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Originally written by LaymanIndeed, the first passage in Hebrews demonstrates the fallacy of cramming Hebrews into a Platonic box. It stresses both Jesus' role as a human agent of God and a decidedly non-Platonic worldview:
Hebrews 1:1-2: "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world."
Jesus' actions take place not in a static, murky realm, but in a set place in history.
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How does describing Christ as the Word of God “stress” Christ’s humanity?
How does describing Christ as existing at least since the beginning of the world suggest a “set place in history”?
These verses appear to be referring to the sacrificed and raised Christ, not the living Jesus. It is the Sacrificed/Raised Christ through whom God has spoken. It is the Sacrificed/Raised Christ who is appointed heir of all things. It is the Sacrificed/Raised Christ through whom God made the world.
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While actions in the platonic heavenly realm are timeless and static, Jesus did not speak as God's son until "these last days."
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Jesus is not described as speaking.
God is described as speaking “in” the Son to the author’s audience. This is not about teachings given by a living Jesus but the offering of Christ as a sacrifice. God speaks to them “in” the act of handing over the Son to be sacrificed and “in” accepting the sacrificed Christ into the Heavenly Holy Place.
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Additionally, Jesus' role as God's spokesperson is compared to the flesh and blood prophets of the Jewish forefathers "long ago."
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No, what is compared is how God has spoken. In the past, it was through prophets but, in these last days, God is speaking through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ.
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Hebrews 11 is the so called "Hall of Faith." The author of Hebrews recounts example after example from the Old Testament to demonstrate the power of faith. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Noah, Enoch, and Rahab are all historical examples of God's intervention in earthly affairs.
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That isn’t how the author describes his list:
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” (NIV)
“And faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not seen a conviction, for in this were the elders testified of” (YLT)
It is not a list of examples of God’s intervention in earthly affairs. It is a list of figures who had faith even when they had no evidence to support it!
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“There is a heavenly Jerusalem, a heavenly sanctuary. The priesthood which Christ exercises is the counterpart, in no merely figurative sense, of the levitical priesthood.”
(E.F. Scott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, page 116-17)
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Exactly. There is a heavenly Jerusalem and an earthly Jerusalem. There is a heavenly sanctuary and an earthly sanctuary. There is a heavenly priesthood of Christ and an earthly, levitical priesthood. Scott appears to be arbitrarily differentiating the reference to Christ when it seems to have been intended as another example of the same kind of parallel. Even if we assume the actual sacrifice took place on earth, the priestly delivery of that sacrifice clearly takes place in the heavenly sanctuary.
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Hebrews 1:1-2 describes Jesus as God's spokesperson on earth just as the prophets of old were God's spokespersons on earth. The prophets were the medium then. Jesus is the medium now.
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It is entirely disingenuous to change Hebrews’ “Son” to the name “Jesus” so as to create the illusion of a reference to the living Jesus rather than the Sacrificed/Raised Son. There is no suggestion of a living, preaching Jesus here. The author describes a
contrast between God speaking in many ways through prophets in the past and God speaking in the Sacrificed/Raised Son in “these last days”. You are reading too much into the text.
After providing a list of references to the death of Jesus without any mention of Jerusalem, Golgotha, or Calvary, Layman wrote:
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Obviously, therefore, the fact that the author of Hebrews mentions Jesus' crucifixion without specifically mentioning Jerusalem, Golgotha, and/or Calvary, does not tend to show that the author was ignorant of such traditions. It only shows that the author did not see fit to include them in the particular letter before us.
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Why are we assuming those authors were aware that these place names were part of the story? You have to establish their knowledge of the traditions before their silence can be considered supportive of your argument. Otherwise, their silence might actually indicate ignorance of the traditions.
I agree with Carrier that Doherty needs to provide more support for his locating the sacrifice of Christ in the lowest spiritual realm. Even if we accept, if only for the sake of argument, that all Pauline/Hebrew references to the incarnation were intended literally, we are still left with a human Jesus unattached to any specific time or place in history. He suddenly comes into existence to be killed and, depending on which of the two you follow, either appears to several people in a resurrected state (i.e. Paul) or is immediately raised into Heaven waiting to make a return visit at The End (i.e. Hebrews). Agreeing with you against Doherty, Hebrews clearly
does describe a “second appearance” but what does seem to missing, and arguably implicitly denied, are the resurrection appearances Paul describes as subsequent to the sacrifice.
Where Paul has Jesus sacrificed, raised, and appearing to others, Hebrews has Jesus sacrificed and raised immediately into heaven to wait for a return appearance at The End.
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Throughout Hebrews its author refers to the temple cult system of sacrifice and contrasts Jesus' sacrifice and authority as High Priest with the temple cult. That is why the author focuses so much on Jesus having only died once. Whereas the temple cult had to make sacrifices every year, Jesus' is superior because he only had to die once.
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I agree but you seem to be ignoring that Christ’s sacrifice is offered in the Heavenly Sanctuary (Heb 9:23-24) in
contrast to the earthly sanctuary where priests usually offered sacrifices.
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In verse 27 - 28, the author is continuing this comparison and symbolism. The High Priest of the temple cult would appear before the people in front of the Holy of Holies where no one else was allowed to enter. He would then enter the Holy of Holies with his sacrifice on behalf of the nation. Once inside, he would make his sacrifice. The people would wait expectantly outside for the reappearance of the High Priest. Why? Because the mere fact that he survived to leave the Holy of Holies meant that God had accepted the sacrifice.
