Corpus-Paul

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]



On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:55:34 +0930 "" <khs AT picknowl.com.au> writes:
>
> Dear Bob,
>
> I don’t have much time to contribute – especially to your list
> of
> questions – but you asked in your first e-mail, “Who were the
> Hebrews?” On that I would like to offer a suggestion which, if
> correct,
> may help with some of the other questions.
>
> My view comes out of being convinced that the Revelation was early
> –
> earlier than most of the New Testament (i.e. 62). If I am right
> about this
> then there was a particular problem group in the Church in Asia (and
>
> probably beyond Asia) that was causing considerable harm to the
> Church. That
> group was the Nicolaitans (Rev 2:6&15). Not much is known about the
> Nicolaitans which is testimony to how early they operated. Cerinthus
> was a
> contemporary of the Apostle John (e.g. the story of their encounter
> in the
> Ephesian  baths). But Irenaeus says that ‘the error of Cerinthus
> had been
> “disseminated among men...a long time previously by those termed
> Nicolaitans.”’ (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.11.1).
>
> What he means by ‘a long time’ is not clear but surely we may
> assume
> decades. The point I am making is that if the Revelation was early
> enough to
> precede much of the NT then parts of the NT, especially those
> letters
> written to Asian situations, are likely to have dealt with the
> Nicolaitan
> problem.
>
> 1 Tim 1:7, written to Timothy in Ephesus (where the Nicolaitans were
> active
> – and accepting the epistle as authentically Pauline), speaks of
> some who
> desired ‘to be teachers of the law, without understanding either
> what they
> (were) saying or the things about which they (made) assertions’. 
> It was
> probably the same people who were preoccupied with ‘godless and
> silly
> myths’ (1 Tim 4:7) and ‘endless genealogies…speculation…
> (and) vain
> discussion’ (1 Tim 4:4-6, c.f. Tit 3:9). It is likely that the
> same or a
> similar group were meant in the letter to Titus, there the group was
>
> absorbed by ‘Jewish myths’ (Tit 1:14). In Colossae there were
> those who
> passed judgment on the ‘shadows’ of the Old Testament, ‘food
> and
> drink, festivals, new moon, sabbath’ (Col 2:16-17).
>
> My suspicion is that the Nicolaitans were predominantly Jewish
> converts to
> the Christian faith who had, in the twenty years from Pentecost to
> Paul’s
> mission to Asia, syncretized their Jewish and Christian beliefs with
> Gnostic
> ideas. (They were probably the first of the Gnostics with which the
> Church
> had to deal. Cerinthus, who shared their ideas, was certainly a
> Gnostic).
>
> Hebrews, then, was written (by Paul, I believe) to counter the
> powerful and
> evangelistic Nicolaitans who sought to teach from the Old Testament
> Scriptures but who did not rightly understand them. Rather, they
> perverted
> them with their ‘silly myths’, ‘speculation’ and so on.
>
> Hebrews was not written specifically to a Jewish readership but to
> the
> Church (in Asia in the first instance) which was troubled by the
> Nicolaitan
> perverters of the (O.T.) law etc. For that reason the book deals
> mostly with
> the Old Testament. The relatively short life of the Nicolaitans (I
> doubt
> that any would call themselves Nicolaitans – or than any
> Nicolaitans would
> call themselves Christians, once Nero’s persecutions began) means
> that the
> context into which Hebrews was written was quickly forgotten.
>
> All a bit speculative, perhaps, but it makes sense of what we have.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Kym Smith
> The Anglican Parish of the Barossa
> South Australia
________________

 

I would differ with you regarding the dating of Revelation.  There is much in revelation which points to reliance upon the writings of Paul (Note for one point the opening salutation in Re 1.4 χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ and for another the distinctly Pauline closing salutation  Ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ μετὰ πάντων .  In such a case it is impossible to posit an composition of the Apocalypse prior to Paul's writings.  Note also the structure of the church as envisioned in the Apocalypse.  We are presented with what appears to be the monarchical bishopric as opposed to the situation envisioned in Acts 20.  Note that here Paul called the elders (pl) of the church of Ephesus to meet him in Miletus.  They are then referenced interchangeably as elders and as bishops (pl).  In Revelation there is but one ἄγγελος to each church.  Consider also that the church at Smyrna had not yet been founded.

"If a man does not keep himself from covetousness, he shall be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as one of the heathen. But who of us are ignorant of the judgment of the Lord? “Do we not know that the saints shall judge the world? ” as Paul teaches. But I have neither seen nor heard of any such thing among you, in the midst of whom the blessed Paul laboured, and who are commended in the beginning of his Epistle. For he boasts of you in all those Churches which alone then knew the Lord; but we [of Smyrna] had not yet known Him."

Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, xi    

 

Additionally, there is a development is the usage of words prior to the writing of the Apocalypse.  In most other usages μάρτυς means a witness who then gives testimony.  In the Apocalypse μάρτυς tends more toward the meaning of the English word martyr -- it is one who suffers and even dies for his faith.

 

Any conclusions regarding Hebrews which is based upon an early dating of the Apocalypse is bound to meet with difficulty.  I would rather date it quite late -- even later than the traditional 96 a.d.  I think it shows evidence of the 2nd Jewish Revolt under bar Kochba.

 

george
gfsomsel
___________