Hebrews Highlights April 2018

Henry Neufeld discusses Grace and the Book of Hebrews.

Gail Seidel explains the significance of the Jewish High Priest and Jesus.

Peter Leithart summarizes David Moffitt's book, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection. 

Inventing Hebrews

Jason Whitlark has informed me that his book, co-authored with Michael Wade Martin (both Baylor University Ph.D. grads, as am I), will be coming out in May. This will be Jason's third book on Hebrews, along with several articles. He is quickly becoming one of the premier Hebrews scholars in the world. If you have read Martin and Whitlark's two articles on the structure of Hebrews (likely the precursors to this book), then you know this book will be good.

Michael Wade Martin and Jason A. Whitlark. Inventing Hebrews: Design and Purpose in Ancient Rhetoric. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 171. Cambridge.

"Inventing Hebrews examines a perennial topic in the study of the Letter to the Hebrews, its structure and purpose. Michael Wade Martin and Jason A. Whitlark undertake at thorough synthesis of the ancient theory of invention and arrangement, providing a new account of Hebrews' design. The key to the speech’s outline, the authors argue, is in its use of ‘disjointed’ arrangement, a template ubiquitous in antiquity but little discussed in modern biblical studies. This method of arrangement accounts for the long-observed pattern of alternating epideictic and deliberative units in Hebrews as blocks of narratio and argumentatio respectively. Thus the ‘letter’ may be seen as a conventional speech arranged according to the expectations of ancient rhetoric (exordium, narratio, argumentatio, peroratio), with epideictic comparisons of old and new covenant representatives (narratio) repeatedly enlisted in amplification of what may be viewed as the central argument of the speech (argumentatio), the recurring deliberative summons for perseverance. Resolving a long-standing conundrum, this volume offers a hermeneutical tool necessary for interpreting Hebrews, as well as countless other speeches from Greco-Roman antiquity."

Critical Readings in Hebrews

Scott Mackie's edited volume on critical readings in Hebrews is now available:

Mackie, Scott D., ed. The Letter to the Hebrews: Critical Readings (Bloomsbury T&T Clark).

Melchizedek Passages in the Bible

Here is a book that I have recently learned about. It is reviewed in The Journal of Theological Studies.

Alan Kam-Yau Chan. Melchizedek Passages in the Bible: A Case Study for Inner-Biblical and Inter-Biblical Interpretation. De Gruyter, 2016.

Aims and Scope:

Melchizedek is a mysterious figure to many people. Adopting discourse analysis and text-linguistic approaches, Chan attempts to tackle the Melchizedek texts in Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5-7. This seminal study illustrates how the mysterious figure is understood and interpreted by later biblical writers, "... Using the “blessing” motif as a framework, Chan also argues that Numbers 22-24, 2 Samuel 7 and the Psalter: Books I-V (especially Psalms 1-2) provide a reading paradigm of interpreting Psalm 110. In addition, the structure of Hebrews provides a clue to how the author interprets the Old Testament texts.

De Gruyter has provided open-access to this book.

Jared Compton's New Podcast On His Book

Jared Compton has a new podcast on his book, Psalm 110 and the Logic of Hebrews.

I disagree with Mr. Morales' statement that "The use and function of the Old Testament in the book of Hebrews has been a neglected area of study." I can name several books and articles on the topic.