The answer sort of depends on how you view Paul. The term "πρωτότοκος" (pro-TOH-toh-kos) in some philosophy was used in a technical way, and if Paul was aware of that usage then the answer to the first part of the question is "Yes" and to the second is "No".
As a philosophical technical term, πρωτότοκος had the meaning "Opener of the way" or "Way-opener". I'm certain Paul had this in mind because verses 16 and 17, which follow the verse the question addresses, derive straight from this concept. Here's the pertinent passage -- formatted as a poem since many scholars agree that this was a hymn:
15 He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
16 For everything was created by him,
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities —
all things have been created through him and for him.
17 He is before all things,
and by him all things hold together.
18 He is also the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have
first place in everything.
I love this passage because it is packed full of meaning, and it all revolves around Jesus as the Way-opener, specifically the Way-opener of all Creation. So let's explore what that means, starting with the word πρωτότοκος itself and just what "Opener of the way" means.
Think of a barrier, like a wall or mountain range or a dark forest. The first one through a barrier could be called the "Way-opener" because he made the way through that others can follow. Of course philosophers weren't generally talking about such mundane barriers, so there are some interesting aspects to the philosophical use.
The first of these is that when the Way-opener makes a way through a barrier, his "shape" is imparted to the way through, and thus everything else that comes through is shaped by coming through the way. Not like a cookie cutter; what comes through the barrier isn't copies, but each thing that passes through takes on something of the shape of the Way-opener.
Of course philosophers weren't interested in physical barriers, so the idea of "shape" is a bit metaphysical and mystical; the basic idea is that whatever follows the Way-opener through the way he opened takes on characteristics of the Way-opener.
So what is the "barrier" that Jesus made a way through? It's creation -- he is "the firstborn of all Creation". And that means that Jesus made creation possible, and that everything that has been created in some way shows something about Jesus. Paul goes ahead and explains that, writing "for everything was created by Him", and he follows that statement with a list that covers everything: whatever is in heaven or on the Earth, whether it can be seen or not, including all the different spiritual authorities that exist. Then he brackets that list by repeating that everything was made by Him.
But it's important to look carefully at the words here. Our translations say "all things were created", but the Greek verb, ἐκτίσθη (ek-TIS-thay), is singular, which means that the subject must be singular. Yet the subject is "τὰ πάντα" (ta PAN-tah), which is plural. So is Paul's grammar bad? No -- τὰ πάντα is another technical term that effectively means "the all" and includes everything in existence. Thus "the all" was created by Jesus. To be precise, though, this time Paul says "through Him", so we have "the all" created by Jesus and through Jesus.
Having made very clear that if anything exists, Jesus made it, Paul adds two thoughts:
He is before all things,
and by him all things hold together.
"Before" is Greek "πρὸ" (proh), which can mean "ahead of" in two ways: ahead as in being the leading runner in a race, or ahead as before in time. This emphasizes that Jesus was present before anything else was.
Then "by Him 'the all' holds together"; so Jesus isn't just the creator of all things, He is also the one who keeps the whole realm of existence in place, working properly from the tiniest particle (physicists will say that's quarks) to the grandest structure, moment by moment -- just like the old sing says, "He's got the whole world in His hands".
That answers the first part of the question: if everything was created by Jesus and through Jesus and for Jesus and He holds it all together, that's referring to the Creation as told in Genesis. It's worth nothing that in the opening words in Genesis the phrase "the heavens and the earth" was an ancient way of saying "everything there is".
Now we skip a bit to the verse that is the source of the second part of the question:
He is also the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead
An obvious question to ask here is "The beginning of what?" We look at the context: the statement that Jesus is the beginning is bracketed by a statement about the church and the one saying he is "firstborn from the dead". This is a contrast: the church is a place of life, and "the dead" are the opposite. The term "the dead" is plural so we could translate it as "the dead ones", i.e. the people who are dead.
So we have a contrast between life and death, and since the church is a realm of life then the "dead ones" indicates the realm of death, which the Old Testament calls "sheol". It's the place everyone goes when they die.
Paul is making sure that we understand that he isn't merely telling us about Jesus and the realms of heaven and earth, he's telling us also about the realm of death, the "dead ones". Since Jesus was and is a man, when He died He went to Sheol like any other dead human. But unlike any other human, Jesus got out of that realm; death and Sheol couldn't hold Him.
And in getting out of the realm of the dead, Jesus was a new kind of Way-opener: He opened a way from the realm of death to the realm of life, and all who have been shaped by Him not just as material beings but as members of His body, the church, will follow that Way.
So "Firstborn from the dead" is a distinct matter from "Firstborn of all Creation".
