point of the
expression is exactly the same as in the literal cases. God says through
Jeremiah (31:9) "I am Israel's father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son."
Ephraim was neither God's nor Israel's firstborn literally speaking, but he
had been appointed as such, so again, the anchor point is "the one who is
born first". The argument that because Ephraim was not a firstborn son, the
word bekor must take on a new meaning because it is applied to "him", is
hardly rooted in the sound principles of lexical semantics. (For those
using such arguments I recommend James Barr, 1961, "The Semantics of
Biblical Language" and, 1968, "Comparative Philology and the text of the
Old Testament."). And exactly the same is true with Psalm 89:27 which has
the same structure as Jer 31:9. An appeal to the ambiguousness of poetry
without examples is too ambiguous to be treated seriously.

The closest we come to a new meaning for prwtotokos is 1 Chronicles 5:12
where ro$ is translated by prwtotokos. In all my research I calculate with
the problem of induction which tells that hundreds of similar examples do
not prove anything, only make a particular conclusion likely, but one
contrary example can falsify a theory. I am therefore very sensitive for
such contrary examples. However, this example is not enough to introduce a
new meaning for prwtotokos because we do not know the reasonings of the
translator. The fact that ro$ is translated in v 7 by ho arcwn could for
instance suggest that 5:12 was translated ad sensum instead of being a
word-for-word translation.

Let me bring a quote regarding the crucial passage behind this discussion,
namely, Colossians 1:15 (R.G. Bratcher & E.A. Nida, 1977, A translator's
Handbook on Paul's letter to the colossians and to Philemon", p 22) "'The
firstborn Son, superior to all created things' represents a three-word
phrase in Greek 'first-born of all creation.' Translated literally (as
RSV), it implies that Christ is included in the created universe, which is
inconsistent with the context of the whole passage." I argue in my book
that the translation suggested by Bratcher and Nida 'The first-born Son,
superior to all created things,'  is clearly biased if we define bias of
the basis of linguistics and translatology and not on theology. I will
further mention one curious observation. In my personal library I have more
than 30 commentaries on Colossians, and all these refer to the *context*
against a literal translation of prwtotokos pashs ktisews. But none of
these or other commentaries discuss the crucial points which are covered by
the term *the context*. To discard a literal translation, two things are
necessary: (1) to show that pashs ktisews have exactly the same meaning as
ta panta, and (2) to show that the established rule that in Greek passive
constructions there is one direct agent and one inderect agent
differantiated by particular prepositions, is not valid. Why have none of
the wise commentators discussed the real questions in their commentaries?
Can it be that dogma plays a more prominent role both in translation and
commentary than anyone likes to admit?


Regards
Rolf



Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo