Hebrews and the Parting of the Ways

The Levitical Cultus and the Partitioning of the Ways in Hebrews Ken Schenck

1. Introduction

In his 1991 book, The Partings of the Ways, James D. G. Dunn re-visited the question of the process by which Christianity and Judaism began to move on trajectories that eventually resulted in two distinct religions.1 We recognize this book and others like it as part of the massive wake created by E. P. Sanders’ 1977 bombshell, Paul and Palestinian

Judaism.2 As Dunn works through the evidence again with a “new perspective” in hand, he concludes that we find “nothing like a clean break over the issues” when it comes to

Jesus and Paul in relation to Judaism.3 Indeed, “A break which was clearer to Paul’s

Jewish (including Jewish Christian) opponents was not so to Paul.” When Dunn turns to the book of Hebrews, on the other hand, he finds it difficult to reach the same conclusion.

Because Hebrews considers the Jewish cult to be “wholly redundant,” he concludes that

1 The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the

Character of Christianity (London: SCM, 1991). The second edition remains essentially the same (2006).

A number of related books have come in the intervening years: James D. G. Dunn, ed., Jews and

Christians: The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 [1992]); Judith M.

Lieu, Neither Jew nor Greek: Constructing Early Christianity (London: T & T Clark, 2002); Adam H.

Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds., The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late

Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007[2003]); Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines:

The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004); Matt Jackson-

McCabe, ed., Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis:

Fortress, 2007).

2 Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).

3 Partings, 162.

1 the ways have parted between its author and “a Judaism still focussed on the Temple and its cult.”

A full examination of the extent to which Hebrews’ thought begins to “partition” its borders with Judaism would lead us to topics ranging from its Christology to its generally universalist understanding of the “seed of Abraham” (2:16)—a field far too wide for a twenty minute paper.4 For this reason, I will limit my treatment to Hebrews’ view of the cultus, particularly since it is here that Dunn suggests a fundamental break has occurred.

What we will find is that Hebrews has not “parted” from Judaism at all in this regard.

The key is to recognize that Hebrews is a consolation in the absence of a temple rather than a polemic against a cultus that continued to operate even as the author made his argument.5 To be sure, this shift in perspective stands in conflict with the current majority opinion of English-speaking scholarship on Hebrews. This fact results in large part, however, because of some false and often unexamined assumptions about Jewish and Christian identity, areas where “new perspectives” have not fully made their way into scholarship on Hebrews to the same degree that they have penetrated Pauline studies.6

4 To use Boyarin’s more precise term (Border Lines, 1). The rationale is that in fact the boundaries of both “Judaism” and “Christianity” were too fluid at this point to speak in terms of more absolute parting or inclusion.

5 I will assume throughout that the author was masculine in the light of the masculine singular participle in Hebrews 11:32.

6 I am not the only one to begin to advocate for a shift in perspective away from Hebrews as a polemic.

Cf. Gabriele Gelardini, “Hebrews, an Ancient Synagogue Homily for Tisha be-Av: Its Function, its Basis, its Theological Interpretation” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New Insights, G. Gelardini, ed.

(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 107-27; Pamela M. Eisenbaum, “Locating Hebrews within the Literary Landscape of

Christian Origins,” Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New Insights, 213-37; and Richard B. Hays, “Here

2 Richard N. Longenecker captures well the Zeitgeist of a generation of English- speaking Hebrews scholars when he writes, “only on the supposition that the sacrificial worship of the Jerusalem temple still existed as the heart of the nation’s life and an intact

Judaism continued to offer a live option for the author’s readers does the letter become historically intelligible.”7 The assumption Longenecker makes is that Hebrews’ rhetoric on the superiority of Christ’s atonement to that of the Levitical cultus is tantamount to a polemic against participation in the sacrificial system of the Jerusalem temple. He likely assumes that the audience’s interest and reliance on the Jerusalem cultus had at least significantly diminished, perhaps even disappeared, when they believed on Christ. Now, however, they were tempted to return to reliance on the atonement the Jerusalem temple offered.8

We can identify two significant problems with these assumptions. The first is the particular way in which the author of Hebrews formulates his argument vis-à-vis the

Levitical cultus. Arguably, the author never makes the negative argument not to rely on the mainstream Levitical system. Rather, he consistently makes the positive argument to rely on the atonement provided through Christ, an exhortation that he then substantiates extensively by argument. Second, it is unlikely that the earliest Christians initially thought of Christ’s death as a complete replacement for the temple. It is more likely that

We Have No Lasting City: New Covenantalism in Hebrews,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian

Theology, R. J. Bauckham, D. R. Driver, T. A. Hart and N. MacDonald, eds., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2008).

7 Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 145.

