The Book of "Hebrews"
AUTHOR, INTRODUCTION, DATING, SUBJECT MATTER, COMMENTARY

"Hebrews is not explicitly interested in the Herodian temple and contemporary high priests, but in the Torah and the cultic system of the desert tabernacle that it portrays." (Harold W. Attridge, Hebrews, p. 8)
 

INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS
From Student's New Testament Handbook By Marvin Richardson Vincent

Doubts as to the Pauline authorship were current in the earliest times. In the Alexandrian Church it was generally received as Pauline until late in the third century. It was appended in the Peshito to the Pauline Epistles as a non-Pauline, private Epistle. Elsewhere in the Eastern Church the opinion that Paul was the author was general, but not unchallenged. The Council of Laodicaea, in the fourth century, endorsed it as genuine. In the earlier centuries of the Western Church there was no general recognition of the Pauline authorship. In the middle of the third century it was not only not received as Pauline, but was regarded as uncanonical. The Pauline authorship did not find recognition in the West until after the middle of the fourth century.

For the canonical history, see :

WESTCOTT : Introduction to Commentary on Hebrews.  LUNEMANN : Introduction to 4th Edn. of MEYER'S Commentary,  1874. Also WEISS, Edn. of 1888.

The Pauline authorship was the prevailing opinion from the fourth to the eighteenth century, except with the Reformers, CALVIN, ERASMUS, LUTHER, BEZA. The weight of modern criticism is heavily against it. It is maintained by a few, chiefly in England, as WORDSWORTH, KAY, CONYBEARE and HOWSON, LEWIN ; and in Germany by J. C. K. VON HOFMANN.

A great variety of opinion as to the author.

(a) Luke

As a translator of a Hebrew original : CLEMENT of Alexandria.
As writing under Paul's direction : DELITZSCH, EBRARD, DOLLINGER, STIER, GUERICKE,
THIERSCH.

(b) Silas: GODET.

(c) Barnabas : WIESELER, J. E. C. SCHMIDT, ULLMANN, VOLKMAR, RlTSCHL, WEISS, KEIL, SALMON, RENAN, ZAHN.

(d) Apollos : DE WETTE, BLEEK, THOLUCK, LUNEMANN, BUNSEN, FARRAR, ALFORD, DE PRESSENSE, DAVIDSON, HlLGENFELD, PFLEIDERER, REUSS and CREDNER waver between Apollos and Barnabas.   WESTCOTT gives no decision. EICHHORN, EWALD, HAUSRATH, LIPSIUS, and VON SODEN ascribe it to an Alexandrian Christian.

Questions.

The Readers. — General opinion : Jewish Christians.

A mixed church : WIESELER, J. C. K. VON HOFMANN, ZAHN, MANGOLD, HILGENFELD.

Gentile Christians: VON SODEN.

Locality of the Church. — A variety of opinions.

Alexandria : J. E. C. SCHMIDT, ULLMANN, WIESELER, KOSTLIN, BUNSEN, HlLGENFELD, SCHNECKENBURGER, VOLKMAR, RlTSCHL, REUSS.

Rome : HOLTZMANN.

Hebrew-speaking Jews of Palestine : DE WETTE, BLEEK, WEISS, THOLUCK, DELITZSCH, LUNEMANN, SALMON, WESTCOTT.

Churches of Asia Minor : Galatian and Laodicean Churches, Lycaonia, Ephesus ; Jewish Churches of Macedonia, Corinth, Antioch, Spain.

Original Language. — The theory of a Hebrew original, founded on a statement of EUSEBIUS, and largely adopted from him, has no independent evidence. It became the traditional opinion of the Mediaeval Western Church. Maintained by MICHAELIS, and revived by BIESENTHAL, 1878, and PANEK, 1882.

See Introductions of SALMON, HOLTZMANN, BLEEK, WEISS, and DAVIDSON. GLOAG : Introduction to the Pauline Epistles. ZAHN : Art. Hebriierbrief, in HERZOG'S Real-Encyk.
REUSS : History of the New Testament. WESTCOTT : Canon of the N. T. and Commentary on Hebrews. BLEEK: Lectures on Hebrews, 1868.

The literature is fully given in HOLTZMANN'S Einleitung.

