Hebrews within Its First-Century Contexts

Guthrie, George H. "Hebrews in Its First-Century Contexts: Recent Research." Pages 414-443 in The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research. Edited by Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004.

George Howard Guthrie (1959- ) is professor of Bible at Union University in Jackson, TN (1990-). He has written several monographs, commentaries, and articles on the book of Hebrews.

Guthrie provides a very fine survey of recent research on Hebrews. This essay is much broader, considering the research on Hebrews within its first-century context. Guthrie begins with an overview of overviews! The authors he highlights are McCullough, Feld, Hurst, and Koester. Standard critical commentaries also deal with many important background issues and interact with secondary literature. He highlights the commentaries of Lane, Attridge, and Weiss.

A number of studies have given attention to Hebrews’ use of rhetorical conventions, for example, the use of synkrisis (Seid), exempla (Cosby; Bulley; Eisenbaum), paideia (Croy), honor and shame language (deSilva), as well as a host of stylistic devices (Guthrie). Considerable discussion has centered around identifying the type of rhetoric Hebrews employs, whether it be deliberative or epideictic. Some scholars have attempted to identify the rhetorical structure of Hebrews according to Greco-Roman categories (Übelacker; Nissilä). Others have structured Hebrews by highlighting key literary devices (Vanhoye; Guthrie).

With respect to Hebrews’ relationship to Judaism, attempts to see connections with Merkabah mysticism (Schenke; Williamson; Hofius), Gnosticism (Käsemann; Grässer; Theissen) or Qumran (Yadin; Fensham; P. E. Hughes; Kistemaker; Kosmala) must be seen as largely a failure. Spicq is the most prominent advocate for seeing Platonic or Philonic influence on Hebrews, but Spicq’s thesis has been increasingly dismantled by the works of Barrett, Hanson, Schröger, Williamson, and Hurst. It has been increasingly recognized that Jewish apocalyptic is largely responsible for Hebrews’ thought world. Scholars have also attempted to demonstrate that Hebrews exemplifies characteristics of an early homily (Thyen; Wills; Black). Guthrie also surveys research on Hebrews’ use of the OT and its hermeneutical approach. This part of the survey is a distillation of Guthrie’s earlier survey, which I covered in my previous post. Scholars have also tried to note connections with emergent Christianity, for example, the Stephen tradition (W. Manson), Pauline Christianity (Windisch, Hurst, Koester), and First Peter (Koester, Attridge, Hurst). Very little progress has been made on discerning the specific circumstances (authorship, recipients, date) of the book and a variety of occasions have been proposed by different scholars (e.g., Lane; Isaacs: Lindars; deSilva).

Guthrie concludes his survey by noting some important work done on the theology of Hebrews. In addition to Lindars’ general overview of the theology of Hebrews, Guthrie highlights works devoted to “sacred space” (Isaacs), rest (Laansma), the “cloud of witnesses” (Rose), God’s speech (Wider), faith (Rhee), covenant renewal rites (Dunnill), and repentance and sin (Löhr).