8 Some interpreters who take this line of thought are not clear about whether the audience had earlier found the temple significant before believing. They speak in terms of it gaining significance at the time of writing (e.g., Barnabas Lindars, The Theology of Hebrews [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991]).

3 they originally saw Christ’s death in relation to a particular point in Israel’s history rather than as a replacement of its fundamental institutions. In that sense, it remains to be seen to what extent they had ever “left” reliance on the temple in the first place, despite their affirmation of Jesus as Messiah. Both of these observations point to continuing, unexamined assumptions by scholars in relation to the distinctness of Christianity and

Judaism in this period.

2. The Nature of Hebrews’ Exhortations

2.1 Hebrews 1:1-10:18

Hebrews’ alternation between exhortation and exposition is well known.9 It is instructive to approach the situation Hebrews addressed by seeing the exposition as extensive substantiation of the exhortations. The exhortations get directly at the rhetorical situation behind Hebrews, while the exposition clarifies the nature of the exhortations. Apart from a brief mention of Christ as high priest in 2:17, the cultic dimension of his identity does not appear explicitly until 4:14. The exhortations from 1:1-4:13 consistently have to do with the perseverance of the audience in faith to the end (2:1; 3:7-8, 12-13; 4:1, 11).

The exhortations of Hebrews relative to Christ’s atonement thus do not explicitly begin until 4:14. The central section of Hebrews argument from 4:14-10:18 is then flanked by parallel passages with the two most explicit cultic exhortations of the sermon:10

9 See especially George H. Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Approach (Leiden:

Brill, 1994).

10 As Wolfgang Nauck first pointed out, “Zum Aufbau des Hebräerbriefes,” Walther Eltester, ed., in

Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1960),

4 e1xontej a0rxiere/a me/gan … kratw=men th=j o9mologi/aj (4:14)

e1xontej i9ere/a me/gan … kate/xwmen th\n o9mologi/an

(10:19, 23)

Both of these key exhortations admonish the audience positively to hold to their confession in the light of Christ’s high priesthood. Neither tell the audience to stop relying on the Levitical cultus or try to dissuade them from turning to it for atonement.

Within this central section, the audience is told to proceed to perfection (6:1), but the rest of the discourse consists of substantiation of the greatness of Christ’s high priesthood.

Never is the audience told not to rely on the Levitical means that the author suggests are palaiou/menon, ghra/skon, and e0ggu\j a0fanismou= (8:13).

2.2 Present Language of the Cultus

We should probably pause at this point to consider several aspects of Hebrews’ central argument that, at least superficially, do sound as if the Levitical cultus might still be operating at the time of writing. The central section, for example, consistently uses the present tense in reference to the Levitical cultus.11 The fact that the author speaks theoretically of the wilderness tabernacle, rather than concretely of the Jerusalem temple,

199-206, esp. 201-3. A general consensus has emerged that Hebrews is a sermon of some sort, based to a large degree on the author’s description of it as a “word of exhortation” (13:22; cf. Acts 13:15). See also

Hartwig Thyen, Der Stil der jüdisch-hellenistischen Homilie (FRLANT 47; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &

Ruprecht, 1955) and Lawrence Wills, “The Form of the Sermon in Hellenistic Judaism and Early

Christianity,” HTR 77 (1984): 277-99. Gabrielle Gelardini in fact has as her thesis that Hebrews was a synagogue homily for Tisha Be-Av in remembrance of Jerusalem’s destruction, “Verhärtet eure Herzen nicht”: Der Hebräer, eine Synagogenhomilie zu Tischa be-Aw (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

5 alleviates this objection to some extent—the argument is somewhat “gnomic” in character rather than concretely about the Jerusalem temple. At the same time, however, we cannot agree with William L. Lane’s claim that “the writer of Hebrews shows no interest in the temple in any of its forms nor in contemporary cultic practice.”12 The author may speak in theoretical terms, but unless the temple is a matter of the distant past, it is implausible to think that the audience would not draw certain conclusions about it from Hebrews’ argument.13 Nor is it reasonable to suggest that the author would not have intended them to do so. We suspect that such statements underestimate the centrality of the Jerusalem temple in Jewish thinking even in the Diaspora.14

Nevertheless, despite the prima facie force of the present tenses, we observe a number of post-70 authors who refer to the activities of the Jerusalem temple in the present tense. In Contra Apionem, Josephus goes so far as to say that the Jews offer continuous sacrifices for the emperors and the people of Rome daily at the expense of the

11 F. F. Bruce, for example, while acknowledging that the argument was not definitive, observed that

“our author writes as if the ritual were still going on” (The Epistle to the Hebrews [Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1964], xliii).

