Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Hebrews

  • 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.

  • St. John Chrysostom: The Law a Shadow

    I thought this was one of the most beautiful ways I have heard this expressed:

    “For” (he says) “the Law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things”; i.e. not the very reality. For as in painting, so long as one [only] draws the outlines, it is a sort of “shadow” but when one has added the bright paints and laid in the colors, then it becomes “an image.” Something of this kind also was the Law.  (Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews 17.5)

    Again, credit CCEL.

  • New Perspective on Paul and the Book of Hebrews

    Nijay Gupta has a short interview with Gordon Fee regarding his new commentary on Galatians (HT).  Since I have an extremely high regard for Gordon Fee’s work in general, and for his commentary on 1 Corinthians (which I cite frequently) in particular, I’m certainly planning to get my hands on a copy of his work on Galatians.

    As a completely undeveloped, unresearched, and unreconsidered thought, I wonder if anyone has written anything related to the relationship of the New Perspective on Paul to the theology and potentially even the authorship of Hebrews.  I personally find the language differences fairly compelling on the authorship of Hebrews, and have always found the argument based on theology less than compelling, but it sounds to me like the reading of Galatians based on the New Perspective is closer to the theology of Hebrews than a more traditional reading of Paul.  Specifically, in Hebrews, Jesus Christ becomes the fundamental law or the core of the Christian’s belief and action rather than the Torah.

    Now please bear with me.  I could decide in five minutes that the paragraph above is way off track, though more likely I’ll take longer than that to think about it.  But it seems that even if this did not bring one to believe Paul himself wrote the book, it might strengthen claims a Pauline genetic connection with the book and thus more strongly favor an author who sat under Paul’s teaching, as is already suggested.

    In any case, I’d be interested in any research along these lines, especially available on the internet, but also in any recent/forthcoming commentaries.  It’s about time for me to run through Hebrews again with a good commentary!

  • Relating Ritual, Symbol, and Reality – A Question

    I was looking at this week’s lectionary passages, and a relationship with my current study of Leviticus struck me.  How precisely do our actions and rituals symbolize what we’re trying to represent?  Is it possible that all they do is open up the questions for us?  I wrote about some of the oddness of God’s offering of grace, if viewed from the human perspective, in my lectionary notes.

    Now here’s what strikes me in reading Leviticus, or even better in reading from about Exodus 21-Numbers:  The symbols illustrate to a greater or lesser degree a vast array of the elements of the way in which we relate to God.  We can look at this historically, as in a historical separation from God, with Jesus tearing open the veil and allowing all of us access to the throne of grace.

    We can also see it as an illustration of our own lives and progress.  We each start with a certain distance to traverse toward God.  There are those who help lead us to God.  Those who object to the notion of “priest” with reference to the pastoral role neglect this aspect, I think.  Some try to push pastor or priest aside because we all have access, but for each person, and even for the community as a whole, there is still a need for the priestly role until we all actually attain that direct access to God.

    Those who quibble about sacrificial rules when discussing the sacrifice of Jesus miss the point as well.  The animal sacrifices pointed to elements of our relationship to God and the way in which God related to us.  I’m not arguing here for a directly type-antitype, i.e. singular relationship between these sacrifices and Jesus.  The sacrifices themselves continually pointed Israel to God’s grace, the way it was offered, and the duty it placed on the recipients.

    The tabernacle system of worship also included elements of community, of individual responsibility for the group and group responsibility for the individual, of praise, simple worship, and even of the need for certain routines and certainties in our lives.

    As I noted regarding the lectionary texts, the serpent was an equivocal symbol.  We are called to look on a symbol that is equivocal when we look at the cross.  Our human eyes will see death.  The Holy Spirit can enlighten us to see life.  The cross looks distinctively different depending on which side you’re on when you look.  Looking back it’s a symbol of life.  Looking forward, it’s a fearful, dangerous thing looking a great deal like death.

    The rituals of the tabernacle emphasize life and its importance, but they did so with a great deal of death.  They too had that kind of double look.  We live in a world that is filled with such symbols.  Perhaps we should not be too anxious to reconcile them too thoroughly.

