Section 61
89Cf. A. Hockel, Christus der Erstgeborene: Zur Geschichte der Exegese von Kol 1, 15 (Dusseldorf, 1965).
90A rabbinical parallel is the designation qaḏmônô šel ’ôlām (“first of the world”) used of God by the mid-second-century Rabbi Eleazar ben Rabbi Simeon (GenR 38.7 on Gen. 11:2).
91A frequently cited parallel in English literature to this “exclusive” use of a superlative is the couplet from Milton’s Paradise Lost IV.323-24:
Adam, the goodliest man of men since born His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.
A. W. Argyle, remarking that most commentators are content to quote as a biblical Greek parallel πϱѽτóς μου ἦν (John 1:15), adduces a closer one from 2 Kingdoms 19:43 LXX (not found in the corresponding MT, 2 Sam. 19:43), πϱωτóτοϰος ἐγὼ ἢ σύ “I was born before you” (“πϱωτóτοϰος πάσης ϰτίσεως [Colossians i. 15],” ExT 66 [1954-55], 61-62).
92This OT passage is echoed also in Rev. 1:5 (see p. 54, n. 70), where “highest” (Heb. ’elyôn, LXX ὑψηλóς) is rendered ἄϱξων.
93C. F. Burney, “Christ as the APXH of Creation,” JTS 27 (1925-26), 160-77, finds in πϱωτóτοϰος πάσης ϰτίσεως an allusion to the words with which Wisdom introduces herself in Prov. 8:22, YHWH qānānî rē’šîṯ darkô,” The LORD begat me as (at) the beginning of his way.” Then, in view of the third-century rabbinic use of rē’sîṯ (“beginning”) in Prov. 8:22 to explain be’rē’šîṯ (“in the beginning”) in Gen. 1:1 (see p. 62 below with n. 112), Burney goes on to treat Col. 1:15-18 as an elaborate exposition of Gen. 1:1, in which Paul aims to show that Christ exhausts every meaning that could be extracted from rē’šîṯ (or from its cognate rō’š, “head”)—”that he might be preeminent in all things.” See also W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1948), pp. 147-76.
94This is true even of Philo’s λóγος, even if it receives the epithet πϱωτóγονος (Confusion of Tongues 146); Philo’s λóγος, unlike John’s, would never have become flesh and tabernacled among men.