12 Hebrews 1-8 (Waco: Word, 1991), lxiii. Despite this claim, Lane nonetheless dates Hebrews prior to

Jerusalem’s destruction, specifically in between 64 and 68CE (lxvi). Erich Grässer dates Hebrews post

70CE, but like Lane questionably suggests that Hebrews’ argument is “völlig unabhängig von den historischen Gegebenheiten,” An die Hebräer (Hebr 1-6) (Zürich: Benziger, 1990), 25.

13 Pamela M. Eisenbaum has indeed argued along these lines that the temple stands significantly in the past in “Locating Hebrews,” esp. 224-31.

14 Philo, for example, is the consummate Hellenistic Jew, yet the temple plays a significant role even for him (cf. Spec. 1.67-70; Prov. 2.64; Legat. 184-348). Even groups that rejected the current temple like the Dead Sea community looked to a time when a pure temple would be re-established (cf. the Temple

Scroll). See below.

6 Jewish community.15 Startlingly, he makes this statement in the present tense not only decades after the sacrifices had stopped, but at a time when what had been a Jewish tax for the Jerusalem temple now flowed to the Capitoline temple in Rome by way of the fiscus Judaicus! Clement of Rome also speaks of the appropriateness for those who have been commanded to make offerings to do so, yet he makes this comment several decades after any such offerings could be literally offered.16 The clear impression we get is that the finality of the temple’s removal is far more obvious to us now than it was to Jews of the late first century.17 Apparently, it was perfectly intelligible to discuss its operations as if they continued to take place long after they had ceased—at least when one was speaking of them generally as Jewish institutions.18 As Marie Isaacs put it, “It was only with the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135CE that all hope of its restoration (other than in a future messianic age) came to an end.”19

This fundamental observation equally undermines two other common sense arguments for a pre-70 date. David deSilva, for example, points out the author’s question, ou0k a2n e0pau/santo prosfero/menai … tou\j latreu/ontaj

15 Ap. 2.77. See also Ap. 2.193-98; Ant. 3.151-60, 224-57.

16 1 Clem. 40. So even more clearly the Epistle to Diognetus 3.

17 See also Martin Goodman, “Diaspora Reactions to the Destruction of the Temple,” Jews and

Christians, 27-38.

18 Indeed, K. W. Clark went so far as to argue that sacrifices continued on the site of the destroyed temple between 70 and 135CE, “Worship in the Jerusalem Temple after A.D. 70,” NTS 6 (1969-70), 269-

19 Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (JSNTSS 73; Sheffield:

JSOT, 1992), 43. 4 Ezra seems to provide evidence that the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in by 100CE for at least some, if we should date the apocalypse to around this time.

7 a3pac kekaqarisme/nouj; (10:2). On a surface level, this question seems to imply that Levitical sacrifices had not ceased being offered at the time of writing.20

Nevertheless, we have not only the fact that several authors did speak of its operation in the present tense post-70—an argument against our common sense. We also recognize in this particular case that the author was not so much addressing the time of the audience as the fact that sacrifices never stopped throughout “biblical history” as found in the Jewish

Scriptures. Would the sacrifices in Scripture not have stopped a long time ago if any of them had actually taken away sins? No, instead God prepared a body for Christ (10:5).

The setting of the comment is thus the time before Christ rather than the time of

Hebrews’ writing.

Similarly, Luke Timothy Johnson makes the common sense observation that if the

Jerusalem temple were already destroyed at the time of writing, “one would think that some reference would naturally be made, not to a covenant growing obsolescent and a cult being ineffective, but rather to a cult proven to be broken and a cult demonstrated by

God’s action as a thing of the past.”21 If, however, post-70 Jews and Christians could continue to speak of the temple’s operation as current—as some did—then what seems

20 Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 20.

21 Hebrews: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 39. While 8:13 does refer technically to the “old covenant” rather than to the Levitical system per se, the comment is flanked with cultic references both before (8:1-5) and after (9:1-10:18). The recapitulation of Jeremiah 31:33 in

Hebrews 10:16-17 makes it clear that atonement stands at the heart of the author’s concern and, indeed, that the author virtually equates the Law with the Levitical system (so also Mary Rose D’Angelo, Moses in the

Letter to the Hebrews (SBLDS 42; Missoula: Scholars, 1979), 243-46 and Susanne Lehne, The New

Covenant in Hebrews [JSNTSS 44; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990], 23).

8 common sensical to us may not have been common sensical to them. Was it clear, for example, that the temple’s destruction would have relegated it to the past? Would the climate of Judaism in the late first century have justified a claim that the cult was broken?

Indeed, as we will argue, Hebrews 13:9 seems to indicate that a cultic orientation did continue in some form, regardless of the state of the temple at the time of writing.