Koester's Survey of Research

Koester, Craig R. “The Epistle to the Hebrews in Recent Study.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 2 (1994): 123-45.
Craig Koester (1953- ) has been Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota since 1986. He has published a commentary on Hebrews for the Anchor Bible Commentary, as well as several articles on Hebrews.
This review of research on Hebrews nicely compliments J. C. McCullough’s two articles of the same year. While McCullough focuses on introductory issues such as authorship, recipients, genre, structure, style, and date, Koester concentrates on the following topics: 1) Commentaries, 2) Literary and Rhetorical Aspects, 3) Historical, Social, and Religious Context, 4) Theological Themes and Major Passages, and 5) History of Interpretation and Influence. Koester’s article concludes with an eight-page bibliography. Koester’s article covers the previous ten years since the publication of Helmut Feld’s survey.
Commentaries: Koester provides brief overviews of English commentaries by Attridge, Lane, and Ellingworth (NIGTC). Passing references are made to Wilson, Ellingworth, Bruce, Kistemaker, and Evans. Koester then makes brief comments on the German commentaries by Weiss, Grässer, Hegermann, and Braun, and the French commentary by Bénétreau. Passing references are made to Laub and März. Basically, Koester enumerates the contents of the introductory sections and excurses and the general layout of each commentary.
Literary and Rhetorical Aspects: Numerous scholars have paid attention to the various literary and rhetorical devices employed by Hebrews (Attridge; Lane; Jobes; Cosby; Lindars; Mitchell). Wills attempts to identify the features of Hebrews’ self-designation as a “word of exhortation,” while Black attempts to relate this form to classical rhetoric. Scholars differ on the type of rhetoric employed in Hebrews: some argue that Hebrews is a kind of deliberative rhetoric (Übelacker; Lindars), while others consider it epideictic (Attridge). Koester remarks that Hebrews does not fall neatly into either category. Scholars have tried to relate the different sections of Hebrews to the parts of ancient speeches.
Regarding structure, Vanhoye proposed a five-part concentric structure of the book, while others hold to a tripartite structure (Michel; Weiss). Various proponents have sided with both proposals. Alternative structures have also been presented by Übelacker and Brawley. Dunnill investigated the relationship between the “forward, linear movement of Hebrews” and its “repetitive or circular quality” (127).
Historical, Social, and Religious Contexts: Scholars agree that the author is unknown (e.g., Attridge; Ellingworth; Grässer; Lane; Weiss). Scholars either date the work before 70 AD (e.g., Bénétreau; Lane; Lindars; Ellingworth) or after it (e.g., Hegermann; Grässer; Isaacs; Weiss). Many situate the recipients of Hebrews in Rome (e.g., Attridge; Bruce; Ellingworth; Lane; Weiss), while Dunnill locates them in Western Asia Minor.
Concerning the social situation of the recipients, scholars have noted that Hebrews is addressed to a specific group within a wider Christian community (Weiss; Lindars) and that they are probably members of a house church (Lane). Scholars have determined that the ethnicity of the recipients were either Jewish (Bruce; Rissei; Feld; Lindars; Isaacs), Gentile (Braun; Weiss; Delville), or mixed (Ellingworth; Grässer). Scholars have surmised various scenarios for the occasion of the writing: crisis of faith triggered by Neronian persecution (Lane); a relapse into Judaism as a means of dealing with their need for atonement (Lindars); moral lethargy (Schmidt); a weariness of the faith of second-generation Christians (Grässer); a “preoccupation with sacred space . . . connected with the loss of Jerusalem and its temple” (129). Attridge argues that the author constructed a complex response to an equally complex situation in which no one problem is the key to understanding the situation.
Regarding Hebrews’ relationship to other early Christian groups, affinities with 1 Peter suggest a common Christian tradition, possibly in Rome (Hurst; Weiss; Attridge; Witherington; Backus). Manson’s proposal of a connection with Hellenistic Christians as exemplified by Stephen in Acts 7 was adopted with modifications by some scholars (Hurst; Lane; Lindars). Many scholars have also tried to locate Hebrews within the larger religious and intellectual context such as Hellenism (including Philo), Gnosticism, and apocalyptic Judaism. Scholars recognize that Hebrews utilizes extra-biblical Jewish sources, but mystic traditions and Samaritan sources are of little help in interpreting Hebrews. Much attention has been given to similarities between Hebrews and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it is likely that neither the author nor the audience were related to the Qumran community in any way (Lehne; Scholer et al). Greco-Roman sources have also been used to help in the interpretation of Hebrews (Aune; Neyrey; van der Horst).
Theological Themes and Major Passages: Dunnill examined the concepts of sacrifice and covenant from an anthropological perspective. Isaacs investigated the notion of sacred space as a way of drawing together all the themes of Hebrews. Rissi claimed that the problems arising for the recipients of Hebrews originated from their idea of realized eschatology. Lindars contended that Hebrews addresses the audience’s problems of atonement for sin and guilt. Numerous studies have been done on the various aspects of the Christology of Hebrews (Meier; Dunn; Caird; Hurst; Savey), and in particular the author’s high-priestly Christology (Vanhoye; Estrada; Casalini; Laub; Bénétreau; Levoratti; Pursiful). Other studies have focused on the subject of the sanctuary (Lindars; Gordon; Löhr; Koester), the relationship between the high-priestly work of Christ and the priestly understanding of Christian life and community (Vanhoye; Fernάndez; Scholer; Nardoni; Swetnam), or the concept of faith (Hamm; Söding; Attridge; Weiss).
History of Interpretation and Influence: Commentators have examined the canonization process of Hebrews (Weiss; Lane; Ellingworth) and its role within the debates of the early church and the Reformation (Feld). Scholars have also begun to examine the history of Hebrews’ influence “by noting how the text is used in theological, devotional and polemical writings, liturgy and art, as well as in commentaries” (137). Grässer and Feld have engaged in special studies on the history of influence.