    I’m just thinking out loud and rambling.  What do you think?

  • If You Are Having Trouble Accessing God, Read This

    When I’m teaching church members, I like to emphasize service in one’s choice of a church congregation.  The best congregation for you is the one where you can best fulfill your call to minister to others.  I believe everyone has such a call.  That’s a generalization that often doesn’t answer that many questions, but it often does help.

    Thus I don’t like to talk much in terms of whether a church “fulfills my needs” or “feeds me” or whether I enjoy the worship services, and whether the services are up to standards.  That seems like selling church as a commodity, and whether you’re looking for child care or entertainment, it’s likely that your church isn’t going to compete well according to secular standards in any case.

    That’s not to say that all these things are not important.  The servant who is not fed, clothed, and housed is unlikely to be able to serve well.  That principle applies spiritually as well as physically.  So the search for a church in which I can best carry out my call to ministry may well come back to the question of where I will be fed, all other things being generally equal.

    I must confess that I’ve been having trouble with “church” for some time.  I’ve struggled with everything from attendance to writing the tithe check.  It’s not because I don’t like to get up that early in the morning.  I have normally had hours with the books before I ever get to church.  It’s not the financial scare of writing the tithe check either.  I’ve been in much more difficult financial circumstances.  The temptation is to right the tithe check to some other organization to accomplish some task that I choose, rather than to my local church, which is where I’m convicted it should go.

    It’s that conviction that keeps me going and keeps me doing these things.  But what if one is a church leader who needs to work with the folks who are a bit less convicted?  I belong to a United Methodist congregation, and 50% attendance on a given Sunday is considered very good.  Some churches run more like 30%.  Part of that is a paperwork problem, in that it is very difficult to remove members from the church rolls when they disappear, and people are not that keen on membership paperwork these days.  It’s one way in which the United Methodist Church is perhaps a bit out of touch–a bureaucratic church in an age when people want to escape that style, at least on Sunday morning.

    But that’s not the whole story.  Somewhere in that 50-70% who are missing on Sunday morning there are a lot of people who simply aren’t convicted enough or motivated enough to show up at church.  So my message to church leaders (including myself), is that we do have to be concerned with feeding the people and motivating them.  It’s all well and good to say they ought to attend church services, and they ought to be looking for a place to serve.  When I’m teaching them, I’ll tell them that.  But we as leaders need to help make them welcome.

    Making people welcome, involving phrases like “seeker sensitive” and even “user friendly” have gotten a bad reputation in some circles, and I think that in many ways they should have.  They can easily lend themselves to marketing a service or advertising entertainment, which is always going to be a losing proposition, unless our churches also fulfill spiritual needs, and fulfilling spiritual needs always leads to both the motivation for, and practice of, action and service.

    I discovered a blog through the Christian Carnival this week, Boston Bible Geeks.  They have a post titled The Necessity of the Church for a Persevering Faith, in which they say:

    But God has not left us alone to fight against sin and temptation.  He has given us each other.  He tells us to assemble together, not to meet a requirement or get a star on our Sunday School attendance chart.  He tells us to meet together so we can build each other up and keep each other from sinning.  We are given the responsibility to restore each other when we do sin (Gal 6:1, I deal with that verse here).

    Now you need to go read the entire post to get the context of that, but the point here is that the congregation–not just the pastor or the Sunday School teacher–is charged to encourage one another in their Christian walk, and the major purpose, according to Hebrews, is to keep us from falling into sin, and to help restore us if we do.

    That reminded me of something that has happened each time I signed onto my web hosting account this week.  There’s a message that appears right after I sign on that says, “If you are having trouble accessing your account, read this.”  It has made me laugh each time.  I even went to check whether it can be accessed without logging in.  It can, but it doesn’t appear conveniently on the login page.  The encouragement, you see, comes only after you’re “in.”

    That’s the problem with church, and even with small groups.  What reaches out and encourages our Bible study each week?  I’ve been disturbed by the number of times I’ve taught a series of Sunday School lessons, and entire Sunday School classes will confess that they didn’t read or study anything that I provided on a topic during the week.  That means that they absorb (too often) or even reject what I say without giving it more thought than occurs in a Sunday School hour.

