ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Lexicon

G0746 - arche

Strong's: G0746 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: ar-khay′ Part of speech: feminine noun Root: from G0756 - archomai (ἄρχομαι, "to begin")

Semantic range (Thayer / BDAG)

  1. Beginning, origin, absolute commencement; that which marks the start of a thing in time.
  2. First person or thing in a series, the first of a sequence, ordinal sense.
  3. Active cause / origin, that by which something begins to be; agency.
  4. Extremity, corner, physical extreme (e.g. corners of a sail in Acts 10:11).
  5. Rule, authority, principality, magistracy, a position or sphere of dominion; in Pauline usage often of angelic / demonic powers.

Theological force

The word's range is what makes it loaded: in clause 1 of John 1.1 (ἐν ἀρχῇ, "in the beginning") it carries the absolute-temporal sense, deliberately echoing Genesis 1:1 LXX. The ambiguity with the "rule / principality" sense gets exploited elsewhere (e.g. Colossians 1:18, "Christ is the archē, the firstborn from the dead", both temporal-priority and rule-over-the-new-creation).

Notable verses

  • John 1.1, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, temporal/absolute; pre-creational
  • Genesis 1:1 (LXX), ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεός, the parallel John deliberately invokes
  • Mark 1:1, "the beginning of the gospel"
  • Matthew 19:4, "from the beginning" (creation order)
  • Colossians 1.18, Christ as archē, "firstborn from the dead"
  • John 1.1-3, same word, same opening
  • Revelation 3:14, "the archē of the creation of God" (Christ)
  • Revelation 21:6, 22:13, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the archē and the end"
  • Acts 10:11, corners of the sheet (extremity sense)
  • Romans 8:38, "archai" (principalities) (rule sense, plural)
  • Ephesians 1:21, "above all rule (archē) and authority"
  • Colossians 2:10, "head over all rule (archē) and authority"

Verses in this codex

See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page that links here. Top-cited references that use ἀρχή include: John 1.1, John 1.1-3, Colossians 1.18.

See also