We also wonder if there is not a subtle circularity in Johnson’s common sense argument. In other words, we will find it stranger that the author has not used the destruction of the temple in his argument if we think his argument is primarily against reliance on the Levitical system. By contrast, if the fundamental thrust of Hebrews is in response to the temple’s destruction, then its destruction makes no sense as one argument in the author’s overall polemic. It becomes an underlying reality obvious to the audience that it would not need to be mentioned explicitly.22

Of course the author may in fact allude to the destruction of Jerusalem in more than one place in the sermon. Jerusalem places high on the list of candidates for what the author means when he tells the audience that they have no me/nousan po/lin on earth

(13:14). While this statement could simply allude to a standing Jerusalem with an operating cultus, it would take on particular poignancy in the wake of the temple’s destruction.23 We observe the same thing about 11:14, where the author speaks of

Abraham seeking a patri/j. The author’s choice of vocabulary is intriguing if Jerusalem

22 We might also mention here the case that Ellen B. Aitken has made for reading Hebrews against various Flavian celebrations of the Roman defeat of Jerusalem in “Portraying the Temple in Stone and

Text: The Arch of Titus and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New

Insights, 131-48. Space does not permit a full defense of the dating of Hebrews or of Rome as its destination, but Aitken’s article plays well into both.

23 So also Hays, “No Lasting City.”

9 and the temple are still standing—it becomes radical in its reorientation of space. If, however, the Jewish homeland has recently been decimated, the reorientation of space becomes highly appropriate and takes on particular significance. Hebrews reminds its audience that they need not be concerned about Jerusalem’s destruction, for they are after all citizens of heaven rather than earth.

Finally, we should consider that the author associated the old covenant with the created realm (cf. 12:27) and expected Christ’s second appearance to take place soon

(e.g., 9:28; 10:37). In this regard, the old covenant was near disappearance in the same sense that the arrival of the Lord and the shaking of the creation was near but “not yet.”24

As long as the world looked the way it did, the old covenant still lingered in some sense, even though the new covenant had already arrived in some sense. To say that the old covenant was near its disappearance was thus to recognize that the created realm still remained and Christ had not yet returned.

We can thus identify several questionable assumptions that play into the “common sense” that Hebrews must surely pre-date the destruction of the temple. The most significant relates to the fact that Jews and Christians continued to think of the operation of the Levitical system in the present tense. It was not nearly as clear to them as to us either that the temple would lay in ruins for the next two thousand years or that Christ would not return within the near future. If, further, Hebrews were written, not to argue

24 Hebrews is perhaps the first book of the New Testament not to look for the kingdom of God to be on earth or to look for the creation to be removed rather than transformed. See Understanding the Book of

Hebrews: The Story Behind the Sermon (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 36-39, and my forthcoming Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice (Cambridge:

Cambridge University, 2007).

10 against participation in the cultus, but to bolster the audience’s confidence in Christ, the absence of specific mention of the temple’s destruction seems less puzzling. In the end, the author’s theoretical treatment of the wilderness tabernacle seems more explicable in reflection on the temple’s destruction than if the temple were still standing. If the temple were still standing at the time of Hebrews’ writing, it becomes an incredibly subversive and revolutionary piece that “parts” from Judaism in some of the strongest terms possible. The sermon does not, however, have this tone.

2.3 Hebrews 10:19-13:25

The cultic dimension of Hebrews recedes again into the background in the final part of the sermon. After 10:19-25 recapitulates the exhortation of 4:14-16, allusions to the

Levitical system become sparse. The exhortations are rather of the sort to “remember earlier days” (10:32) and not to “throw away” their confidence (10:35). Hebrews 11 substantiates the audience’s need for continuance in faith with an example list that must surely imply some of the causes of their wavering commitment. We hear of faith when visible circumstances do not look the way we might expect (11:3, 7, 8, 20, 22, 26, 39).

We hear overtones of oppression and death, with confidence bolstered by faith in resurrection (11:5, 13, 19, 35-40). We hear of alienation from homeland (11:13-16) and conflict with the political powers that be (23-27). Finally, we hear echoes of a “better sacrifice” (11:4), and a reminder that the proper sprinkling of blood can protect from the destroyer (11:28).

11 Hebrews 12 then urges the audience to “run with endurance” the race ahead (12:1).

They are told to lay off the weight of sin that hinders running.25 They are told to endure ei0j paidei/an (12:7) and to strengthen their weak arms and knees (12:12).26 Thus far in the sermon we have not heard a single exhortation not to rely on the Levitical cultus.

Rather, the sermon has positively encouraged the audience to rely on Christ and continue their confession, while warning them of the consequences if they would not do so. “God is a consuming fire” (12:28) and he will shake the creation (12:27). At the same time, the author has not yet told the audience to refrain from the Levitical system.

