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Featured Author of Hebrews

Discussion in 'Bible Versions & Translations' started by saturneptune, Jun 11, 2013.

  1. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    Who do you think wrote Hebrews and why? Thanks for your responses.
     
  2. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Don't think it was paul!

    barnabus/Apollos great choices!
     
  3. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Peter was the apostle to the Jews, and he wrote to his audience:

    15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;
    16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. 2 Pet 3

    I'm convinced Paul was the writer of Hebrews.
     
  4. Bob Alkire

    Bob Alkire New Member

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    I with you here, my friend.
     
  5. Mexdeaf

    Mexdeaf New Member

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    I used to think Paul, but the literary style of Hebrews is different from his known letters - this became obvious to me when I started to read the Bible in Spanish. I lean towards Apollos.
     
  6. jbh28

    jbh28 Active Member

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    Paul, not the writer

    I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write. 2 Thess 3:17

    No greeting appears in Hebrews.
     
  7. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    Apollos, for the reasons given in the last 2 posts.
     
  8. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    I've never encountered this point made before, thank you.

    But:

    whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the word of God, Col 1:25

    ...and I take that to mean to complete the word of God. I think Paul was chosen to bring it all together and he did a magnificent job of it. Hebrews is a masterpiece in connecting the Old and the New, it's hard for me to imagine Paul not being the composer.

    And the types, Paul was superb in revealing the types in all his letters, and Hebrews is no exception.
     
    #8 kyredneck, Jun 11, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 11, 2013
  9. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    These are all great responses. Keep them coming. Just from reading the books of the Bible in English, it seems like what known books Paul wrote are easier to understand than some parts of Hebrews. Hebrews to me is a pretty deep book, throughout, like 6:4-6.
     
  10. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    Hey Saturn,

    I entertain the real possibility that the author of Hebrews is indeed Paul.

    I can expand and clarify individual points later. The initial canonical structure had Hebrews directly in the middle of the Pauline corpus, functioning as the buffer of those books addressed to churches and those addressed to individuals. Westcott and Hort were historically accurate in this respect, as they placed Hebrews in the proper canonical position after 2 Thessalonians and before 1 Timothy. Thus, the canonical clues to Pauline authorship are (1) its position in the midst of the Pauline corpus, (2) the clue right before the beginning of Hebrews that the mark of Paul does not come at the beginning of his letters but at the end (2 Thess. 3:17: This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write, [namely] The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.), (3) the ending of Hebrews gives direct introduction to the following epistles, namely, those to Timothy (cf. Heb. 13:23), and finally (4) the true "mark" of Pauline authorship in all his epistles (Heb. 13:25: Grace be with all of you.).

    Since any discussion of authorship inevitably must deal with Heb 2:3, I'd like to end with a discussion on this verse. (Sorry in advance for the length.)

    Hebrews 2:3 says: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.” B. F. Westcott remarks that with these words Paul

    Moses Stuart, rightly in my opinion, warns against such an interpretation of Hebrews 2:4. Cf. Stuart, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2nd ed. (Andover, NY: Flagg, Gould, and Newman, 1833), 179–182.

    First, if the author’s use of the first person plural here aligns him with the persons he addresses, he also includes even himself among those who were “in imminent hazard of final apostacy” (180), i.e., "How shall we escape . . . ?"

    Second, the author often uses “we” or “you” indifferently, such as, for example, “Let us fear, lest any one of you” (4:1), “we” (12:1, 2), “you” (12:3-8), “we” (12:9, 10), “you” (12:14-25), and so on. Third, the author interchanges “we” and “I” (cf. 13:18 with 13:19, 22, 23), a trait familiar in Paul (cf. Gal. 1:8 with 1:9-24; and 2:5 with 2:1-4, 6, 7), as well as “we” and “you” (Gal. 3:1-12; 3:13-25; 3:26-29; 4:3-5; 4:6-20; 4:26-31, etc.).

