Is the Greek word Protoktistos used anywhere in the Bible?

Upvote:1

Πρώτοκτιστός is not found in the Bible. However to assume that it would have been used at Col 1:15 if the Son had been created is an argument from silence.

If there were examples in Paul, the NT, or the LXX, then they could be examined.

What is more pertinent is the syntax and grammar of the phrase in Col 1:15 compared to its use elsewhere.

Πρωτότοκος when the head noun of a genitive phrase is always a part of a group defined by the genitive phrase.

For example Exodus 34:20, firstborn of your sons, πρωτότοκον τῶν υἱῶν, in the LXX.

Upvote:1

Using the Blue Letter Bible to search for that term we can see it yields no results. The closest word I could find results was prōtotokos / πρωτοτοκοσ, found 40 times in LXX, 3 times in MGNT and 3 times in TR.

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In Col. 1:15, as seen in MGNT, that's the term used for "the firstborn"

Term from a specific verse

which can be read in more detail in Strong's G4416 - prōtotokos.

Strong's info addresses what you're looking for. It states

πρωτότοκος prōtótokos, pro-tot-ok'-os; from G4413 and the alternate of G5088; first-born (usually as noun, literally or figuratively):—firstbegotten(-born).

Upvote:8

I am quoting from Young's Concordance and therefore looking at the KJV :-

Κτιστης Ktistes 'Creator' occurs once.

... served the creature more than the Creator [Romans 1:25]

Κτιζο, ktizo - the verb to create - occurs fourteen times.

But neither protoktizo nor protoktistos nor protoktistes ever occur in the (KJV) bible.

My 1,700 page special American edition of Liddell & Scott lists both

πρωτοκτιστης protoktistes 'first founder or creator ... and

πρωτοκτιστος protoktistos 'founded or created first'

as occurring in Hellenistic Greek literature, other than the bible.

(Note that the first 'o' is an omega ω, and the second is an omicron ο.)

Πρωτοτοκος prototokos (from the word τοκος tokos meaning 'usury') occurs nine times in the KJV Greek text. In saying 'the Greek text' I mean the belated Scrivener text of 1894, as the KJV translators did not actually produce a Greek text but used - largely - Erasmus and Beza and the Computensian Polyglot.

Tokos is used twice in scripture in parallel passages of the gospel accounts and relates to usury (interest on money loaned) each time. The word 'born' is not actually present in the word, as such.

Any interpretation of the word needs to convey the meaning of the root word tokos as well as the meaning of the prefix, protos, which indisputably means 'first'.

In a generational context, prototokos does not draw attention to the matter of a birth, as such. The word is much more forward looking than that. It is a matter of the 'return' on an 'investment', the initial birth (in the context of birth, which is not essential to the word) being the first 'token' of the success of the entire 'project'.

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