The author does, however, make two comments in the final portion of the sermon that might very well amount to such a prohibition. The first is a cryptic remark in 12:16, where the author tells the audience not to be godless like Esau o4j a0nti\ brw/sewj mia=j a0pe/deto ta\ prwtoto/kia e9autou=. A startling warning then follows that tells the audience that Esau later failed to inherit the blessing even though he sought restoration with tears.27 It seems at least possible that this comment might allude to something concrete in the community’s situation, something of a cultic nature from which the author wished to dissuade the audience.

25 It would go well beyond the scope of this paper to explore in detail what Hebrews understands such sin to be, but the evidence points principally toward wavering in commitment to their knowledge of Christ

(cf. 5:11-12; 9:7; 10:26).

26 I find unconvincing arguments from 12:4 that, since the audience has not yet “shed blood” in their resistance against sin, we cannot date Hebrews prior to the Neronian persecution in Rome (e.g., Lane, lxvi).

The author is speaking of the current situation, not about the entire history of the community. The comment thus says nothing about the history of the audience prior to the present conflict.

27 Although I favor metanoi/a as that which Esau sought with tears, it makes little difference here whether he sought it or eu0logi/a.

12 Our suspicions are only strengthened when we get to 13:9-10. Here the author mentions “various and foreign teachings,” which in itself might be taken in a very general sense.28 As the author substantiates this admonition, however, he speaks of the heart being made confident by grace and not brw/masin, “by foods,” which reminds us of the earlier comment about Esau. The further claim that e1xomen qusiasth/rion e0c ou[ fagei=n ou0k e1xousin e0cousi/an oi9 th|= skhnh|= latreu/ontej makes us strongly suspect that the author has something more specific in mind than false teaching in general. We wonder if the author has some cultic food in mind that the audience thought might have some atoning significance.

Clearly the “food” of the Jerusalem temple would be a significant candidate for the referent here, but then we must ask whether an early Christian would refer to such participation in temple sacrifices as “foreign teaching.” As we will argue subsequently, the evidence does not justify such a marked divergence at this point between Christian

Jews and non-believing Jews on the temple. As such, assumptions about the distinction between early Christianity and Judaism come once again into play. Further, these comments come as one of several loosely connected admonitions in chapter 13. They thus seem more of a related aside rather than, finally, a revelation of what the author had been addressing in the central exposition.29 We might expect that various, strange ideas for how to substitute for the atonement of the temple might arise in the period after its

28 So Craig R. Koester, Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 567.

29 Pace Barnabas Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge

University, 1991), 10-11.

13 destruction, although we have insufficient evidence to speculate about what these might be exactly.30

What we find, therefore, after proceeding through the exhortations of Hebrews, is that they aim primarily at the continued endurance of the audience in faith despite disturbing circumstances. The principal cause of their wavering would seem to have something to do with the Levitical cultus. However, only one oblique exhortation seems to instruct them not to rely on it in some way. Even in this case, some Levitical derivative seems more likely in view than the temple cultus itself. Hebrews 13:9-10 seem to address practices related to the central exposition of Hebrews that are nevertheless not that exposition’s main referent. The character of Hebrews’ exhortations thus is much more that of a reflection on the Levitical system than a polemic against it. Such reflection would fit well the aftermath of the temple’s destruction. Prior to its destruction, such an argument would likely require a more vigorous polemic to make the same point.

Hebrews does not take such a polemical tact.

3. Christian Jews and the Temple

A second factor that often plays into reconstructions of Hebrews’ situation is the assumption that Christian Jews did not participate in the sacrificial system of the

Jerusalem temple. Those who conclude that the audience of Hebrews is contemplating a return to reliance on the Levitical cultus inevitably assume that at some point they had stopped such reliance. It is highly doubtful for any number of reasons, however, that

30 Cf. Jukka Thurén, Das Lobopfer der Hebräer: Studien zum Aufbau und Anliegen vom Hebräerbrief

13 (Åbo: Akademi, 1973).

14 even most Christian Jews initially understood Christ’s death to replace the atoning functions of the temple in toto.

For one thing, the historical-cultural landscape of Judaism at the time makes such an understanding unexpected at the very least. We find no explicit evidence of any contemporaneous Jewish group (that valued their identity as Jews) who did not have a place for a temple in their religious paradigm. While the community of the Dead Sea scrolls rejected the current temple, the very existence of the Temple Scroll—the longest scroll discovered at Qumran—indicates that they expected a magnificent structure to be part of the messianic age. Even Philo, one of the most Hellenized Jews from the ancient world that we know, highly respected the Jerusalem temple and was outraged at

Caligula’s near desecration of it (Spec. 1.67-70; Prov. 2.64; Legat. 184-348). Even 2

Thessalonians 2:4 indirectly identifies God with the Jerusalem temple when it contemplates the actions of a “man of lawlessness” in it. Surely we are meant to understand part of his offense as the fact that he sets himself up as god in the place where the true God has placed his name.

