[Propertalk] Fwd: Fwd: Gospel Notes - Luke 2:1-20 [Christmas] - Part 2B-1

[Joe Parrish]

THE FIRSTBORN
 
Brown (The Birth of the Messiah):
  
           

 
Although prototokos, “firstborn,” is sometimes clearly equivalent tomonogenes, “only born,” some would take this to mean “first born among many.” And so, since the time of Helvidius (A.D. 380), this verse has played a role in the dispute among Christians as to whether Jesus was Mary’s only child (because she remained a virgin), or she had other children, born after Jesus (the brothers and sisters of Jesus, mentioned in Mark 6:3) .... In the second century A.D. the Cynic Lucian of Samosata (Demonax 29) proposed a dilemma about a philosopher who claimed to be the first and only: “If the first, not the only; if the only, not the first”; and many have seen fit to quote that here. More subtly, Plummer, Luke, 53, argues that the evangelist would not have used “firstborn” of Jesus if he knew that Mary had no more children, so that at least in Luke’s time there was no well-known tradition that Jesus was an only child. However, the use of prototokos rather than monogenes proves only that Luke had no interest in presenting Jesus as Mary’s only son. Others have seen in “firstborn” an implication of special affection; yet when Luke wants to imply that, as in the case of the widow of Nain, he uses monogenes(7:12; also 8:42; 9:38). [p. 398]

 
There may another reason why Luke uses πρωτότοκος (prōtotokos) for Jesus. That became part of titles given to him: “the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15); “thefirstborn of the dead” (Col 1:18; Rev 1:5); the firstborn (Rom 8:28; Heb 1:6).
 


       
      
     
   
 
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