    It’s as though we have a sign on the inside of our church sanctuary and on the inside of our Sunday School classrooms that says, “If you are having trouble accessing God, read this.”  The church needs to create connections that go beyond the church setting, beyond the Sunday morning hour, and provide a “spurring to good works” (Hebrews 10:24) that lasts through the week.

    There are many means of doing this.  My home church’s new ICON service even has a Facebook page and Twitter account, so that they can send out messages.  But these are only part of the means, not the content.  I’m not a good person to go into all the means of reaching people socially.  I do know it needs to be done in order to build a complete Christian life.  Whether the means are high tech or low tech the question is whether the Christian activity of “spurring” continues all week.

    It’s that spurring, that building of a complete Christian life that will make church worthwhile, and if it’s really worth it, people will be there.

  • Sacrifice then and Now

    What meaning is evoked in people’s minds by the word “sacrifice?”  One of the things I like to do when teaching is to simply write a word on the board that is commonly used in Biblical and/or Christian discourse and get people to give me various things that this word means to them.  I try not to specify the context too closely.

    The other day I did this while teaching a bit on the tabernacle service, and its relation to the theme of Hebrews 7-9.  Yes, I know, big subject.  But I started by writing the three words “temple”, “priest”, and “sacrifice.”

    The result was not entirely unexpected, but was instructive.  I’m going to stick with the word “sacrifice.”  The group focused on giving up things for others or for some benefit for oneself.  For example, one person talked about giving up certain things in life in order to pursue an avocation for tennis.  Others talked about sacrificing in order to help the poor.

    It is probably indicative of the group involved that, even though we were in Sunday School class, the “church” meanings did not come up.  When I brought up the idea of sacrifice for sin and the various ways in which that might be understood, people acknowledged it with an “oh yeah.”

    Now this was not a stupid group of people. Far from it.  They were one of the most interactive and constructive groups with whom I have had the privilege to work recently.  But what was uppermost in their minds was not quite entirely unlike a picture of sacrifice in the ancient world, but it was pretty close.

    The idea of offering a sacrifice “to” anyone–God, for example–again did not come up.

    When I have done a similar exercise with more conservative groups I will likely get all the words that relate to sin and atonement, but they will often miss the idea of a sacrifice in order to accomplish something, a simple offering for thankfulness, or the fairly common purification sacrifices.  Those are ideas that are not part of either the liberal or conservative universes.

    So how does one read and/or teach Hebrews in such a context?  First, I consider my use of that exercise completely justified.  I can get an idea of where people are, and then point out the differences and similarities between their view of sacrifice and that of the ancient world.

    Elements that may be missed by various groups include:

    • Any concept of substitution
    • Purification (clean and unclean)
    • Thankfulness
    • Appeasement
    • Magical rituals in which the animal is slaughtered less as a sacrifice and more as a part of the magical ritual.
    • Sacrifice as part of the continuing liturgy.

    There is a difficulty here, I think, in teaching a book like Hebrews without having some exposure to sacrifice, priesthood, and temples in the ancient world.  A good start on that exposure would be to look at the sacrifices as taught in Leviticus especially, but such a process tests the patience of the best of classes.

    I’m not one to maintain that the author of Hebrews was some kind of expert on the Torah.  On the other hand he certainly did have a working acquaintance, at least with the LXX version of it, and he would not necessarily see sacrifice in the same way we do.  In order to get some portion of his perspective, we need to do some reading of that same literature.

    Even simply looking at each of his quotes and perhaps their Old Testament context will be inadequate.  We need somewhat of a picture of how ancient Israelite religion worked, placed in an ancient near eastern context, before we can learn how one New Testament author wanted to change, or better, <em>transform</em> it.

  • John 18:1-4 – Getting Christological Perspective

    If you’re acquainted with the synoptic gospels, in reading John 18:1-4 you may notice some substantial differences. What’s missing here is the time of tarrying and waiting, the prayer, any sort of agony or question about what Jesus was about to go through is gone. Verse 4 puts the different feel of the text into words when it says, “Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him . . .” (TNIV).

