An Introduction To The Epistle to the Hebrews

The Epistle to the Hebrews: Christ Reigns Supreme

“To many people, it is said, the Epistle to the Hebrews is just “the book about Melchizedek” . . .” – F. F. Bruce

“Hebrews is a delight for the person who enjoys puzzles.” – William Lane

Introduction

The Epistle to the Hebrews is often regarded as one of the more difficult books of the New Testament. It is shrouded in mystery, rhetorically crafted, rich in sophisticated theology, and rooted in Rabbinic interpretation of the Old Testament. But, in the midst of these conundrums, we shall see Hebrews as a beautiful and powerful sermon about the supremacy of Christ, written to shore up the faith of a congregation that walked long before us. As William Lane puts it, “Hebrews is a call for ultimate certainty and ultimate commitment.” Our goal in studying this book is to have that sermon preached to us all over again, that we may be encouraged and built up in our faith today.

It has been remarked many times over that the Bible is a collection of books written for you, but not to you. With this in mind, if we are going to understand the letter to the Hebrews, we need to know as much as possible about the book. So, things like: who the was author, who his audience was, when it was written, where it was written and/or sent to, the genre of the material, the themes developed, etc. are very helpful as we seek to understand and apply this book to our lives.

That said, we can break down these items of background information into two broad categories: things we know, and things we don’t know. In the case of Hebrews, there is a good deal of the latter!

Things We Don’t Know

Author:

We have no idea who wrote this. He doesn’t identify himself. We do have a number of candidates!

Paul is the traditional author held widely in the early church, but almost no one believes it was Paul anymore! There are several reasons for this. The writing style is wrong. The language is too “high” and formal. Also the use of imagery in Hebrews is unique and different from Paul. The thought expressed could be Paul’s, but not the way the book is written. So the connection to Paul makes sense at one level, but it doesn’t quite hold. Typically someone influenced by Paul is proposed. Among those proposed are: Timothy, Silas, Barnabas, Luke, Apollos, Priscilla & Aquilla, Silvanus, Philip, Clement of Rome, Jude, etc.

We can surmise a few things about the author from the letter itself: First, the author clearly knew his recipients very well and longed to be reunited with them (Heb. 13:19). He also expresses significant familiarity in the criticism he offers in the warning sections. The author and his audience had a mutual friend in Timothy (13:23), and it is likely this was the same Timothy who ministered alongside Paul. The author was presumably male, since he refers to himself using a masculine participle in Heb. 11:32 where it says “would fail me to tell” (The “me” there is masculine in the Greek.) He was probably a 2nd generation Christian, because in Heb. 2:3 the “us” also includes the author in (the salvation attested to us by those who heard). So it appears that he was not an eyewitness of Jesus.

Why does who the author was matter? Because of Canon. The question of how the Letter to the Hebrews gets into the New Testament is significant. One of the 3 primary criteria for entrance of a NT period writing into the NT is Apostolicity. Apostolicity means the book either was written by, or closely connected to, an Apostle. Other criteria include: Catholicity, ie. it has a broad audience and application, and the Orthodoxy of its content.

Hebrews enjoys early citation and allusion in the early church. It is cited by Clement of Rome, Hermas, Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, and Tertullian, thus demonstrating both its Catholicity and Orthodoxy. However, its authority and canonical status were debated, primarily concerning the Apostolicity question. Ascription to Paul, even though it was debated, seems to have gotten it into the NT, although really it is the content that may have won the day. Commentator F. F. Bruce said,  “‘O felix culpa!’ says W. F. Howard, suggesting that we owe the presence of Hebrews in the New Testament to “the mistaken critical judgement of the ancient Church.” But one may wonder whether, in fact, the intrinsic merit of the epistle would not ultimately have won a place in the canon for it even had the name of Paul never been associated with it.”

Audience:

Early on it was believed, or perhaps assumed because of the extensive discussion of the temple/tabernacle in the letter, that this was written to a “Hebrew” audience, hence the title. However, looking at all the manuscripts available one sees a wide range of titles. Titles to the letter include: For the Hebrews, Epistle of Paul, Paul’s Epistle, Epistle of Paul, just “Epistle”, just “Hebrews”, Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, or even no title at all. What’s worse the title can actually mean, “Against the Hebrews”! What this means is that the title was added by scribes who were making assumptions, and there really was none on the original document. What’s more, the letter does not begin with an introduction that would give us an addressee.

That said, as was the case with the author, we can deduce some things about the audience comments in the book and how they relate to external circumstances of the time.

