PROVENANCE
PROVENANCE
If we are uncertain who the author of the epistle to the Hebrews was, we are still less certain about the book’s geographic provenance. The only explicit clue is found in Heb. 13:24: "Those from Italy send you their greetings.” Unfortunately, the expression is unclear. It may refer to a group of Italian believers who left their native land and were sending their greetings home (in which case the epistle was sent "to” Italy, but we cannot specify the place from which it was sent), 19 or it may refer to believers in Italy (in which case we cannot identify the destination, but the author is writing from Italy). 20 Because we cannot be certain which is meant, the ambiguity in the NEB rendering is attractive: "Greetings to you from our Italian friends.”
Even if we could be reasonably certain who wrote the book, that would not necessarily establish its geographic provenance, since the writer may have moved around quite a bit (as Paul did). As for the book’s conceptual provenance, in a work as clearly polemical and paraenetic as this one it is important to recognize that much of the argument may be shaped less by the author’s personal interests than by the author’s perception of his readers’ critical needs. In that case, analysis of the book’s conceptual categories may reveal more about the work’s intended readers than about the author.