    So which is it? Was Jesus confident and in control, finally giving up his own life, or did he pray that the cup might pass from him? One could try to reconcile these by saying that he knew, but he also wished to avoid, but I think it’s impossible to read the passion story in the gospel of John without seeing a different picture of Jesus than the synoptics portray, always assuming that one lets John speak for himself, and each of the synoptic writers for himself.

    But I’m going to suggest that nonetheless “which is it?” is the wrong question. This is where we get into mystery. Orthodox christology holds that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Human logic balks at the combination. When we think about Jesus we generally are either thinking of him as more human or more divine. Lacking an infinite perspective, we have to see something finite. In our minds 2 * fully (or 2 * 100%) is just too much to see at once.

    So we have different pictures in the gospels, because being written by finite people (inspired by God) and in finite human language, they can only give us part of the perspective at once. In John we see the divinity of Jesus in the foreground. In Luke especially (22:39-51) we see a much more human Jesus. Again, “which is it?” is the wrong question to ask. It is both, which is how the doctrine developed.

    When we see all the Biblical perspectives on Jesus we realize that he cannot be simply one thing. Various christological heresies have tried to make some one perspective be the perspective. But we can be sure that any explanation that makes too much sense, that makes it too simple to understand isn’t adequate to the task.

    I’m reminded also of God’s work in a person’s life. Who am I? Am I Henry Neufeld, defined by my history, my education, my actions in the past? Or am I a human being in the process of sanctification by the Holy Spirit, with Christ dwelling in me? I assure you that I don’t present the kind of challenge that Jesus, fully human and fully divine, does. But I do present contradictions, and I do look different when you look at me from the perspective of the work God is doing on me.

    In Hebrews 11 we have person after person who was called and used by God. The presentation of these people is invariably more positive than what you find in the Hebrew scriptures. Sarah is filled with faith, rather than laughter. Moses doesn’t fear the wrath of the king, even though he flees. I think Hebrews 11 looks at these people in terms of what God is doing in them, not who they were on their own.

    We can’t have a God’s eye view. God has the infinite expression. But by looking from these various angles that scripture provides, we two can see just a little of what God sees.

  • Hope as an Anchor – Hebrews 6:19-20

    19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, steadfast and firm and entering the inner side of the veil. 20Jesus entered there as a forerunner for us, becoming a high priest eternally according to the order of Melchizedek. — Hebrews 6:19-20

    When I joined the Air Force, my mother made me a quilt that had this text embroidered in it in Greek. That quilt stayed with me more than 20 years. Why “anchor” for someone in the Air Force? Well, two things. I had intended to joint he Navy, but then got a job closer to what I wanted with the Air Force, and then she thought my soul still needed an anchor–as indeed it did!

    Today, I was reading the Ancient Commentary on Christian Scripture (Hebrews), pages 93-94, [On the Epistle to the Hebrews 11.3] and I was very much struck by the comments of St. John Chrysostom. You can guess that I particularly appreciate his commentary on scripture by the number of posts I’ve made that consist mostly of a large quotation from him. In this case he talks about the importance of hope as an anchor.

    The foundation of this hope, the “meat” of it, is that God takes and oath and does not lie, and he says that we will be heirs. That’s the hope we’re talking about. Each of us needs some kind of hope. St. John Chrysostom notes that “we are already living amid God’s promises.” Then he adds: “. . . through hope we are already in heaven.” That’s intense hope.

    But some of us have a hard time holding onto hope. When things get discouraging hope gets weak! St. John points out that the apostle (he assumes Paul as the author) chooses his figure wisely. There are those who are founded on the rock as Jesus said (Matthew 7:24-27). Then there are the rest of us, who are not quite so steady. We need an anchor that holds us in place even though we are shaken. This is a message for the folks who don’t feel quite so anchored on a rock. Quoting again: “For the surge and the great storm toss the boat, but hope does not permit it to be carried back and forth, although winds innumerable agitate it, so that, unless we had this hope we should long ago have been sunk.”

