Talkin' Pre-parousia Blues: In Support Of A Pre-70 C.e. Dating Of Hebrews

M. CHRISTOPHER WHITE SCHOOL OF DIVINITY

TALKIN’ PRE-PAROUSIA BLUES: IN SUPPORT OF A PRE-70 C.E. DATING OF HEBREWS

SUBMITTED TO PROF D. GOODMAN IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF JEWISH CHRISTIAN WRITINGS

BY SAM HARRELSON 25 NOVEMBER 2008

Hebrews stands apart as a unique text in the New Testament addressing a specific historical issue to which we as later readers are not able to fully pin down or understand. The implied geography, makeup of community initially being addressed and date of composition are all variables that cannot firmly be grasped from the text or the received tradition. So, we are left to reconstruct the historical situation as best as we can with only the document of Hebrews itself. Interestingly, the historical situation being addressed by the author of Hebrews gives the text a unique flavor compared to the rest of the New Testament. Common New Testament themes such as faith and sacrifice are covered, but their treatment gives the impression that the author knew very little of figures such as Paul or early movements underway in the first century Jesus movement. The overall “high Christology” of Hebrews is also a unique feature of the text that has historically given the book a spotlight and caused its status within the canon and traditional authorship ascribed to Paul to be debated (and in the case of authorship rejected). Nevertheless, this reliance solely on the text of Hebrews does offer interesting conclusions about the actual dating of the text. In this paper, I propose a pre-Temple Destruction composition of the book based on the practical nature of the argument being presented by the author to address a very real and very local theological situation. First, we’ll look at the distinctiveness of theology in Hebrews and how the book stands apart from the New Testament because of this specific historical situation that we know so little about. Initially, it is easy to assume that the audience is neither Pauline nor Johannine in makeup or influence. Similarly, the intended audience also does not belong to the mother church in Jerusalem.1 Instead, the theology and argument of the text is a 1

Barnabas Lindars SSF, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, ed.

very practical response to an urgent historical situation.2 This practical nature involves an emphasis on “primitive kerygma,”3 but also is aimed at members of the specific community being addressed to demonstrate the dangers and shortfalls of returning to the practices and liturgies of the Judaism (out of which this community evidently evolved) for their needs regarding a notion of atonement. This practical argument is based heavily on a rhetoric of persuasion for the right action of remaining within the confines of a faith in Christ as the sole arbiter and insurance of atonement using common themes, texts and allusions that only an audience heavily steeped in Jewish traditions would fully grasp. Given that the text is so practical in its main thrust, it is reasonable to assume that this pervasive “Jewishness” (or perhaps better described as anti-Jewishness) points to an intended audience grappling with the question of adequate atonement. In this scheme, the intended audience is tempted to take a course of action, which is inconsistent with the gospel which they originally received.4 Therefore, the Christology of Hebrews is intensely “high” in its appropriation of the figure of Jesus for the majority of the book. The reason for this is that the atonement question, for the author of Hebrews, lies at the very axis of the Christian faith and that explains the impassioned rhetoric being employed to make the case that Christ’s one sacrifice provides sufficient atonement now and forever to those waiting on the arrival of parousia. This emphasis is made throughout the book with the remarkable number of allusions and connections between traditional sacrifices and atonement themes in Jewish tradition with the act (and superseding function) of Christ. The central argument of the letter is to offer a compelling case for the complete James Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991), 2. 2 Ibid 3 Ibid, 26. 4 Ibid, 9.

and abiding efficacy of Jesus’ death as a permanent atoning sacrifice that forever satiates the need for atonement from sin in a post-baptismal and pre-parousia experience. With this focus and compelling argument regarding what seems to be a community on the verge of readopting some or all of their Jewish heritage and traditions to placate the need for atonement in the growing and unexpected length of time before the return of Christ and after the baptismal events of individuals within the community, the author of Hebrews frames the central question of the book. This question is why has the intended audience lost confidence in the power of the sacrifice of Christ to deal with their consciousness of sin?5 To understand more about this question, we can turn to a place where there is convergence between Hebrews and another instance of a historical situation being addressed by a concerned elder or leader on the basis of the community’s growing and evolving needs due to a period of extended waiting for the return of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 has Paul addressing the community at Thessolonica over their concerns about members of the community who have died (and others who continue to do so) event though it seems they were assured that the second coming would happen in this generation: But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. 5

Ibid, 12.

