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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: C-P: Who wrote Hebrews?
  • Date: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 09:23:14 -0500


With respect to the authorship of Hebrews, Jack Kilmon made the claim that a
likely
candidate was Apollos: His reasoning is that in his eyes the Greek of Hebrews
is
strikingly like

> the beautiful Alexandrine Greek in Philo.
>

and that there are therefore grounds for saying that


> the author of Hebrews was somehow associated
> with the Philo school
>

Consequently Jack is


> still convinced it was Apollos.Apparantly Apollos brought to the Pauline
> community his Alexandrine
> education, his charismatic rhetoric (which captivated some of
> theCorinthians) and an independence.
>

But one of the major difficulties in ascribing "Philonic" exegesis to the
author of
Hebrews -- a position which has its greatest proponent in A. Spicq ---is that
he/she
does not use an allegorical method of interpretation. Rather, as George Caird
has
forcefully argued ("The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews",
Canadian
Journal of Theology 5 (1959) 44-51), the author respects the context of a
quotation
and always seems to take it in what we would now call an "historical" sense.

For a thorough review of the alleged Philonic/Alexandrian (Platonic)
background to
Hebrews, check out Lincoln Hurst's book _The Epistle to the Hebrews: Its
background
and thought_. Hurst finds the Alexandrian hypothesis wanting.

Far more interesting, I think, that the question of who wrote Hebrews is the
question
of WHY whoever wrote it did so.

I would want to argue that an answer to THIS question must take serious
consideration
of Alexander Nairne's older, and far-too-often neglected hypothesis that
Hebrews was
written to Christians in or near Palestine in response to the out-break of
the Jewish
war and the "temptation" it held for Christians to join in the nationalistic
crusade.
This, it seems to me, is a fruitful context of interpretation, far more so
than
Alexandria. What was going on in Alexandria that would move Christians not
only to
abandon their faith but to do so in a way that its tantamount to
"recrucifying the son
of god" as
the author notes his readers are in danger of doing?

Yours,

Jeffrey Gibson
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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