    Examples like those of Stuart make it difficult to take the argument, such as Westcott’s above, seriously. Otherwise, the author himself needed to “lay again the foundation of repentance from dead works” (cf. “let us” in 6:1-3); he needed encouragement not to forsake assembling together (cf. “let us” in 10:24-25); in another letter, Paul needed exhortation not to be a child, tossed everywhere by every wind of doctrine (cf. “we” in Eph 4:14); he expected to meet Jesus in the air and thus never die (cf. “we who are alive” in 1 Thess 4:15-17).

    Stuart’s few examples serve to illustrate the point that confidence in the argument against Pauline authorship based on Hebrews 2:3 is misplaced. Stuart ends his discussion with a humorous episode, suggesting that if Hebrews 2:3 must necessarily prove that the writer of Hebrews received the gospel at second hand,

    Given the above reasonable explanations, the grammatical reason for the first person plural pronoun ημας (“us”) in εις ημας εβεβαιωθη (“was confirmed to us”; 2:3) is that the author used it simply to conform the sentence with its beginning subject, namely, the first person plural warning πως ημεις εκφευξομεθα (“how shall we escape”).

    Sincerely,

    Jonathan C. Borland
     
    #10 jonathan.borland, Jun 12, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 12, 2013
  11. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    Could Luke had penned the book , and related pauline thought, be like his secretary writting it down?
     
  12. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    Luke was a Gentile. Hebrews is written by a Jew it seems to me. Maybe Timothy who was half Jewish is a consideration. But I still vote for Apollos as the author.

    It is a good little mystery that doesn't mean a hill of beans. It is not important in the grand scheme of things.
     
  13. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    lean towards Apollos myself!

    2 points about Pauline authorship!

    Why was it such a mystery to who authored it, IF he had indeed written it?

    why bring in jesus as High priest, and NEVER mention it in any other writting?

    Was paul still alive when it was said to have been written?
     
  14. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    Here's a better question: Is the earliest historical opinion that Paul was the author, or that he wasn't?

    So you think Paul didn't believe in the high priesthood of Jesus? If you do, why all the fuss? And you think Apollos wrote Hebrews . . . because of the voluminous writings of Apollos on the high priesthood of Jesus? Haha, don't make me laugh.

    Most hold that Hebrews was written before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 because it refers to these temple activities in the present tense. Clement of Rome (late 1st century) already quotes Hebrews authoritatively as Scripture (actually more than any other NT book I believe), and this argues strongly that the author was considered authoritative not only to him but also to the Corinthians to whom he was writing. Paul spent 1.5 years in Corinth.

    Since some Germans have "proved" that Paul couldn't have written sections of Romans due to dissimilarities with other more familiar Pauline words, I suggest that people have discounted the multitude of similarities between Paul's epistles and Hebrews.

    A couple good articles for you to read would be the two-part series by David Alan Black, “On the Pauline Authorship of Hebrews (Part 1): Overlooked Affinities between Hebrews and Paul.” Faith and Mission 16 (1999): 32-51; ibid., “On the Pauline Authorship of Hebrews (Part 2): The External Evidence Reconsidered.” Faith and Mission 16 (1999) 78-86.

    Let's talk more after/if you read these two articles.

    Sincerely,

    Jonathan C. Borland
     
  15. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    Maybe Calvin wrote it in a former life.
     
  16. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    You manage to bring him up all the time in the least likely places.
     
  17. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    You are projecting
     
  18. Rippon

    Rippon Well-Known Member
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    And your post somehow relates to the OP? Who do you think wrote it?
     
  19. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    I am not one who said paul did not write it, but am more along the lines that just as mark penned down peter's thoughts, someone like a Luke or Barnabus would have penned down Paul theolog, writting it in more "precise' greek....

    Did manage to read davis A Black article on origen and the writer to hebrews...
     
  20. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    And Tertius wrote Romans, what gives? What did you think of Black's articles?
     
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