The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (154 page)

CHAPTER 16

CORE KNOWLEDGE

Basic Knowledge:
Students should know the key facts of the book of Hebrews. With regard to history, students should be able to identify the book's author, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a basic outline of the book and identify core elements of the book's content found in the Unit-by-Unit Discussion. With regard to theology, students should be able to identify the major theological themes in the book of Hebrews.

Intermediate Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge above, students should be able to present the arguments for historical, literary, and theological conclusions. With regard to history, students should be able to discuss the evidence for authorship, date, provenance, destination, and purpose. With regard to literature, they should be able to provide a detailed outline of the book. With regard to theology, students should be able to discuss the major theological themes in the book of Hebrews and the ways in which they uniquely contribute to the NT canon.

Advanced Knowledge:
In addition to mastery of the core content identified in Basic Knowledge and beyond the Intermediate Knowledge noted above, students should be able to assess critically the authorship of Hebrews and how it relates to canonicity They should be able to discuss the genre of Hebrews, the use of the OT, and rhetorical devices used in the book. They should be able to adjudicate the warning passages in light of the hermeneutic employed by the author and in view of the spiritual condition of the original readers and interact critically with the major structural proposals for the book.

INTRODUCTION

H
EBREWS IS A book of profound contrasts and irony. Written in the most classical style of Greek in the NT, it reflects distinctly Jewish hermeneutics. The book has traditionally been known as “the letter of Paul to the Hebrews,” but, as will be seen, scholars dispute almost every word of this description. The author calls the document a brief “word of exhortation” (13:22), but it is in fact one of the longest letters in the NT. While Hebrews has been acknowledged as one of the greatest works of theology in the NT, it struggled for full canonical acceptance longer than any other NT book.

Indeed, the student of Hebrews encounters a rather daunting series of unknowns, which have consistently defied resolution over the centuries.
¹
What is more, studying Hebrews is taxing because understanding it requires considerable familiarity with OT teaching. Yet anyone who immerses himself in the book and its message will be richly rewarded, for, as L. T. Johnson aptly noted, “Hebrews is one of the most beautifully written, powerfully argued, and theologically profound writings in the NT. Its anonymous author summons readers to a vision of reality and a commitment of faith that is at once distinctive, attractive, and disturbing.”
²

With its emphasis on the unmatched, eternal high priesthood of Jesus Christ and the once-for-all character of his substitutionary sacrifice, Hebrews makes a vital and indispensable contribution to the Christian canon. Against religions that claim God has revealed himself through various prophets and revelations, Hebrews affirms that God in these last days has revealed himself definitively “by His Son”
(en huio;
1:2). This Son, after dying on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice, “sat down” to rest from his work (1:3) and went to heaven as a “forerunner” (6:20) of those who have faith in him for eternal salvation.
³

HISTORY

Author

It has been suggested that the author of Hebrews is “one of the three great theologians of the New Testament.”
⁴
Unfortunately, the authorship of the letter is the first in the list of unknowns regarding this book. The debate most familiar to evangelical Christians is whether Paul was its author, but it is unlikely that he was (see below). Few scholars today believe Paul wrote Hebrews.
⁵
Two major factors, in particular, support the near unanimous consensus in this regard. First, the language of the book is different from Paul's in his letters. These differences extend beyond its vocabulary and style also to the book's imagery and theological motifs, such as the high priesthood of Christ. Second, and perhaps most damaging, is that the writer says that he heard the gospel from those who received it from Christ (see 2:3)—something Paul vehemently denied about himself elsewhere (Gal 1:11-16; see 1 Cor 15:8).

In lieu of Pauline authorship, a long parade of candidates has been proposed as the possible writer of Hebrews. These include Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Apollos, Luke, Silas, Priscilla, Philip, and even Mary the mother of Jesus.
⁶
Each of these, excluding Luke,
has the same problem: we have no known documents by these authors to compare with Hebrews. Given the circumstances, therefore, it is best to admit that the authorship of Hebrews is unknown.
⁷

The good news is that not one point of exegesis is dependent on knowing the identity of the person responsible for the letter. The document itself is formally anonymous, that is, the author does not name himself. At the same time it is apparent that the book was likely never intended to be an anonymous letter to its first readers. The author fully expected the recipients of his letter to know who he was, given the nature of the personal references to his readers (see 13:19—23). He may have been part of their congregation at some point in the past, and he expected to see them again in the future.

The difficulty is not just that the book is anonymous but that the early church struggled with identifying the author when they had no such struggle with other formally anonymous works in the NT (e.g., the Gospels and Acts).
⁸
The book first appears in the canon among the handwritten manuscripts in Paul's letters, usually between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy.
⁹
This phenomenon is best accounted for by the tradition that Paul was the source of the letter. If so, it is possible that Paul was not the author of the document but that he included it in a collection of his letters on the basis that it was penned by one of his close associates, though this must of necessity remain in the realm of conjecture.