Lindars makes this interesting connection with Paul and frames the connection with the notion of a realized eschatology that is awaiting the imminent return of Christ to fully establish the Kingdom of God here on earth. In the specific case of the Hebrews’ community, the question is over the very real and practical concern of atonement for sins that occur post baptismal yet pre-parousia. This framing is important for the construction of an early dating of Hebrews because the practicality of the message being conveyed is framed not only with the author’s concern over the question of community members relapsing6 into Judaism or its rituals, but also is framed by a steady reliance on a realized eschatology that, while evolving its urgency, is still awaiting the imminent arrival of Christ. Some of this early eschatological impetus can be observed in Hebrews 1:1-2: Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. As well, we see hints of this eschatological urging so characteristic of mid-first century Jesus movement in 9:26: …for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. This sort of eschatological urgency is frequently found in the letters of Paul as he is writing in the 50’s and 60’s. However, this eschatological urgency loses steam as a prime I use the term “relapsing” a few times in this paper to denote the attitude of the author of Hebrews. In my own opinion, this term, when applied to the supersessionist argument presented in Hebrews, does violence to both Judaism and Christianity in the modern context. Therefore, modern readers are urged to remember the historical and practical nature of this book and what the author seems to be arguing against rather than seeking to use this text as a proof-text for disgusting anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish rhetoric. 6

motivator of theology or community association after the destruction of the Temple in 70 and into the closing decades of the first century as the first and second generation of Jesus followers die off and are replaced by younger (and predominantly more gentile in overall composition outside of Palestine) followers who begin to set up structures and hierarchies to meet the needs of Christian communities scattered around the Mediterranean basin. It makes little sense for such a practical and historical situation being addressed and passionately argued against (again, relapsing into Judaism) to include an overspiritualized and non-realistic portrayal of the eschatological expectation. Instead, the author of Hebrews is passionately reminding the community of the very real need to not turn back to Judaism’s rituals of atonement sacrifices, as they grow impatient waiting for the return of Jesus in the mid-first century. The parallels to Paul and Thessolonica here cannot simply be avoided with over-spiritualization. Similarly, one of the main thrusts of the author’s arguments against returning to Judaism is the assertion that Jesus has become the great high priest who supersedes all other mortal high priests because a) his sacrifice was perfect and has eternal qualities that cannot be replicated by mortal high priests in the Temple who must perform the sacrifices over and over (to which the author has great delight in pointing out) and b) Jesus as high priest does not need to make satiation for his own sins as mortal high priests do because he is sinless and blameless. Again, in the context of such an overwhelmingly historical and practical local issue, why would the author shift such a persuasive argument based on practical community needs to over-spiritualized and non-realistic concepts such as a high priest? The office of the high priest was abandoned with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, so if Hebrews is a composition that is written after 70, this main theme of Jesus as

the high priest must have been written with an overtly spiritualized mindset. However, that dating and that interpretation of Jesus as the high priest fails to be corroborated with the evidence presented from the text in terms of its practical notions and from specific passages that speak of the high priests and their actions in a very real and corporeal sense. One such passage is 5:1-4: Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. Clearly, the address here is in the present tense. The author is not making an argument about the high priests of the past or their actions in a way that would lead one to infer that this office has been abandoned. Perhaps most telling, this connecting of Jesus with the office of high priest only occurs in the book of Hebrews. If the author is indeed following the line of practical argument setting up Jesus’ sacrifice and function as being superior to that of Judaism and its rituals, why invoke the office of high priest if the office does not exist anymore? Why go through so much trouble to make Jesus the greatest high priest if there is no competition? How would that serve the general argument of the book? It would not, because the book is composed at a time when the office of the high priest is still very real, very functioning and very competitive with the evolving personhood of Jesus. Lindars alludes to this possibility in his section on the sacrifice of Jesus when he off-handedly (and temptingly) notes: “We may note in passing that these verses support the idea that the temple was still operative when Hebrews was writing.”7 7

Ibid, 87.

When taken as a whole, the book of Hebrews is a stirring and very practical rhetorical argument for the supremacy of Jesus over the rituals and traditions of Judaism on the question of atonement. The central question being addressed by the author is whether or not community members should fall back to these Jewish rituals and traditions in order to find atonement for sin in a post-baptismal and pre-parousia experience. This important bracketing gives us clues as to the date of composition of this book and allows us to construct a dating that is pre-70 and much more in line with the eschatological urgency of Paul and the first to early second generation of Jesus followers rather than the more established and less urgent christologies and soteriologies that were developing near the end of the first century. That eschatological subtext combined with the present-tense notion of the office of high priest and the community’s in-depth familiarity with the nonpedestrian terms, rituals and offices of Judaism covered in the book make a strong case for a dating of this work somewhere in the late 50’s to late 60’s rather than post-70 as has been generally assumed.