Two Notes on the Authorship of Hebrews
The first is an interview at Euangelion with Andrew Pitts regarding his forthcoming essay on Hebrews (in a collection). It discusses the authorship and proposes Paul as the author, but in a speech rather than a letter, and Luke as stenographer, which he differentiates from an amanuensis. I didn’t get a completely clear picture of the difference. In modern English usage a stenographer would have as little freedom in production as would an amanuensis, or so it seems to me. But that is just a quibble about word choice. Pitts is clearly proposing that Luke had more to say about the language than would a simple amanuensis.
I personally find the idea of having both Luke and Paul involved to be a very interesting proposal, though I would tend more toward Luke as the writer (composer) based on things he had learned from Paul, thus explaining some differences in vocabulary and theology. Ken Schenk comments with some useful notes, and I think Andrew Pitts dismisses his position as a strawman too quickly.
All of that, of course, is from someone (me!) who really is unconvinced by any hypothesis. I refuse to go beyond “the author of Hebrews” because I simply don’t think any proposal gets above the background noise level.
The second post is from J. K. Gayle, who finds Pitts dismissal of the proposal that Priscilla might be the author a bit too quick. I would agree that other authorship proposals are dealt with rather briefly and summarily in the interview, but it is, after all, a blog post. I would hope some more effort was made in the book, which I have not read. Hopefully I’ll lay hands on it when it is released.
I previously reviewed Ruth Hoppin’s book Priscilla’s Letter and remained totally unconvinced. I think the problem is evidence and not the desire of some to dismiss one particular author or another. There simply isn’t enough written evidence for any of the proposals (Barnabas, Apollos, Priscilla, for example) to make a valid judgment. The primary attraction for Luke, I think, is that we have lots of literature with which to compare the book, and Luke demonstrates some of the skills displayed in the text of Hebrews.
I would be quite delighted to believe that Priscilla wrote the letter, or to believe that the problem was thoroughly solved, but I don’t see that at this point.
Thank you for the link but especially for your comments here and for your review of Hoppin’s book in your earlier post. Like you, I haven’t read Pitts’s work yet — it’s an essay, not a book (but I want to acknowledge that Michael Bird, who interviews Pitts, also points to David Allen’s forthcoming book Lukan Authorship of Hebrews). I would tend to agree with you, as you say in reviewing Hoppin’s book that: “I’m of the opinion that there is no solution to the authorship of Hebrews.” The compelling questions, for me, nevertheless, are those nagging ones about the silence. Gilbert Bilezikian does do a good job of asking the questions in light of what he sees, rightly, as “the antifemale bias” in the early church. Has that ever really gone away?
The one advantage I saw in the Priscilla proposal was one of the best explanations as to why there is not more textual evidence on the authorship. But I think you and I would both have to remember that having Priscilla as author would be very helpful to the cause of real equality for women in the church, a cause we both hold dear.
Unfortunately, though, I don’t think the evidence is there. I am enjoying the whole conversation, however!