If the book is put in the Pauline corpus without Paul being the author, what is its connection to the apostle? The mention of Timothy in 13:23 recalls a prominent member of the Pauline circle, though the imprisonment mentioned there is not attested elsewhere in the NT. Also, the thematic connections are vast.
¹⁰
L. D. Hurst sketched the possible points of contact between Paul and the author of Hebrews as follows.
¹¹
(1) Hebrews does not reflect literary borrowing from Paul by one of his followers. At the same time, one detects certain thematic similarities. (2) If these ideas were originally Pauline, the author could at some point have been a disciple of Paul. (3) Personal Pauline influence other than direct literary dependence is likely. Along similar lines, the church father Origen (c. 185—254) wrote, “If I were to venture my own opinion, I would say that the thoughts are the apostle's
but the style and construction reflect someone who recalled the apostle's teachings and interpreted them.”
¹²

SIDEBAR 16.1: THE CANONICITY OF HEBREWS

Hebrews struggled for full acceptance in the early church longer than any other book (including 2 Peter). Many have asserted that those who accepted Paul's authorship (as did the East) honored its place in the canon, while those who did not (the West) rejected it. As usual, the truth is more complex.

The concern over its authorship was equally matched by its use among the heretics in the West that led the Western church to exclude the book from its canon. One particular item of contention was the interpretation and application of Heb 6:4—6 by Montanus and Novatian, both of whom denied the possibility of readmission into the church by those who recanted their faith when confronted with persecution.
¹

Thus, in the Western churches the problem of heresy was easily handled by canonical surgery,
²
while the churches in the East defended apostolic authorship. The Council of Hippo (393) recognized Hebrews as canonical, and the Council of Carthage (397) followed suit.
³

_____________________

¹
See J. Calvin,
Commentaries on the Epistle to the Hebrews
, trans. J. Owen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), xxvi; and S. Kistemaker,
Hebrews
, Baker New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 13.

²
Gaius of Rome, described as “a very learned man” by Eusebius (
Eccl. Hist.
6.20.3), denied that Paul wrote Hebrews. Most likely this was a response against the Montanists who rejected postbaptismal repentance. He also did something similar regarding the Johannine literature. Eusebius recorded that Gaius rejected Revelation (
Eccl. Hist.
3.28.1—2), and apparently he rejected John's authorship of the Gospel as well. Hippolytus wrote a book against Gaius defending John's authorship of the Gospel, which is preserved in the works of Dionysius bar Salibi (twelfth century). The main difference is that the move to oust Hebrews seems to have been more successful.

³
Kistemaker,
Hebrews
, 14.

What is more, while the author's precise identity remains elusive, it is possible to infer a few pieces of information regarding the writer from the letter itself. First, the author was male. The masculine participle “telling”
(diegeomai)
at 11:32 removes Priscilla, Mary, and any other female from consideration. Second, the author was obviously a gifted and eloquent writer, displaying an impressive command of ancient rhetoric. This points to the third characteristic, which is that the author was well educated. Fourth, he is most likely Jewish, showing familial relations with his readers. While his rhetoric was Greek, his hermeneutic was consistent with early Jewish and Christian principles of interpretation. Fifth, the writer was familiar with the Greek OT (the LXX).
¹³
Finally, as previously
mentioned, the author was a second-generation believer (see 2:3). This is all that can be confidently said about the author.

Date

The second element of uncertainty regarding Hebrews is its date. Scholars have proposed a fairly narrow range of possibilities, spanning from the mid-60s just years prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 to about 90.
¹⁴
R. Brown, for example, cautiously opted for a date in the 80s based on comparative theology.
^.15

The earliest possible date, of course, is subsequent to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus since Hebrews makes repeated references to Jesus' earthly life and ministry (see esp. 2:10—18; 5:7—10). At the same time, the author's claim that he and his readers were second-generation Christians (2:3) must be taken into account as well. Moreover, the author indicated that some time had elapsed after his readers' conversion (5:12) and after they had been persecuted for their faith in the past (10:32; 12:4), urging them to remember their leaders and to follow their example, “considering the outcome of their conduct” (13:7).

From these observations it is safe to assume that a date prior to 45 is unlikely.
¹⁶
The latest possible date is late in the first century since Clement of Rome (c. 96) was clearly influenced by the letter (indisputably 1
Clem.
36:1—6).
¹⁷
If one adds to this the fact that the letter must have been written in Timothy's lifetime (13:23) and during the life span of a second-generation Christian (2:3), this places the upper limit of the letter at about the time of Clement.
¹⁸
Hence the letter must have been written between the years 45 and 95.

But it is possible to narrow the range still further. The letter was in all probability written before the Jewish War, including the destruction of the Jewish temple in the year 70 since the writer speaks of the sacerdotal ministry in the present tense (9:6—10). Lane rejected this use of the present tense as altogether irrelevant for dating Hebrews on the grounds that reference is made to the tabernacle rather than the temple.
¹⁹
But it is more likely that the references are to the temple.
²⁰
Lane further cautioned that since other writers subsequent
to the Jewish War referred to the temple and its worship in the present tense, one should not read too much into the verb tenses associated with the temple in Hebrews.
²¹
Lindars responded, “It would have been an irresistible impulse to point out that the temple, sacrifices and priesthood had all ceased to exist, if that had already happened. What better sign could there be that the old covenant was ‘becoming obsolete’?”
²²
The present-tense references to the temple and the lack of references to its destruction point to a date prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.