    This passage fits especially well into the message of Hebrews, which is for people who have begun to follow Jesus but have been looking back because of hardships. The author repeatedly assures us that the goal is worth working for, but he also tells us that we must keep going. They weren’t people whose houses were fully founded on the rock. They were shaken, but they needed–and they had–an anchor so no matter how they were shaken, they would still end up in place.

    I think most of us are more like that. The house on the rock is a good ideal toward which we can strive, but I think we feel much more like an anchored ship weathering a storm. If that’s the case, Jesus still has the anchor to keep you safe. You’ll probably get wet, you’ll probably be shaken, but you’ll come out alright in the end.

  • A Just Claim?

    9We are confident concerning you, loved ones, that you have the greater salvation. That’s why we speak in this way. 10For God is not so unjust that he would forget your works and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints and continuing to do so. 11But we want each one of you to show the same zeal toward the fulfillment of your hope to the end 12so that you might not become lazy, but rather imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. — Hebrews 6:9-12 (my translation)

    St. John Chrysostom interprets verse 10 as requiring our aid to those who are in need, without inquiring as to the reason:

    Having then heard these things, let us not care only for “those that are of the household of faith” ( Gal. vi. 10 ), and neglect others. So then also thou, if thou see any one in affliction, be not curious to enquire further. His being in affliction involves a just claim on thy aid.

    τὸ δικαίωμα τῆς βοηθείας For if when thou seest an ass choking thou raisest him up, and dost not curiously enquire whose he is, much more about a man one ought not to be over-curious in enquiring whose he is. He is God’s, be he heathen or be he Jew; since even if he is an unbeliever, still he needs help. For if indeed it had been committed to thee to enquire and to judge, thou wouldst have well said thus, but, as it is, his misfortune does not suffer thee to search out these things. For if even about men in good health it is not right to be over-curious, nor to be a busybody in other men’s matters, much less about those that are in affliction. — On the Epistle to the Hebrews, X (CCEL)

    I think that is an interesting stretch, though there is some merit in the idea, it seems to me. I have also seen much need for good stewardship and wisdom in dealing with limited resources used to help the poor.

  • Quoting the Old Testament in the New – Psalm 40:6

    Note: I will be using the English verse numbering throughout. Hebrew verse numbers are one greater in this chapter, thus this is Psalm 40:7 in Hebrew.

    In reading Psalm 40 several times, since it’s the lectionary passage for this week, I noticed a few things that I would have missed in just one pass. One of these is Psalm 40:6-8, which is quoted in Hebrews 10:5-7. There is a difference in the Hebrew of Psalm 40:6 and the quoted text of Hebres 10:5, however, which illustrates an interesting translation issue. The question is whether New Testament quotations of the Old Testament should be accommodated to the Old Testament translation in the same version.

    The book of Hebrews provides a good laboratory for discussing this issue. I’ve used the illustration of Hebrews 2:7 quoting Psalm 8:5 before. The NIV accommodates the translation by using “a little lower” in Hebrews 2:7, rather than “for a little while” which is a better translation of the Greek there. (I discussed this a bit more here.)

    It’s interesting, however, that while the NIV provides notes in all cases, they do not accommodate the translation in Hebrews 10:5. There we read in part:

    but a body you prepared for me;

    The text in Psalm 40:6 reads:

    but my ears you have pierced;

    I’m not sure why one was accommodated, but not the other, but the issues involved would likely highlight the difficulty one has in deciding this sort of issue. It’s not that I want to criticize them for their choice, though my choice would be to translate the text in front of me. It is always possible that they felt that there was more possibility for the alternative meaning in Hebrews 2:7 (where it is indeed possible, though not best, in my view), but did not see the same possibility in Hebrews 10:5.

    This raises some issues of inspiration. In certain views of inspiration, one would prefer to have a single text which was entirely consistent. The idea of New Testament writers using varying texts can be disconcerting to someone who would prefer a very rigid standard.

    I find this kind of thing very enlightening. The New Testament writers lived with differing manuscripts just like we do, even though they had not developed textual criticism in the same way. Extracting theology from scripture is much more an art than a science.