Christian Texts and History • Re: 'Hebrews' ie. the Epistle to the Hebrews

Excerpts from David Runia's 1993 book, Philo in Early Christian Literature.

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Chapter Four

Philo and the New Testament

... 3. The Epistle to the Hebrews

The New Testament book that shows the most affinity to Philonic thought is unquestionably the Epistle to the Hebrews ...

Hurst (1990) concludes that there seems to be a special affinity between Hebrews and the kind of OT exegesis found in Acts 7 (this again seems to have some affinities with what we find in Philo...).

< omitted here ie. omitted from this quote of 22/01/2024 >

Examination of the evidence has shown that the author of the Hebrews and Philo come from the same milieu; in a closer sense than in the case of Paul. I would not be at all surprised if that the author of Hebrews had had some form of direct contact with Judaism as it had developed in Philo’s Alexandria. Linguistic, hermeneutical and thematic correspondences are impressive. But the thought-worlds are markedly different. The antitheses ontological versus eschatological dualism and allegory versus typology sum up much of the difference. But the crucial point of divergence, as Weiss points out, lies in the area of Christology. It is the Hebrews author’s recognition of the Christ and his self-sacrifice which furnishes the dynamics that inform his eschatology, typology and soteriology, impelling them in a direction away from the Philonic heritage (in the broad sense) with which he must have been familiar.
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In an introductory section in that same chapter, Runia wrote about the views about the different forms of Judaism

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Chadwick, in [a 1966] article on Philo and Paul, to make the following bold claim:

... I believe the theology of the hellenistic synagogue, as recorded in long printed and familiar texts of Greek speaking Judaism, still throws more light on the world of St. Paul, St. John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, than any other single non-Christian source. There is nothing surprising in this conclusion. We cannot take too seriously the basic fact that the New Testament is entirely in Greek. It is orientated toward the non-Palestinian world. It would be very strange if its principal theologians did not disclose substantial parallels with the writings of Philo, Josephus, and the author of the Wisdom of Solomon . . . To me, at least, it seems clear that of all the non-Christian writers of the first century AD Philo is the one from whom the historian of emergent Christianity had most to learn ...

This statement makes us want to know more about the face of Judaism in the time of Philo. Is it legitimate to make such a clear-cut distinction between the Hellenistic synagogue which conducted its affairs in Greek and the Hebrew-Aramaic world of Palestinian Judaism?
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Eric F Mason You Are a Priest Forever': Second Temple Jewish Messianism and the Priestly Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews

• The present study reevaluates the priestly Christology of Hebrews and the presentations of the messianic priest and Melchizedek in the Qumran texts, arguing that the latter [ie. Qumran texts]...provide the closest parallels to Hebrews' thought.

Eric Mason argues that the conceptual background of the priestly Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews closely parallels presentations of the messianic priest and Melchizedek in the Qumran scrolls. In both Hebrews and Qumran a priestly figure is discussed in the context of a Davidic figure; in both cases a divine decree appoints the priests to their eschatological duty; both priestly figures offer an eschatological sacrifice of atonement. Although the author of Hebrews was not directly influenced by Qumran's "Messiah of Aaron", these and other conceptions did provide "a precedent...to conceive Jesus similarly as a priest making atonement and eternal intercession in the heavenly sanctuary" [p.199].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to ... omposition

Mason, You Are a Priest Forever, pp. 33–34:

In Heb 7:4-10 the author develops his assertion that Melchizedek's priesthood is greater than that of the Levitical priests … Obviously the major concern here is to demonstrate the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood over that of the Levites, the traditional Jewish priestly tribe. The author's primary critique of the Levitical priesthood is asserted in Heb 7:11 — it and the Law under which it served could not bring perfection. Thus a new priesthood and a corresponding new law are necessary (7:12). Jesus, as a descendant of Judah, does not fit the proper priestly paradigm of Levitical descent (7:14). Instead, he resembles Melchizedek, who has a priesthood which is not based on genealogy or a legal requirement but rather "through the power of an indestructible life" (7:16).¹

1. Perhaps the interruption to Jesus's "indestructible life" - the crucifixion - came later (?)

Statistics: Posted by MrMacSon — Mon Jan 22, 2024 12:45 am