Sunday School

The Chronology of the New Testament, part seven: Hebrews

Welcome to Sunday School! It’s been a minute, but class is officially back in session. This week we continue our overview of the books of the New Testament (NT) with the book of Hebrews. To be honest I could’ve gone with James here, because I don’t think there’s enough compelling evidence to dictate a specific order. So, Hebrews here we come

Let’s begin with what Hebrews actually is. It’s not a letter. Paul’s letters (who isn’t the author, more on that in a bit) give us a great example of how letters were composed in antiquity. For example, here is the beginning of 1 Corinthians:

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus…¹

There are a few signatures here: The author and companions, the recipients, a greeting, and an opening thanksgiving. Notice the opening of Hebrews:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.²

Do you see the difference? There is no introductory material, no formality. It cuts right to the chase, because this is not a letter, it’s a sermon. We can imagine that the author, whoever s/he might have been (again, more on that soon), composed this sermon and sent it to a community that was grappling with some things they wanted to speak to (also more on this soon).

If this is a sermon the question remains, who is the sermonizer? The reality is we just don’t know. Tertullian said it was Barnabas. Augustine and Jerome suggested Paul. Clement also said Luke translated into Greek a text Paul wrote in Hebrew. Apollos or Priscilla have been propsed. Origen said “Who wrote the epistle is known to God alone,” and suggested Clement or Luke. Scholars agree with Origen’s assertion: we just don’t know who wrote the sermon we have come to call Hebrews.

Next, we turn to the recipients and date of Hebrews. I’m afraid it’s a similar answer. We just can’t be sure. The sermon ends with a greeting from “Those from Italy,” which has led some to think it was written from Rome. However, where it was sent is just not certain. There is an assumption, based on the content, that Hebrews was likely sent to a community of Jewish followers of Jesus. They possibly would have been the second generation of Jesus followers, and from the contents of the sermon they seem to have experienced persecution and were considering leaving the Jesus movement. We can also say that the author’s Greek is an example of some of the NT’s best. It is quite sophisticated. Whoever wrote it was also well-versed in the Hebrew Bible. There are thirty quotes and more than seventy allusions to the Septuagint throughout the sermon.³ As a result Hebrews is a example of how early Jesus followers were negotiating with and reimagining their Scripture.

Hebrews is usually dated between 60 and 95 CE, but there is no consensus. Temple activity and imagery play a significant role throughout, which leads some to assign a date prior to the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE. The lack of a reference to the Temple’s destruction for other scholars plays a less central role. It could just be assumed knowledge, and as such the author doesn’t feel the need to rehash something both they and their audience already know. On the other end of the timeline, it seems that Clement of Rome (c.35 - 99 CE) borrowed several portions of Hebrews in his one authentic letter, written to the church in Corinth. 1 Clement is dated to c.95 BCE, near the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian. That gives us the range of dates that scholars use to bracket the composition of Hebrews.

The sermon contains several well-known passages. First, there is Hebrews 11, the “faith” chapter. It begins with a definition of faith that varies based on translation. Here is how the NRSVue renders the passage in question:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.⁴

Faith is assurance? I love the NRSVue, and I think there are so many places in which it translates words better than many other translations. Here, unfortunately, isn’t one of those places. Assurance smacks of certainty, of guarantee, and the truth is certainty doesn’t exist. There are no guarantees. It seems that this rendering of Hebrews 11:1 creates a sense of certainty that we just don’t have access to.

Young’s Literal Translation, while it’s clunky and not very smooth, provides us with a good translation of this passage.

And faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not seen a conviction.

Confidence and conviction really capture the meaning of this passage best, I think. No certainty. No guarantees. But a conviction that shapes how we engage and move in the world. A conviction that informs how we arrange our lives, spend our resources, how we vote, etc. A conviction about what matters, held so deeply that we are willing to order our lives around it.

Another well known passage comes a chapter later, in Hebrews 12.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls or lose heart.⁵

This chapter begins with a continuation of chapter eleven. Those who were held up as exemplary for their faith in the most trying of circumstances have become a “great cloud of witnesses",” cheering on the audience of Hebrews to persevere in their faith. Jesus is given as the ultimate example of faithfulness in the face of suffering and shame.

Finally, in Hebrews Jesus is presented with several central images/metaphors: He is God’s Son, humanity’s brother, the Great High Priest, and the final sacrifice. All of these are metaphors to describe who Jesus was for the author of this sermon. For time’s sake I will briefly touch on the image that I believe lies at the root of so much problematic theology that has developed within Christianity, the idea of Jesus as sacrifice.

For many, maybe even most of us, the language of sacrifice has become synonymous with specific atonement theories, like penal substitution and satisfaction.⁶ However, these ideas come from a much later time, more than one thousand years after Jesus’s death. In the Jewish tradition, of which Jesus, his first followers, and Paul were a part, a sacrifice wasn’t considered to be offered in substitution of the one doing the offering. The etymology of the word might be helpful: To sacrifice means “to make sacred.” An animal, for example is taken, made sacred, and offered to God. It does not substitute for the giver of the gift.

Jesus’s death was not to appease an angry God, to absorb God’s wrath, or coax God into forgiving us. Jesus died because of human wrath, because of the value system of empire, then, now, always. Jesus died because of his vision, his passion, for something he called “the Kingdom of God,” a way of arranging the world in which everyone has enough, where justice and compassion are our shared existence. That is what led Jesus to the cross, his refusal to accept empire as the inevitability of humanity, and his conviction that God would order the world differently.

That’s all for this week. What questions do you have after this brief introduction to Hebrews? Feel free to share them in the comments or email me at josh@joshscott.online.

My new book, “Context: Putting Scripture in Its Place” is now available to purchase. You can order here or send an email to request a signed copy from me. If you have read it and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Good Reads.

Until next week, class dismissed.

1. 1 Corinthians 1:1-4, NRSVue

2. Hebrews 1:1-2, NRSVue

3. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Also called the LXX in reference to the seventy translators of the text.

4. Hebrews 11:1

5. Hebrews 12:1-3

6. Atonement theories attempt to understand what Jesus death meant/accomplished.