Further, when we search for conceptual models the earliest Christians are likely to have used to make sense of Jesus’ death, clearly that of sacrifice featured at an early point. Most, for example, believe that Paul was drawing on traditional material of some sort in Romans 3:25, which pictures God offering Christ as a sacrifice, a i9lasth/rion by means of his blood.31 Yet we find no Jewish precedent for a sacrifice with universal,

31 The precise connotations of i9lasth/rion need not concern us here. For a detailed treatment of the issue, see Stephen Finlan, The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors (AB 19;

Atlanta: Scholars, 2004). Dunn puts it well when he says, “hilastērion cannot have any other than a sacrificial reference… the only real debate has been whether it should be understood as a place or means of

15 timeless significance. The scope of a sacrifice was always bound by a particular time and, indeed, by a particular sin or set of sins. No sacrifice ever implied an end to future need for sacrifice. The burden of proof is thus on anyone who would suggest that the first believers would initially have viewed Christ’s death as some sort of ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices.32 Our default expectation is rather that they would have thought that Christ’s death atoned for a particular set of sins at a particular point of history.

Indeed, the closest parallels to Christian conceptualizations of Christ’s death in

Jewish literature come from 2 and 4 Maccabees, where the noble deaths of seven righteous brothers relate in some way to the end of God’s wrath toward Israel. In 2

Maccabees 7:38, the last of the seven expresses his hope that God’s wrath will end e0n e0moi\ kai\ toi=j a0delfoi=j mou. Although 2 Maccabees does not clarify exactly how these brothers relate to the end of God’s wrath, clearly their deaths at most relate to a particular set of Israel’s sins at a particular point of history—certainly not to Israel’s sins for all time.33 No one would suggest that the author thought their deaths ended any future need for sacrifice. expiation/propitiation,” “Paul’s Understanding of Jesus’ Death as a Sacrifice,” in Sacrifice and

Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology, Stephen W. Sykes, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University,

1991), 41.

32 The same default would apply to other places where Paul seems to consider Christ’s death a sacrifice: 1 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:9; 8:3.

33 Two works that strongly resist seeing any atoning value to the deaths of the martyrs in 2 Maccabees are those of Sam K. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept

(HDR 2; Missoula: Scholars, 1975) and David Seeley, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and

Paul’s Concept of Salvation (JSNTSS 28; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990)

16 4 Maccabees uses language even more directly reminiscent of the New Testament.

Eleazar asks God to accept his blood in lieu of the rest of Israel, to make his blood a kaqa/rision that might serve as an a0nti/yuxon for the sins of his people (6:28-29; cf. Mark 10:45). 4 Maccabees 17:21-22 not only affirms that the blood of such individuals was an a0nti/yuxon for the sins of the nation. These verses explicitly consider their death a i9lasth/rion, as Romans 3:25 suggests Christ’s death was.

Again, it would be ludicrous to suggest that the author saw their deaths as the end of the sacrificial system or the temple, as powerful as their deaths were. On the contrary, their

“sacrifice” enabled the purification and rededication of the temple. The burden of proof is thus squarely on anyone who would argue that the earliest Christians would have immediately seen Christ’s death as the end of the sacrificial system. It is far more likely that they would see it as a means by which Israel’s sins in a particular era of history could be cleansed so that the existing institutions of Judaism could be renewed.

A second reason to believe that participation in the cultus continued among early

Christians is the absence of any rhetoric against such participation in the New Testament itself, apart from Hebrews.34 Whatever the practice of the earliest Christians was on this issue, it apparently was not a matter of significant debate. Given the obvious default in the Jewish context—and given the portrait of the early church in Acts—the burden of proof once again is squarely on the person who would see non-participation as the assumed common ground. By contrast, Acts pictures the earliest Christians daily at the temple to pray (e.g., 2:46; 3:1), and 21:23-26 suggests that they also participated in its sacrificial dimension.

34 We will consider the case of Stephen in Acts 7 below.

17 Only Paul’s writings can of course be dated prior to the destruction of the temple with certainty, yet we find no evidence in them of debate on this issue, nor any prohibition of temple use or reliance in Paul’s writings. Indeed, the book of Acts depicts Paul as quite willing to participate in the sacrificial life of the temple near the end of his life (Acts

21:24-27). Certainly we cannot simply assume the historicity of this event—Acts has its own theological agendas. Nevertheless, Acts clearly conveys a sense that the earliest

Christians participated in the temple. Whether all Christians believed the temple to have continuing validity as an institution, Acts implies that many did—particularly those who lived in Jerusalem.