Is Luke the Author of Hebrews?

The blog Bible X directed my attention to David Allen's lecture/sermon on the Lukan authorship of Hebrews. His talk was quite engaging and so he models the kind of expository preaching that I am sure he teaches his students to practice. Let me give some of my thoughts on his talk.

Allen elicited a number of new, intriguing ideas (at least to me). First, he argues that Luke was a Hellenistic Jew (not a Gentile, as is generally supposed) and that he was possibly a priest. Second, he argues that Luke was writing his two-volume work Luke-Acts to Theophilus, a former high priest (ca. 37-41) who was deposed by Herod Agrippa (hence Luke's discussion on Agrippa's death in Acts 12 would have been of great interest to his reader). Allen believes that Hebrews was similarly written (from Rome in ca. 67-69) to a group of former Jerusalem temple priests who had embraced Christianity and had migrated to Syrian Antioch.

Another intriguing idea is that Allen argues that the Greek word machaira in Hebrews 4:12, which is normally translated "sword," may be translated as "scalpel," and that this translation is more in line with the traditional belief that Luke was a physician.

Now, Allen lays out his argument for Lukan authorship in at least three articles that I know of, and a fuller discussion of his argument will be set forth in his upcoming monograph entitled The Authorship of Hebrews: The Case for Luke, which will be published by Broadman & Holman sometime in the Fall of this year. He probably also lays out his argument in his commentary, also by Broadman & Holman, but I have yet to see a copy of this commentary as it was not available at the SBL Conference this past November. So, I will look forward to reading his argument and the evidence he adduces, when these works become available. Allen may be right about the authorship of Hebrews, but I will suspend my judgment until I can read his works in full.

There is, however, one dimension of his argument that I take issue with, and that is his linguistic argument. Allen states that there are 53 terms which are unique to Luke-Acts and Hebrews in the NT. Moreover, there are a number of syntactical features that are unique to both of these works in the NT. The problem I have is his restricting his analysis to NT Greek. Most of the writers of the NT were not especially skilled in the Greek language. It is likely that Greek was a secondary language for many of the writers of the NT. The most skilled writers of the NT are the authors of Luke-Acts and of Hebrews. Could it be that the terminology and syntactical features that are so unique among the writings of the NT, are not so unique when compared to the writings of the larger Hellenistic world? Allen's argument would become far more convincing if he could demonstrate that these grammatical features were unique to Luke-Acts and Hebrews in light of the larger body of Hellenistic literature.

By the way, this is a problem I have with a large number of linguistic arguments that are often made by NT scholars who only restrict their analyses to the Greek of the NT (Wallace's Greek Grammar, for instance). The NT was not "holy Greek" or some specialized form of Greek that differed substantially from the rest of the Hellenistic world. The NT is a relatively small body of literature from which to base one's linguistic arguments. Scholars would do well to base their linguistic arguments on the larger database of Greek documents that are extant from that time.

The second part of Allen's talk focused on Hebrews as creative expository preaching. I essentially have no qualms with this part of his talk. I agree that Hebrews is primarily a sermon. It alternates between exposition and exhortation throughout the work and it evinces a high level of rhetorical skill employing alliteration, rhythm, paronomasia, inclusio, chiasms, and anaphora. The question I have is: how does this demonstrate Lukan authorship? After going to great lengths to demonstrate Lukan authorship in the first part of his talk, he completely ignores the issue in the second part of his talk. His talk seems to be making two completely different points unrelated to one another.

Despite these points, Dr. Allen seems like he would be a great teacher to take a class from. He is teaching a class on Preaching from Hebrews in the Spring at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It would be a class I would very much be interested in taking, but for me to drive two hours each way to Fort Worth and back is quite prohibitive for me at this time in my life. Perhaps I will invite Dr. Allen to respond to my post here.

Update: Dr. Allen did respond to my post via email and basically acknowledged that I was correct in my point that he fails to interact with literature outside the NT. He hopes to remedy this before his book on the authorship of Luke comes out, which he informs me is scheduled for the Spring of 2010.