Hebrews
INTRODUCTION
HEBREWS
LEON MORRIS
This writing is anonymous. A number of possible authors have been suggested, such as Paul, Barnabas, Apollos and Prisca. The style of the letter is against Paul as author, as it is very different from his normal style. Naming such possible authors is no more than guesswork and we must accept our ignorance.
The recipients of the letter have traditionally been seen as Jewish Christians, tempted to relapse into Judaism. In recent times this view has been challenged by scholars who maintain that there is no way of knowing whether the writing was meant for Jews or Gentiles. They point out that the appeal to the Old Testament as sacred Scripture was accepted by Christian Gentiles as well as Jews, and that the author nowhere says that he is writing to Jews. This view cannot be ruled out as impossible. But it is to be doubted whether it explains the many parts of the letter that insist on the superiority of some aspect of Christianity to something Jewish. So it still remains the most likely view that Jews are in mind. But it is not written to Jewish Christians as a whole. It is clear that the recipients are a small group who might have been expected to be teachers but who had not made the progress in the faith expected of them (5:12).
It is not easy to date the letter. Perhaps it is relevant that there is nothing in it which indicates that Jerusalem had fallen, for in view of the line of argument adopted we might well have anticipated a reference to that event if it had taken place. On the other hand, there has been time for the gospel to spread to some degree and a certain amount of development both of doctrine and Christian maturity are presupposed. Perhaps we will not be far wrong in dating it in the 60s.
We have spoken of the writing as a letter, but this may be going too far. It certainly does not have the normal framework of a letter and it reads more like a theological treatise than a letter. We may retain the name letter owing to its long use. But we should bear in mind that it is not by any means an exact description of the writing’s literary genre.