1. These people have been/are under persecution. (10:32-34)

2. Even though it has been proposed and argued, they are probably not in Corinth or Ephesus. The actual seizure of their property in earlier days (10:34) does not fit the history of Corinth or Ephesus.

3. However, the mention of Timothy in 13:23 does suggest an audience in the Pauline circle, which would probably mean not in Alexandria (often argued), and though Apollos would work there.

4. The early persecution fits Thessalonica and possibly Philippi, but a community in Asia Minor or Syria with more ethnic Jewish representation might fit better, than either of those.

5. Some have suggested a Roman audience on the basis of 10:32-34 and 13:24. The quality of the Greek might fit an audience more to the east, but this argument would hardly be decisive. However if we understand the mention of Italy in 13:24 as suggesting a Roman location of origin, then a Roman audience seems unlikely.

6. Wherever the readers are located, they resonate with both the intense Greek rhetoric and the particular interpretation of Judaism that comes naturally to this author. The closest parallels to this argumentation are found in Philo of Alexandria. The letter also has parallels with the Dead Sea Scrolls in Palestine and rich apocalyptic motifs. Given all this, we must construct a composite picture of ancient Judaism based on as many diverse sources as possible. That said, the clear parallels to Philo suggest Hellenistic training in rhetoric.

Bottom line, we don’t know who or where. Perhaps a few comments on Christianity at the time will be helpful. First note that at this point Christianity in general is a competing strand of Judaism from a sociological and cultural perspective. It is not a clearly distinct religion in a cultural, physical, or geographic sense. Everyone was using the same synagogues! The earliest church we have archaeological evidence for is from a city called Dura Europas around 240 AD.

Further, most churches outside of Palestine were composed of a mixed Jewish and Gentile audience of varying degrees. But, even the Gentiles were probably God-fearers (potential converts to Judaism) who hadn’t gone all the way to getting circumcised. The fact that Christianity did not require circumcision made it very appealing to gentiles. The point is that most of the gentiles in these churches would be well versed in the Old Testament, the temple, sacrifices, etc.

In sum, wherever this was, it was likely a mixed church, but there were clearly some Jews present with excellent, perhaps even priestly level, knowledge of the temple/tabernacle, who could help with some of the sophisticated Rabbinic interpretive elements of scripture, the priesthood, etc. However, there was also some pretty sophisticated secular greek rhetorical knowledge floating around in the church as well. Further some of the exhortations fit a gentile audience, i.e. the purity of marriage mentioned in 13:4.

Location:

In terms of the location from which the author is writing, we are also uncertain. The author passed on the greetings of those “from Italy” in 13:24. Scholars debate whether this means he was in Italy writing to the church elsewhere or was outside Italy, but accompanied by Italians, and writing back to an audience in Italy, possibly at Rome.

Things We Do Know

Date:

Because Timothy was recently freed (Heb 13:23) and the work was apparently written from Italy (13:24), we may assume that Timothy was arrested in Rome during the Neronian persecution, probably shortly after he came to see Paul (2 Tim 4:21) and freed when Nero died in A.D. 68.

The mention of Timothy but not Paul, who died about A.D. 64, also would make sense of approximately A.D. 68.

At this time, when the outcome of the Roman war in Judea would have been assured from Rome’s vantage point, it would be quite appropriate to speak of the old temple system as “passing away” (8:13), a process that would be completed in A.D. 70 with the destruction of the temple.

It is worth noting that the writer cannot declare that temple sacrifices are no longer offered, which he surely would have declared if he could have. This also suggests a date before A.D. 70.

In sum we have a date around 68 A.D.

Genre:

What is Genre? Genre is a technical literary word, but it’s actually something we all use all the time. It is the broadest and most informative context for any kind of communication: “Stop” on a red octagonal sign means something different from, “Stop! in the name love . . .” in a song. When you read a news paper you have completely different expectations about the content of say: a front page report on a fire in downtown Austin, an obituary, an op-ed column, or a comic strip. The degree of factual accuracy you expect in each one is different for starters, but there are many other subtle expectations we have based on the genre of the article.

So what is the genre of Hebrews? First of all we can say it is a letter, or epistle. However, if you compare it to Philemon, the letter that comes before it, or something like Romans, you will see that while it ends like a letter, it begins differently. There is no address at the beginning. No statement of who it is from, or who it is to. There is no greeting. In this sense it is a very generic letter. It is clearly intended for a broad audience.

