Term Paper on "Exegeting Hebrews"

Term Paper 15 pages (5259 words) Sources: 0

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Exegesis of Hebrews

One of the most noteworthy things about the Letter to the Hebrews is that its authorship is unknown. While anonymous authorship is not exactly unusual for books in the Bible, it is somewhat unusual given the context of Hebrews. Hebrews is grouped among the letters. The other letters have known authors, most notably Paul. In fact, Hebrews is sometimes attributed to Paul, despite the fact that "even early Christian scholars...recognized that its style is quite different from that of Paul's letters. Not only do most modern scholars think that there is insufficient evidence to attribute Hebrews to Paul, but they actually do not believe that it is possible to name Paul as Hebrews' author. "The Greek of the epistle is very different from that of Paul, the author writing in a careful and elaborate style and employing a quite distinctive vocabulary." Furthermore, the author's treatment of Judaism differs vastly from Paul's, which not only rules out Paul as the author, but also suggests that the author was not one of Paul's disciples. In fact, although somewhat similar in style to Biblical authors and prominent Christians of its time period, Hebrews is sufficiently unique to make determining the author impossible; therefore, the authorship of Hebrews remains anonymous.

Although the author of Hebrews is unknown, one can make several education assumptions about the author. For example, one may infer that the author is a second-generation Christian by examining the text of Hebrews:

In Heb 2:3, the author implies that he was not an apostle or even an eyewitness of the events in Jesus' life. He writes, "Which [salvation] began to be spoken through the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard him." The author includes himself with the readers as among those who were dependent upon the testimony of the original eyewitnesses and transmitters of authoritative traditions about Jesus.

Furthermore, the author indicates that he knows Timothy, which narrows the field of potential authors, but not in a conclusive manner because it is unlikely that even Timothy's contemporaries could have named all of his acquaintances, and such a task is an absolute impossibility for modern scholars. What does appear clear is that the author was not an apostle; he certainly does not make any claims in Hebrews that he is an apostle or that he has any type of "ecclesiastical authority over the readers." These internal clues as to authorship suggest that Hebrew's writer was not responsible for any other books in the Bible. This conclusion is bolstered when one examines the vocabulary found in the original Greek text. "The Letter to the Hebrews has 154 hapaxlegomena, words that are found in it but nowhere else in the New Testament."

The fact that Hebrews' author is unknown makes it even more difficult to determine when it was written. It was clearly written before 95 C.E., because I Clement was written in that year and it heavily quoted Hebrews. In addition, it is unlikely that Hebrews was written immediately following the death of Christ, because Hebrews contains a substantial elaboration of Christian doctrine, which was unlikely to exist in the years or even decades immediately following Christ's death. Therefore, Biblical scholars suggest that Hebrews was written between 60 C.E. And 95 C.E. In addition, some scholars believe that Hebrews had to have been written during a much narrower period of time. For example:

The reference to Timothy's imprisonment suggests a date subsequent to the last of Paul's epistle, and, if the epistle is meant for Roman Christians, the persecution of Nero in a.D. 64 appears to be referred to as past (10: 32-34); some leading Christians of the community are already dead (13:7). On the other hand a strict interpretation of 8:4 may imply that the temple at Jerusalem has not yet been destroyed, if the reference is to the temple and not, as has been suggested by some critics, to 'the tabernacle of the written law'. A date about a.D. 66 is perhaps most probable, but the epistle may be as late as a.D. 80.

Other scholars have used internal references in Hebrews to further narrow the window of authorship, suggesting that it had to be written before 70 C.E., because the author refers to Jerusalem as if it is still standing, and Jerusalem destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.

Furthermore, while Hebrews is classed with the Letters of the New Testament, this placement is somewhat arbitrary. The ending of the book suggests that it was some type of communication from afar, as it states "Those from Italy send you greetings." However, the text from Hebrews differs substantially from the text of other books classed with the Letters. Many of the other Letters are classified by known recipients and are written in a style that reflects communication between two people or between a person and a discrete group of people. In contrast, little is known about the actual intended audience for Hebrews. In fact, the title of the book is mere conjecture; the author refers to his audience members as brothers and sisters, but without knowing the identify of the author, it is impossible to know his exact target audience. Despite this difficulty, one can accurately identify some characteristics of the author's target audience. Because the author repeatedly references Jewish history and religious tradition, one may assume that he expected his audience to understand the significance of these references. Therefore, one may make the supposition that the audience members were of Jewish descent or had an extensive understanding of Judaism. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the author is concerned that "the readers are in danger of reverting to participation in the Levitical sacrificial system, which would only be possible for Jews." Additionally, "the fact that the author attempts to convince his readers not to revert to participation in the Levitical sacrificial system implies that they are in or near Jerusalem because Jews farther away from the Temple would not have the same opportunity to take part in the Temple cult." It is important to keep in mind that the fact that the audience was Jewish did not mean that they were not Christian, because early Christians retained their Jewish identity. In fact, the author is clearly Christian and is writing to an audience of Christians. In addition, internal references support the idea that the author was writing to a subgroup of people within a larger group. For example:

The author distinguishes the readers from their "leaders" and "the rest of the saints" (Heb 13:24); the implication is that the readers are a sub-group of the church in the city where they reside. What distinguishes them from their leaders and other believers presumably are the issues dealt with in the letter. The author may view the readers as the potential leadership of the larger Christian community to which they belong (Heb 5:12; 10:25). But the readers have not reached their potential as teachers (Heb 5:12), and have separated themselves off from those they should have been teaching (Heb 10:25).

Furthermore, historical analysis has helped demonstrate why Hebrews was written. Early Christians were under immense pressure to return to Judaism rather than continue the development of the early Christian church. Early Christians were "harassed, jibed, persecuted, martyred, and ostracized for abandoning Judaism and following Jesus of Nazareth. Many Jewish Christians succumbed to this increasing pressure and simply found it easier to return to Judaism with its...tangible evidences of God's supposedly eternal covenant with Israel." This pressure was especially significant for second-generation Christians, many of whom had become disillusioned by what they may have seen as a delay in the fulfillment of the promise of Christ. "The author intends to forestall such an apostasy by explaining to them the full salvation-theological significance of Christ's death and resurrection/exaltation." An internal examination of Hebrews supports the idea that it was written to encourage and enforce Christianity by refuting misconceptions about Christianity and Levitical Judaism. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Hebrews is essentially "a refutation of those theological views that are incompatible with his assumption of the salvation-historical supremacy of Christ." While the author does not explicitly state what aspects of Levitical Judaism he seeks to refute:

One can reconstruct those deficient views that the readers held or were inclined to hold by negating the author's own affirmations (the so-called method of "mirror-reading"). These views may relate to the salvation-historical role of angels, including Melchizedek, the nature of work of the Davidic Messiah and the expectation of a priestly Messiah, the Davidic Messiah's status relative to Moses, the Levitical priesthood and its connection to the angelic priesthood and whether the Law is eternal. The views that the readers probably held or were moving towards are consistent with Second-Temple Judaism. It must be kept in mind, however, that the author argues extensively from typology. In typological interpretation a person, place, thing or event in the Old Testament functions to foreshadow an eschatological reality to which it is analogically… READ MORE

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