Hebrews 13:1-8
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”
Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
The second in our “the rest of them” series of letters – those not by Paul or even one of the fake-Paul’s – is the Letter to the Hebrews – one of the most mis-named epistles in scripture.
That title, “Letter to the Hebrews” was given to it sometime in the second century – nowhere does the letter writer, or apparently anyone in the first century, make any such claim. “Hebrews” in biblical context is usually a synonym for “Jews” – yet it is clearly written to Christians.
Being addressed to a large category of people – such as the Hebrews – makes it sound like it is written as a general, circulating letter – yet the content makes it pretty clear it is addressed to one, specific congregation, rather than Hebrews or Christians in general.
On top of all this, we have no real idea who wrote it. Years later, somewhere in the 200’s an early theologian named Origen declared that the author was “known only to God,” and the Christian world has pretty much gone with that ever since. Some people like to think it may have been written by Paul, but there is no truly persuasive reason to believe this and most bible scholars today do not, for a number of reasons.
Why does all this matter? In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you. Any time we read scripture, context matters! Who wrote it? When was it written? What was the political/cultural context of the society in which it was written? Was it written by someone in power or someone at the bottom of the heap? How about the people to whom it was written? Were they free? safe? well-off or poor? Were they eye-witnesses to what they are reporting or simply passing on what others have told them? When we are reading the documents that we accept as the source of our faith, these questions actually do matter.
Hebrews is a substantive book, making some large claims that have become important pieces of our belief system. If we call ourselves Christians, then, whether we are conscious of it or not, we have been shaped by this so-called Letter to the Hebrews.
It all boils down to this question: do we accept everything we read in scripture because somewhere we were taught to accept it unquestioningly? Just because? Or do we read it because we ourselves find “truth” in the things we hear? A truth that matches our lived experience of a Divinity that loves us and walks with us through this existence?
Because of the time-gap between then and now and the often chaotic state of the world in the intervening centuries we usually don’t have a whole lot of reliable evidence available to us. But it is important that we put in the time to do our best with the clues we do have. Because I am not myself a biblical scholar, I find those people I do trust who do know these things.
In the case of the writer of Hebrews, we do know that he/she was educated. His Greek (we’ll go with he for convenience) and his syntax are very sophisticated. He also knew the Old Testament – the Hebrew Scriptures – extremely well. He quotes the Old Testament very often, using these quotes to connect Jesus to Hebrew history all the way back to Creation.
As we will see, his use of “Son of God” and “our great High Priest” language is similar to that used both in Colossians and in John’s Gospel and shows the unknown author as tending toward a “cosmic Christ” vision of Jesus. We’ll get into that more later.
As to when it was written, that’s pretty much up for grabs, as well. It could be anywhere from 35 to 70 years after the death of Jesus. As we will see there is a lot of discussion of the temple and temple sacrifice here, but no reference at all to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., forty years after the crucifixion, suggesting to some that it was written prior to that date.
Others believe the letter is the work of 2nd generation Christians who have experienced persecution. They suggest the destruction of the temple isn’t mentioned because it was such common knowledge that everyone would have known about it anyway. Marc Borg places its writing around the year 90 – and for lack of better info, we’ll go with that.
Next week we will look at the particulars of what Hebrews actually says. It’s a longer letter than others we’ve read recently – thirteen chapters – with some fairly complicated theological issues. We’ll need some time to give it a fair reading – so we’ll come back to it next week. The things we'll find in this book are worth our educated understanding, rather than just our unthinking acceptance. It will be interesting to see what we recognize in it as pieces of what we ourselves have always assumed about being a Christian.
That title, “Letter to the Hebrews” was given to it sometime in the second century – nowhere does the letter writer, or apparently anyone in the first century, make any such claim. “Hebrews” in biblical context is usually a synonym for “Jews” – yet it is clearly written to Christians.
Being addressed to a large category of people – such as the Hebrews – makes it sound like it is written as a general, circulating letter – yet the content makes it pretty clear it is addressed to one, specific congregation, rather than Hebrews or Christians in general.
On top of all this, we have no real idea who wrote it. Years later, somewhere in the 200’s an early theologian named Origen declared that the author was “known only to God,” and the Christian world has pretty much gone with that ever since. Some people like to think it may have been written by Paul, but there is no truly persuasive reason to believe this and most bible scholars today do not, for a number of reasons.
Why does all this matter? In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll remind you. Any time we read scripture, context matters! Who wrote it? When was it written? What was the political/cultural context of the society in which it was written? Was it written by someone in power or someone at the bottom of the heap? How about the people to whom it was written? Were they free? safe? well-off or poor? Were they eye-witnesses to what they are reporting or simply passing on what others have told them? When we are reading the documents that we accept as the source of our faith, these questions actually do matter.
Hebrews is a substantive book, making some large claims that have become important pieces of our belief system. If we call ourselves Christians, then, whether we are conscious of it or not, we have been shaped by this so-called Letter to the Hebrews.
It all boils down to this question: do we accept everything we read in scripture because somewhere we were taught to accept it unquestioningly? Just because? Or do we read it because we ourselves find “truth” in the things we hear? A truth that matches our lived experience of a Divinity that loves us and walks with us through this existence?
Because of the time-gap between then and now and the often chaotic state of the world in the intervening centuries we usually don’t have a whole lot of reliable evidence available to us. But it is important that we put in the time to do our best with the clues we do have. Because I am not myself a biblical scholar, I find those people I do trust who do know these things.
In the case of the writer of Hebrews, we do know that he/she was educated. His Greek (we’ll go with he for convenience) and his syntax are very sophisticated. He also knew the Old Testament – the Hebrew Scriptures – extremely well. He quotes the Old Testament very often, using these quotes to connect Jesus to Hebrew history all the way back to Creation.
As we will see, his use of “Son of God” and “our great High Priest” language is similar to that used both in Colossians and in John’s Gospel and shows the unknown author as tending toward a “cosmic Christ” vision of Jesus. We’ll get into that more later.
As to when it was written, that’s pretty much up for grabs, as well. It could be anywhere from 35 to 70 years after the death of Jesus. As we will see there is a lot of discussion of the temple and temple sacrifice here, but no reference at all to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., forty years after the crucifixion, suggesting to some that it was written prior to that date.
Others believe the letter is the work of 2nd generation Christians who have experienced persecution. They suggest the destruction of the temple isn’t mentioned because it was such common knowledge that everyone would have known about it anyway. Marc Borg places its writing around the year 90 – and for lack of better info, we’ll go with that.
Next week we will look at the particulars of what Hebrews actually says. It’s a longer letter than others we’ve read recently – thirteen chapters – with some fairly complicated theological issues. We’ll need some time to give it a fair reading – so we’ll come back to it next week. The things we'll find in this book are worth our educated understanding, rather than just our unthinking acceptance. It will be interesting to see what we recognize in it as pieces of what we ourselves have always assumed about being a Christian.
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