That said it is no ordinary letter. It is a very carefully argued and structured piece of rhetoric, with classic Greco-Roman techniques. It is also loaded with Rabbinic exegesis of the OT. In this sense it is very similar to Jewish genre called midrash, which is a rabbinic form of commentary. There is a sense in which this letter, apart from the concluding greetings, reads more like a treatise than a traditional letter. One ancient letter-writing form was the “letter-essay,” which in early Judaism and Christianity would naturally have resembled a written homily or sermon.

Further, when we look at the style of the writing, it is very high. This is some of the most formal Greek in the entire New Testament, which by and large tends to be pretty informal and colloquial. Of all the New Testament authors, only Luke gets close to the quality of the Greek of Hebrews.

Finally, this letter-essay contains a number of exhortations which you will note in the outline below. When we add all this up, the genre we are left with is something we might call a Sermon-Letter.

Theme:

The theme of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ is absolutely supreme. He is superior to all of the elements and mediators of the Old Covenant: the Angels, Moses, Aaron, the earthly tabernacle/temple, etc. In particular, Christ is supreme as a revealer and mediator of God’s new covenant of grace. In demonstrating all of this, the author of Hebrews will develop remarkable Theology (Doctrine of God), Soteriology (Doctrine of Salvation), Anthropology (Doctrine of Human Beings), and Christology (Doctrine of Christ).

Structure:

It is clear there is a structure to Hebrews. No one argues this. However, the structure is exceedingly complex. Everyone, everyone, outlines this book a little bit differently. It is like John’s Revelation in the sense that there are as many outlines as there are people who study it. I have seen charts comparing and contrasting different commentator’s outlines. There are discussions of discourse analysis and on and on.

Below is my outline. It is “mine” in that I have adapted it from others. One thing I have done in my outline is try to hi-light a series of exhortations that permeate this sermon. I’m not sure I would say the sermon is built around these, but they are important, and everyone agrees on their significance. What we see, and this is part of the reason we call this book a sermon, are sections of doctrinal teaching interspersed with pastoral warnings and exhortations. I bolded those sections of the outline.

Outline:

I. Prologue: God Has Spoken Perfectly Through His Son (1:1-4)

II. Christ is Superior to the Agents of the Old Covenant (1:5-7:28)

A. Christ is Superior to Angels (1:5-2:18)

1. Scripture Testifies to the Son’s Superiority (1:5-14)

2. Exhortation Not to Ignore the Revelation Made through the Son (2:1-4)

3. It is the Son Who Makes Men Holy (2:5-18)

B. Christ is Superior to Moses (3:1-4:13)

1. The Son is Greater than the Servant (3:1-6)

2. Exhortation to Enter the Sabbath-Rest of God’s People (3:7-4:13)

C. Christ is Superior to Aaron (4:14-7:28)

1. God Appointed Jesus as the Eternal High Priest (4:14-5:10)

2. Exhortation to Become Mature and Persevere (5:11-6:12)

3. Jesus a Priest Forever by the Oath of God (6:13-20)

4. Jesus a Priest Forever in the Order of Melchizedek (7:1-28)

III. The Superiority of Christ’s High Priestly Ministry (8:1-10:18)

A. A Superior Covenant (8:1-13)

B. A Superior Tabernacle (9:1-12)

C. A Superior Sacrifice (9:13-10:18)

IV. A Call to Perseverance in Faith (10:19-12:29)

A. Exhortation: A Superior Covenant Implies Greater Responsibility (10:19-39)

B. Examples of Persevering Faith (11:1-40)

C. Exhortation to Endure (12:1-17)

D. Living as Citizens of an Unshakeable Kingdom (12:18-29)

V. Conclusion (13:1-25)

A. Final Exhortations (13:1-19)

B. Benediction and Greetings (13:20-25)

Resources:

Books

Trotter, Andrew H. Interpreting the Epistle to the Hebrews. Edited by Scott McNight. Guides to New Testament Exegesis, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1997.

Vos, Geerhardus. The Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1956.

Commentaries

Beale, G. K., and D. A. Carson. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Apollos, 2007.

Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. rev. ed. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990.

Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary : 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. ed. Leicester, England ; Downers Grove, IL, USA: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.

Guthrie, Donald. Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary. Edited by Leon Morris. Vol. 15, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.

Hagner, Donald A. Hebrews. Vol. 14, New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1990.

Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

Lane, William L. Hebrews 1-8. Vol. 47a, Word Biblical Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991.

Lane, William L. Hebrews 9-13. Vol. 47b, Word Biblical Commentary. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991.