Paul’s writings may, of course, imply the replacement of the cultus by Christ’s death.

Paul also might have little reason to argue explicitly against participation in the cultus, since he was writing to primarily Gentile audiences squarely located in the Diaspora.

Paul tells the Corinthians that they are the nao\j qeou= (3:16), which might imply some sort of replacement theology. Further, if Christ’s death corresponds to Adam’s sin, then it is certainly possible that he believed the atonement provided by his death extend to all sin as well. If so, then Christ’s death might eliminate any need for further atonement. Hebrews in effect makes this argument in its own way.

It is indeed possible that Paul reasoned in this way, but he nowhere does so explicitly in his writings.35 Once again, however, it is not necessary to argue that all Christian Jews had a place for the temple in their theology for our understanding of Hebrews to stand,

35 We could make an argument, however, that such was not the case. Paul never, for example, clearly extends the benefit of Christ’s death to those who lived before his death. Similarly, he may see atoning value of some sort in suffering (Phil. 3:10-11; 2 Cor. 4:11) and indicates a place for works in final justification (Rom. 2:5-6; 2 Cor. 5:10).

18 only that some did and that the audience of Hebrews is a likely candidate. Here we can easily suggest that those that disagreed with Paul on the scope of justification e0k pi/stewj 0Ihsou= Xristou= would have disagreed with him as well on any suggestion that Christ’s death provided absolute atonement, if Paul ever made such an argument. The fact that Peter and James disagreed with Paul about whether works of law played any role in justification (cf. Gal. 2:11-21) suggests that they might also have disagreed with him on the scope of Christ’s atonement if Paul had made a universal argument.36 Indeed, Acts 13:38 perhaps gives us their position on justification on the lips of Paul: dia\ tou/tou u9mi=n a1fesij a9martiw=n katagge/lletai … a0po\ pa/ntwn w[n ou0k h0dunh/qhte e0n no/mw| Mwu+se/wj dikaiwqh=nai.

The implication seems to be that the law of Moses could justify you in relation to some sins, but through Christ it was now possible to find justification for sins not covered by the law and, presumably, by its cultic system.

A final argument comes from the way in which New Testament traditions speak of

Israel’s judgment and eventual restoration. These traditions speak of the temple being

36 I would personally translate Galatians 2:15-16 as, “We who are Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners, since we know that a person is not justified from works of law unless [it be] through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” Arguably Paul begins with the position of Peter and James here and then proceeds to his own full position later in the paragraph (cf. Dunn, “A New Perspective on Paul,” Jesus,

Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians [London: SPCK, 1990], 183-214, esp. 195-96). In this interpretation, however, Peter and James see the role of Christ’s faithful death to provide the essential basis for justification, but not the absolute basis. Works of law are additionally necessary for justification. If

Paul had a replacement view of Christ’s death in relationship to the cultus—which is not established—we can imagine nonetheless that an analogous disagreement might have existed on that topic: Christ’s death provides essential but not absolute atonement.

19 desecrated rather than destroyed, with the nation of Israel continuing to have a role in the eschaton. Space does not allow an extensive defense of these claims, but we can make the basic thrust of the argument clear enough. We have already mentioned 2

Thessalonians 2:4, which must surely date to the time before the temple’s destruction.

While this text speaks of a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple, nothing is said of the temple’s destruction or invalidity.

Similarly, John Kloppenborg has noted the tension between the framing of Mark 13 and its actual eschatological content. While the framing of the discourse leads us to expect Jesus to tell us about the destruction of the temple, Jesus instead predicts its desecration by drawing on Daniel 11:31 (Mark 13:14).37 No doubt a first century audience of this tradition—or of 2 Thessalonians 2:4—would hear echoes of Caligula’s attempt to set a statue of himself up in the temple, desecrating but not destroying it.

Kloppenborg thus argues for a date for the final form of Mark after the temple’s destruction, a date supported by the way in which Mark sandwiches Jesus’ action in the temple by the cursing and subsequent withering of a fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-25).

The prophetic material within the framing of Mark 13 would date from before that time, implying that this tradition did not expect the temple’s literal destruction.

We might also note both Paul and Luke-Acts’ sense that Israel’s current hardening

(Paul; Romans 11:25) and the current “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) are only temporary. Most interpreters of Romans 11:26 would acknowledge that Paul expected

37 “ Evocatio deorum and the Date of Mark,” JBL 124 (2005): 419-50, especially 424: “it seems unlikely that Mark 13:14 was specifically formulated with Titus’s destruction of the temple in view, since it so poorly fits the details.”

