Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Williams, Wes" <Wes.Williams AT echostar.com>]

From: John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>

        Wes Williams wrote:

        > Dear John,
        >
        > <snip>
        > if the Christ became
        > firstborn in the same sense as when he became son by means of
resurrection
        > (Rom 1:4), then he is first in time within the group of
resurrected "sons"
        > (cf; Col 1:18 "firstborn of/ from the dead"). Thus, the partitive
force of
        > "firstborn" remains even in your proposed interpretation. He is
not external
        > to the group of "sons," but "first in time" within it and thus is
consistent
        > with the lexical and naturally partitive force of the phrase at
Col. 1:15.

        Wes, I think Col 1:18 is a separate issue and I've said nothing
about it.  I don't
        agree that Col 1:15 is analogous - if Christ became "firstborn" at
his resurrection
        (thanks for mentioning Rom 1:4 which supports this idea), then
"firstborn of creation"
        doesn't make sense as a partitive (does it?), since the creation was
long in existence
        before Christ became its "firstborn."

John,

I appreciate your civility in discussing controversial matters. You are
mixing both pragmatics, semantics and theology in your argument and we need
to separate them to evaluate its merits. I suggest from my having analyzed
each of the c. 105 instances of "firstborn" that the linguistic semantics of
the word "firstborn" itself has a force that should impose contraints on our
theological interpretations. This is one of the conclusions of Cotterell and
Turner's "Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation," 1989. As respects the
word "firstborn," the *lexical* force of prwtotokos requires an explicit or
implicit partitive, a group in which the firstborn is first in time. When
the genitive following "firstborn" is possessive, it still implies an
implicit group. Thus, Luke 2:7, the expression "her firstborn" implies first
in time with respect to a group of children. This holds true in *all*
biblical passages except in cases of simile or metaphor, as I mentioned
previously, which you did not address. The word "firstborn" is a partitive
word. The same is true of your proposed interpretation, Col 1:18 and Col
1:15. There is no difference in the lexical force of the word, that the
prwtotokos/ BeQWR is part of the group. Thus "the firstborn of the sheep"
(Gen 4:4) is a sheep. The "firstborn of Pharoah" is one of Pharoah's sons.
The "firstborn of your sons" is  himself a son.

Therefore, when you say that "firstborn of creation" does not make sense as
a partitive in the light of your proposed interpretation, then the natural
step is to question the pragmatic interpretation in the light of the
lexically semantic partitive force of "firstborn." Is your objection
theologically driven? The Nicene Fathers considered your proposed
interpretation but still honored the partitive force of "firstborn." They
redefined "creation" to be the "new creation," of which the prwtotokos was a
part.

In conclusion, I find no lexical support for your pragmatic/ theological
view that requires the firstborn to be external to the group from any verses
in the entire bible. Ps 89:27 adds no support either since the firstborn is
not "prwtotokos twn basilewn" but is God's firstborn. We do not find this
kind of language at Col 1:15. We instead find PRWTOTOKOS PASHS KTISEWS
("firstborn of all creation") Therefore, lexically speaking, the evidence is
overwhelming for a partitive at Col 1:15. You may legitimately question what
the "creation" is here, but I see that as a question for b-greek and not
b-hebrew. This is why I concur with Rolf that "firsborn over all creation"
reflects bias and not "firstborn of all creation."

Sincerely,
Wes Williams