Hebrews 8/9 Not About Herod's Temple

"Hebrews is not explicitly interested in the Herodian temple and contemporary high priests, but in the Torah and the cultic system of the desert tabernacle that it portrays.  The cultic language could, in some secondary fashion, allude to contemporary practice, but it need not.  Another, related argument is often advanced to support a pre-70 date, namely, that the text lacks any reference to the destruction of the temple, as is found in works such as Barn. 16.4.   Such a reference would, it is argued, appropriately seal Hebrews' descriptions of the inadequacy and outmoded character of the Law and its cult." (Harold W. Attridge, Hebrews, p. 8)
 

Dating and Authorship

Robinson's Date: 67

Mark Goodacre: Dating the Crucial Sources in Early Christianity (2008 PDF)

Harold W. Attridge (1989)
"For a recent version of a pre-64 date for the work, in light of its presumed Roman destination, see William L. Lane, Call to Committment: Responding to the Message of Hebrews 1985, pp. 22-26"  (Hebrews, p. 8)

A text from the Talmud sets the latest possible date for Hebrews. R. Ishmael died c. 135 CE; if these are his words, the composition of Hebrews (to which Ishmael refers) must have taken place before his death.

Babylon Talmud, Nedar. 32b, quoted in Travers R. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, 1903, I, b, iv; pg 338, item 139.

Hebrews was clearly known to the author of 1 Clement (17:1, 36:2-5). This sets the terminus ad quem for the book of Hebrews. However, dating 1 Clement is difficult, with commentators ranging from 95 CE to 120 CE or even as late as 140 CE.

Attridge states on the dating of Hebrews (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 3, p. 97):

Within the broad range of the years 60-95 C.E., various conjectures have been made about a more precise dating. References to the Jewish sacrificial cult in the present tense (9:6-10; 10:1-4), along with the lack of any mention of the destruction of the temple, have been taken as evidence of a date prior to 70 C.E., when the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. This argument, however, is inconclusive, since our author is not at all concerned with the Herodian temple. Rather, he deals with the desert tabernacle and argues exegetically from biblical data. Moreover, authors writing after 70 C.E., such as Josephus, Clement of Rome, and the compilers of the Mishnah, often refer to the temple as a present reality.

Kummel dates Hebrews as follows (Introduction to the New Testament, p. 403): "To the obvious question whether Jerusalem is still standing (13:13 f) and the temple cultus is still in process (9:9 f) Heb gives no answer. In its timeless scholarly movement of ideas only the OT sanctuary plays a role, not the Herodian temple; an origin before 70 cannot be inferred either from the silence concerning the catastrophe of the year 70 or from the expression in 8:13 that the Old Covenant is 'in the course of passing away.' On the contrary, the persecutions which the community has experienced (10:32-34) and the spiritual proximity to Lk-Acts point in all probability to the post-Pauline period. Heb was, however, written before 96 (I Clem); Timothy, who as a young man had been a mission aide of Paul, is still living (13:23), writers and readers belong to the second Christian generation (2:3), the new suffering which threatens the readers (12:4) may point to the time of Domitian (81-96). Accordingly the letter was probably written between 80 and 90."

Hebrews 2:3 states: "Announced first by the Lord, it [salvation] was confirmed to us by those who had heard him." Hebrews 13:7 states: "Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you; consider how their lives ended, and imitate their faith." This is compatible with a date of Hebrews during the second or third Christian generation.

Harold W. Attridge writes of the Epistle to the Hebrews (op. cit., p. 97):

Although Hebrews is included in the Pauline corpus and was part of that corpus in its earliest attested form (p46), it is certainly not a work of the apostle. This fact was recognized, largely on sytlistic grounds, even in antiquity. Some patristic authors defended the traditional Pauline attribution with theories of scribal assistants such as Clement of Rome or Luke, but such hypotheses do not do justice to the very un-Pauline treatment of key themes, particularly those of law and faith. Numerous alternative candidates for authorship have been proposed. The most prominent have been Barnabas, to whom Tertullian assigned the work; Apollos, defended by Luther and many moderns; Priscilla, suggested by von Harnack; Epaphras; and Silas. Arguments for none are decisive, and Origen's judgment that "God only knows" who composed the work is sound.

The book is anonymous, and its author is unknown. Perrin writes about the provenance of Hebrews (The New Testament: An Introduction, p. 138): "To whom was Hebrews originally addressed? The writer is a Hellenistic Jewish Christian, and his arguments presuppose that he is writing to others who think as he does, i.e., to a Hellenistic Jewish Christian community. Since Clement of Rome knows and quotes the text within what could only have been a few years of its writing, that community may well have been in Rome. This view is supported by the greetings from 'those who have come from Italy' in Heb 13:24."

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