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The Recipients of the Letter "To the Hebrews" Ethnic Background C I C Ir

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The Recipients of the Letter INTRODUCTION The Recipientsof the Letter "To the Hebrews" m ir EthnicBackground sc w One centralquestion concerning the addresseesis their ethnic composition.The th majority of extantmanuscripts bear the superscriptionIIPOI EBPAIOYL,5 and at ever sinceTertullian (De pudic.20) referredto the text by this title, the assump- vi tion of a JewishChristian audiencehas been predominant' With this assumption c( in place,numerous aspectsof the letter can then be usedto "prove" the conjec- sl ture.6Prominent among theseproofs is the suggestionthat the author's wide- ranging use of the OT, and the weight he placeson arguments from the OT' would ti have been meaningful chiefly to an audience of Jewishorigin. Moreover' the au- tL thor's use of exegeticalmethods, which came to characterizerabbinic Judaism, ni suggestsa Jewishenvironment for both author and recipients.The author'sinter- G est in the Jewishcult "would probably haveleft gentile readerscold."7 Proving the vi obsolescenceof the Old Covenantis thought to be a matter of importance for G Iewish,not Gentile,Christians.8 The resultof this assumptionis almostinevitably the suggestionthat the problem addressedby Hebrews is a potential reversion to (( fudaism on the part of JewishChristians who seekto avoid ongoingtension with c( their non-Christian fewish familiesand neighbors.e la There is, however,nothing compelling us to view the Christian addressees in origin. Unlike the author of the Pau- asexclusively, or predominantly,Iewish I. (as I Peterand Revelation),the author of Hebrews line letters well asbooks like tt "To the Hebrews"represents identifies neither himself nor his readers.The title IT an early conjecture concerning the addresseesbased on an estimation of the contents.l0This ascription could well be ideologicallymotivated. As the move- w 5. With varyingdegrees of elaboration,e.g., "To the Hebrewswritten from Rome"or tI ^l "ltaly;'"To the Hebrewswritten from Romeby Paulto thosein Jerusalem,"and the like. 5l 6. F.Delitzsch (comrnentary on theEpistle to theHebrews,2 vo1s. fEdinburgh: T. & T. tl Clark, 1871-721,l:4,20-21) assumeswithout discussionthat the audienceis composedof o ]ervishChristians, and, moreover,that they must be residentin Palestinewhere the distinc- tion between"Hebrew" and "Hellenist"Jews had meaning.A locationnear the templeis also L inferred from the author's interest in the levitical cult (despitethe fact that the author speaks u'holly of the deserttabernacle and neverthe stonetemple). c 7. Paul Ellingworth, commentaryon Hebrews(NIGTC; Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, o 1993).25. i 8. Thus Gleason,"Old TestamentBackground," 67. 9. David Peterson,Hebrews and Perfection: An Examinationof theConcept of Perfection n in the'Epktleto theHebrews'(SNTSMS 47; Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1982), c 186;philip E.Hughes, A commentaryon the Epistleto theHebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, P 1977),i8-19; Ray C. Stedman,Hebrews (Dorvners Grove, IL: IntervarsityPress, 1992), 11-13; Ir Gleason,"Old TestamentBackground," 69. it 10.Ellingworth , Hebrews,2l;Thomas Long \ HebrewsIInterpretation; Louisville, KY: ti The Recipientsof the Letter ment developedand the gap between synagogueand church widened into an irreparable chasm, having a canonical "response"to the parent religion - a sort of indirect manifesto of supersessionism- would havebeen valuableas a witness to the legitimacy of the sect'sexistence and ideology.The literature of the early Church atteststo the importance of the sect'sself-definition over againstJudaism,il and this letter, with its prominent use of the rhetorical de- vice of synkrisis(comparison, here between Jesus and the mediators of the "old covenant"), could reinforce that task admirably. Not much weight, therefore, should be placed on "external attestation"on this point. Arguments based on what would be appropriate or relevant to Chris- tians of one race over another are even more specious.The Gentile entering the Christian community became an "heir of the promise," a "child of Abra- ham," the "Israel of God," the "circumcision," and the "royal priesthood, God's holy nation."12That is to say,the Gentiie Christian was socialized to view himself or herself as the heir to the titles and promises that belonged to God's chosen people (historically, the Jewish people). The Gentile Christian was also enculturated to regard the Jewish Scriptures as the "oraclesof God" (cf. Heb. 5:12,where these serveas the primary textbook of the Christian converts), and was taught to read those oracles,moreover, as the divine reve- lation that legitimatedthe Christian hope and shapedthe Christian ethos.13 ]ohn Knox, 19971,\) boidly but correctlysuggests that the person"who attacheda title to this document . rvasprobably just speculatingabout its original recipientsand was as much in the dark as we are." 1I . Compare the Epistleof Barnabas;Epistle to Diognetus3-4; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho. 12.Gal.3:291'6:6;Phil.3:3; 1 Pet.2:9.This is not to suggestthat everyChristian u'as rn- troducedto ali theseepithets as the common propertyof the Christianculture, but merelytcr showthe wide-rangingtendency to createthe sect'sidentity out of the termsand conceptsof the parent religion. 