20 ethnic Israel to believe on Jesus as the Messiah around the time of his parousia.38

Similarly, while the theology of Luke-Acts on this subject engenders more disagreement at present, a strong case can be made from comments such as Luke 21:24, Acts 1:6, and

3:21-22, that “Luke” saw the turning to the Gentiles in Acts 28:28 as a matter of these

“times” rather than a permanent shift of God away from Israel.39 The kingdom would be restored to Israel in the end.

The nearly unexpressed assumption of these New Testament authors, therefore, is the continuation rather than the supercession of Israel. Within that framework, we can imagine that the default assumption of these New Testament texts is continuity with

Judaism rather than discontinuity. The points at which Christian belief came into conflict with broader Judaism no doubt became the main points of discussion. In this regard, it is surely significant that we do not find polemic anywhere against the temple in the light of

Christ’s death. Even Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, which of course post-dates the destruction of the temple in its current location, does not engage in this sort of rhetoric.40

The author of Acts himself denies that Stephen spoke against the temple (Acts 6:14),

38 So James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (Dallas: Word, 1988), 681: “There is now a strong consensus that pa=j 0Israh/l must mean Israel as a whole.” We need not engage debates over the precise timing in relation to the parousia.

39 So also Craig C. Hill, “Restoring the Kingdom to Israel: Luke-Acts and Christian Supersessionism, in Shadow of Glory: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust, Tod Linafelt, ed. (London:

Routledge, 2002), 185-200 and “The Jerusalem Church,” in Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking

Ancient Groups and Texts, Matt Jackson-McCabe, ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 46-48.

40 Most scholars would date Luke-Acts to the period after the destruction of the temple not least because of the way in which Luke 21:20 redacts Mark 13:14. Further, if Luke uses Mark as a source and

Mark dates from post-70, then Luke must certainly post-date the temple’s destruction.

21 although it is not difficult to hear some sort of critique of the leaders of Israel in relation to it (Acts 7:48-53). Given 21:24-26, it is more likely that the author wants us to hear an implicit explanation for the temple’s destruction in Stephen’s words rather than a condemnation of Solomon for building a permanent temple.41

It is thus far more likely than not that the bulk of Christian Jews prior to the temple’s destruction saw a continuing role for it in the kingdom of God. If Hebrews addressed such an audience, its rhetoric cannot be about turning back toward Judaism or the temple, for the audience would have never left it on this subject. Further, it is hard to see how the

Levitical system might be challenging the audience’s faith in such an environment, since faith in Christ would never have conflicted with reliance on the temple in the first place.

On the other hand, we can easily see how the destruction of the temple might cause a faith crisis of some sort, as it apparently did for the author of 4 Ezra. In this regard,

Hebrews’ rhetoric on the Levitical system is far from a parting of the ways. It is rather a testimony to how little Christian Judaism had parted at this point.

4. Conclusion

The preceding discussion argues that Hebrews dates to the years immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem. Its arguments about the temple thus do not constitute a parting of the ways with Judaism, for Hebrews is not an attack on the temple but a

41 Given the numerous parallels between Stephen’s sermon and Hebrews, William Manson argued long ago that the author of Hebrews might be a Hellenist in the tradition of Stephen (The Epistle to the

Hebrews: An Historical and Theological Reconstruction [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1951]). However, it is much more likely that Luke has used individuals such as the author of Hebrews as models in the portrayal of Stephen, rather than the other way around.

22 consolation in its absence. Rabbinic Judaism would also develop its own coping strategies in the absence of a cultus in which prayer and worship might function in sacerdotal ways. We thus cannot speak of any parting of the ways in Hebrews with regard to the temple any more than we can consider Rabbinic Judaism to have parted.

If time permitted, I would argue that we reach the same conclusion with regard to

Hebrews’ Christology. Despite such exalted language as 1:8, where Christ is addressed as God, the context is highly poetic and, after all, draws on a Psalm where a human king is addressed as God. Where we see the greatest partitioning of the ways occurs rather in

Hebrews’ universalist attitude in what constitutes the “seed of Abraham” (2:16). Since the author begins with Psalm 8’s comments on all humanity, the author apparently considers those Gentiles who have partaken of Holy Spirit (e.g., 6:4) to be part of the seed of Abraham as well.

Indeed, I believe the current English-speaking majority position that the audience is

Jewish reflects equally myopic perspectives with regard to Jewish and Christian identity.

Hebrews 6:1-2 implies that the “foundation” that the audience experienced as “the beginning word of the Christ” (5:12) was not specifically Christian, but in fact Jewish.

Hebrews thus looks to a Gentile audience tempted to turn away from the living God of

Judaism (cf. 3:12) rather than a Jewish audience tempted to turn back to Judaism! But, alas, that argument will have to wait for another time.

Ken Schenck Indiana Wesleyan University [email protected]