- Who wrote Hebrews? Why and to whom?
- The book is very carefully structured, and understanding this is an excellent doorway into seeing the main focus of the book, and how the author supports such a powerful central claim.
Play Audio:
- So what do we know about the author?
- Amazingly talented writer (at the level of the most polished Greek literature—Attic)
- Hangs out with Paul’s group (Timothy: [Heb 13:22,23])
- Some ideas are very similar to Paul’s but there are some new insights
- Knows the O.T. Scriptures very well
When? Where? Who?
- “Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews” <- wrong!
- Must be Greek-speaking because of the complexity of the language (High-Greek)
- The term “Hebrews” was reserved for Jews still living in Palestine, who wouldn’t have Greek as a first language
- Some suggest it could be Jewish converts who were tempted to return to Judaism
- But there is actually no reason to restrict it to Jews
- So it could have been to any church in Greek speaking world (most of the Roman Empire)
- The Gentiles were just as likely to be interested in the Scriptures
- They were even more likely to want to know how the O.T. related to themselves
- This is one of the main purposes of the book
- Form
- Not an Epistle (letter)
- Most people suggest it was a sermon/sermons that was later written down
- No opening section (from / to / grace / prayer of thanksgiving)
- 3 verses on the end show that it was written to be sent
- Paul’s epistles are full of “I write to you...”
- Whereas this is full of expressions such as [11:32 “what more shall I say? For time will fail me...”]
- Frequent references to running out of time
- [5:11 “say... hearing”]
- Most people suggest it was a sermon that was later written down
- two problems
- very long for a sermon
- very complex
- many of the intricate literary features would be lost in a sermon
- Some Christians react to the idea that something can be Scripture and art at the same time
- Some of the Psalms are intricate Hebrew poetry
- Other books as well, such as Song of Solomon
- This book is Art.
Structure
- Why I believe it is so important
- History of attempts to find a structure
- Historically there were several ideas,but it is generally recognized that this fits very badly
- A second view is the “Patchwork”
- In effect gives up on any structure
- In the last 100 years, there has been a lot of success in identifying literary features in the book which help us determine the structure.
- In 1963 a French scholar, Albert Vanhoye, made a breakthrough
- 1991 George Guthrie did his Ph.D. simply focused on how the book is put together
- 2010 a book by John Heil was published
- 2011 The best work to date has come from the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, a man called David Heath did his Ph.D. on this
- Any structure of Hebrews should reflect these structural markers
- Here is my proposed structure for the book