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I’ve been thinking about the Hebrews outlines, but not posting them. I’ve printed out a copy of my outline and translation and I plan to color code the text according to major themes that I see in the book of Hebrews. It will be interesting to see how well that works. One test of the major themes will be what the color coding looks like, I think.
I’ll post more on this soon.
Looking forward to seeing the end result!
Delighted to find your blog … you’re looking at some things that interest me.
Thanks! I just hope I can make this whole blogging thing stick as part of my routine. There are enough blogs cluttering my feed reader that had half a dozen interesting posts in 2006 and since then have been silent.
Well, I’m trying to get to blogging regularly again. For a time I posted three or four times a week on this blog and a couple of times on my more general Threads blog, but day to day work overcame me. So I’m going to keep working at it and see what happens!
Hi Henry – I am back from Scotland, the Orkneys and the International SBL. In the session on Hebrews, I was quite ‘upset’ over the idea of a ‘better’ covenant. I do think that some things like animal sacrifice are obviated and also the priesthood in the old sense, but I wonder if that fits well with the idea of ‘better’. When creation and redemption are good, very good, and therefore sufficient, I have trouble with better (as the old French proverb goes – le meillure et l’enemie du bon). Perhaps I can reconcile the enemy – but is there an alternate to ‘better’ in the translations of Hebrews? (I think I had better get used to that word better!) There are aspects of time that I cannot avoid – maybe even ‘progress’.
I think the author of Hebrews struggles a bit with the vocabulary for the new covenant. It’s new, but it’s tied to the old. It’s better, but the other was good for what it was. The people under the old didn’t receive the promises, but they are the great cloud of witnesses to watch those who do.
Some commentaries use the term “supersede” but I’m uncomfortable with that idea. Rather, looking at the source text in Jeremiah, I see it more as a restoration and completion. I’m working on pulling together the vocabulary and the specific references that I think make that case, and I’ll post something on this as I get to it.
My problem right now is that I was supposed to revise my study guide and also shorten it a bit by chopping out the translation and adding short discussions to each lesson to guide people a bit better. As it stands, I have enough material for another book on Hebrews, and I’m piling up more as I go. There’s just so much there that it’s hard for me to accomplish my mission.
In any case, I’ll probably whine about this some more on the blog!
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