13.This point waswell madeby JamesMoffatt, A Criticaland ExegeticalCommentary on theEPistle to theHebrews (ICC; Edinburgh:T. & T. Clark, 1924),xvi-xvii: "how much the LXX meant to GentileChristians may be seenin the caseof a man like Thtian,for example, who explicitiy declaresthat he owed to reading the OT his conversion to Christianity (Ad Graecos,2g)."Justin (Dial.8) hasa similar testimony.Wiliiam Robinson("The Eschatology of the Epistleto the Hebrews:A Study in the Christian Doctrine of Hope," Encotufter22 il96l): 37-51,40) posits a mixed congregation,arguing that "the title is certainlymisleading. Most probablyit arosebecause of the interestin the Old Testamentsacrificial system; but this neednot necessitatea iewish-Christiangroup of readers,as the PaulineEpistles show that Gentileconverts to Christianitywere assumedto be familiar with the JewishBackground." P. M. Eisenbaum (The JewishHeroes of Christian History: Hebrews I1 in Literary Conte.xt ISBLDSI 56;Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997],9) also contends that the volumeof useof the OT in Hebrewsdoes not speakto the ethnicidentity ofthe addressees:"That the pastfor Chris- tians amountsto the biblical history of Israelis indicativeof two things not necessarilyre- INTRODUCTION Christian worship and proclamation involved the reading of these oracles and their exposition in the distinctive Christian manner. The canonical texts provide only a few windows into the lives of the early Christian communities' What happened in Christian communities in the "everyday" rhythm of as- sembling for worship and teaching was likely to be oriented toward instruc- 'l tion from the OT as well as from the teachings of fesus (which were, them- I selves,largely concerned with deriving an ethic from the iewish Scriptures). We must not allow the plight of so many modern Gentile Christians, with : their relative lack of knowledge of the OT, to color our understanding of the first-century convert, for whom the OT was the revelation of God's will, the source (together with the experienceof the Spirit) for the legitimation of the sect and the hope to which those converts clung. Both Galatiansand I Peteraddress audiences that are in some major part Gentile.The argument of Galatians(the exhortation againstreceiving circum- cision,which would be a moot issuefor thoseborn Jews)is particularly pointed toward Gentile convertsto Christianity.laThat text employsan extendedexpo- sition from the story of Abraham in Genesis,as well as texts from Deuteron- omy, Habakkuk, Leviticus, and Isaiah, and expounds thesetexts according to rules familiar from rabbinic exegesis.I Peter,addressing those who "no longer join" in with their Gentile neighbors,is even richer in oral-scribal intertexture with the OT' aswell as allusionsand referencesto OT figuresand stories.I Co- rinthians 10:1-13derives moral instruction from a string of eventsconnected with the exodusgeneration but does so in an allusivemanner that presumesa high degreeof familiarity with these storieson the part of the largely Gentile Christian audience. The use of the OT in Hebrews,then, doesnot necessitateor evensuggest an audiencemade up primarily of JewishChristians. Gentile Christians - es- pecially those who have been attached to the Christian community for some time, as it seemslikely that thesehave - would alsobe familiar with thosetexts and keenlyinterested in their interpretation. Sincethey were instructed to read lated to the make-up of the community: the burgeoningreligion's Jewish origins and the needof the first missionariesfor jewish scripturein their apoiogetics."She also concludes t lewishHeroes,S) that a mixed audienceof Iewishand GentileChristians is the bestconclu- sion to be drawn. 14.Ellingworth (Hebrews,23)claims that "the argumentthat Galatiansproclaims to gentileChristians freedom from the law of Moses,and that Hebrewscould thereforesimi- lar11.use OT evidencein writing to gentiles,rests on the questionablepresupposition that the GalatianChristians were all of gentileorigin." This is a falseanalysis of the argument,how- ever.The argumentpresumes that the GentileChristians, who weremost directlyaffected by the outcomeof the Galatiandebate, would havebeen adequately instructed in the OT to foi- 1owand acceptPaul's argument. The presenceof ]ervishChristians in the audienceis not rel- evantto this point. The Recipientsof
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