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I agree and the return of the priest corresponds to the
future return (i.e. second appearance) of Christ. Your next sentence, however, confuses the expected future return with the original appearance for sacrifice:
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This is being played out with Jesus. Just as the High Priest appeared before the people, so to did Jesus.
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Just as the High Priest appeared before the people, so to
will Christ at The End.
You correct this in the final sentence:
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Just as the High Priest would reappear to confirm that God had accepted the sacrifice, so to will Jesus appear a second time to his people to show them that God has accepted his sacrifice.
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Before wading into the substance of Hebrews, we should note that Paul, who was familiar with the Last Supper, only mentions it in one of his seven undisputed letters.
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Let us not overlook that Paul clearly identifies this reference as
revealed knowledge from the Risen Christ:
“I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you...”
He is not relating a story that he heard from other apostles. He is reminding the Corinthians, who were apparently abusing the intent of the Lord’s Supper tradition, that the meaning of the Supper was revealed to Paul by the Lord. He is clearly exerting the authority of the Risen Christ in an attempt to change the behavior of the Corinthians. While this suggests that a “Lord’s Supper” tradition existed prior to Paul, the story he shares appears to have originated with Paul.
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In any event, the author of Hebrews was likely familiar with the Pauline version of the Last Supper but neglected, for whatever reason, to make any use of it in this one letter.
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I think you make a good case for assuming the author of Hebrews was familiar with Paul’s revealed story about the Lord’s Supper. There doesn’t appear to be enough evidence to determine why the author chose not to mention it.
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It was undoubtedly an important part of Paul's teachings to his churches...
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The text really only supports the conclusion that it was an important part of Paul’s attempts to correct the way the Corinthians were observing the Lord’s Supper. IMHO, Crossan does a good job analyzing the development of this communal meal subsequent to the crucifixion in
The Birth of Christianity. The meal tradition appears to have preceded reconceptions of it subsequent to beliefs about Christ. If I remember correctly, it should probably be understood as originally starting out as a Jewish thanksgiving meal.
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...it appears that there were two prominent versions of the Last Supper in early Christian circles--making it an old and well attested tradition. The first was Pauline and finds its way into the Gospel of Luke. The second is found in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.
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Actually, there is a third version to be found in the Didache. There, the meal is described as a thankful remembrance for “the holy vine of David Thy servant, which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant” and “the life and knowledge which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant” (Didache, ch.9).
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Notably lacking from Paul's version is the statement that Jesus' blood is shed "for the forgiveness of sins."
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This is true of the Didache version as well. They recall Jesus as the Messiah and as a source of knowledge but not as an atoning sacrifice.
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Doherty says:
The second of those startling voids in Hebrews is the absence of any concept of a resurrection for Christ, either in flesh or for a period on earth.
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A resurrection directly into heaven
is described in Hebrews but, otherwise, Doherty is correct here. There does not appear to be room in Hebrews’ depiction for any appearances of the Raised Christ to anyone on earth except the promised one at The End.
Layman concludes:
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Early Christianity affirmed a belief in a preexistent and spiritual Jesus Christ who came to earth as a human being.
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According to Kirby’s website, dating Hebrews is problematic and the rather wide range of the second half of the first century is offered (i.e. 50-95ce). It is misleading to generalize the contents of Hebrews to “early Christianity” as a whole. At best, Hebrews affirms a belief in a preexistent and spiritual Messiah who was sacrificed and raised back into heaven. Ignoring Doherty’s insufficiently supported “heavenly sphere” location, we can assume this Messiah was literally incarnated and was literally killed but we don’t know when or where. The author doesn’t tell us that the sacrifice was known because it was witnessed by members or anyone else still alive. As far as we know, the author believed that “fact” of the incarnation/sacrifice was something divinely revealed through prayerful study of Scripture. Perhaps a specific historical event was in his mind but we really have nothing in the text, itself, to show this to be true.
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Early Christianity affirmed a belief in a "second" coming of Jesus Christ to earth.
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The author of Hebrews affirms a belief that Christ appeared once to die, was raised into heaven, and would appear a second time at The End.
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Early Christian literature provides biographical information about Jesus' life on earth.
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There is nothing in Hebrews to support this claim nor does there appeare to be anything in your essay to support it. Where do you identify “biographical information” in Hebrews?
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Early Christianity's use of the Old Testament regarding Jesus indicates a belief in a historical Jesus rather than indicating a purely mythological saviour.
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This is no more necessarily true than the opposite claim. Use of Scripture to describe events can be understood as taking place within
both contexts. It is not meaningful in and of itself.
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To the extent early Christianity was influenced by Platonic thought, it did not overwhelm Jewish eschatological belief and its linear perspective, or its expectations of a human messiah.
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Hebrews clearly does not represent the traditional Jewish messianic expectations regardless of whether this can be traced to the influence of Platonic thought.
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Doherty's arguments from silence are unpersuasive and cannot rebut the many passages affirming a belief in a historical Jesus.
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At best and assuming Doherty’s “heavenly spheres” thesis cannot be supported, you have shown that Hebrews describes a living Jesus existing on earth but not that the author placed this Jesus in any specific point in history. In addition, Hebrews’ Jesus apparently lives only to be sacrificed and raised into heaven. Just as in Paul, there is no hint of any ministry being conducted or miracles performed. Unlike in Paul, there is no hint of any appearances of the Raised Christ to anyone on earth except in the future.
12-13-2003, 11:05 AM
A Thorough Review of Doherty's Analysis of Hebrews
