Comments on Hebrews

While at the recent World Conference (April, 2002) for the Community of Christ I picked up some anti-church tracts that were being distributed on the street between the Auditorium and the Temple. To be honest, I always look forward to picking up a few of these tracts since it gives me something to study as time permits.

Some people refuse to pick any up, presumably because they think it will "shake their faith." My attitude is that if a tract like that can "shake my faith" then my faith needs to be shaken.

Some are humorous, such as the one I picked up a few conferences back that said, in essence, that the Pyramids in Central and South America do not look like the Pyramids in Egypt, therefore the Book of Mormon must be wrong. This is Humorous because the Book of Mormon never mentions Pyramids (although at one or two points it mentions "towers" but it does not say what these refer to). And at no time does it mention that anything is like Egyption, except to say some of the writing is related.

Back to the subject. One of the tracts I picked up this conference was about the High Priests. The tract reported that Jesus Christ was "the last High Priest" and therefore the church was totally wrong. This tract referenced a lot of verses in Hebrews, and since the problems were not as blatant as the example I mentioned above, I felt it necessary to read the references. In addition to the references, of course, I read all the interviening verses, the chapter before and the chapter after, as is my custom. (I find this to be particularly importent in understanding Paul's writings, as he tends to be be very verbose. If individual verses are picked out, anything can be "proved".)

I read both the Inspired version account, and "The New American Bible" produced by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Most of the reading was in the latter, as some references in the tract claimed Joseph Smith changed everything in the Inspired Version. I have not checked to see if this is true.

Of course, what I found out is that the cited scriptures refer to Jesus as a "High Priest" but says nothing about any exclusivity. However, I did find that there are a lot of references to this fact, which lead me to ask the question, "Why was this such a big issue?" The existance of non-existance of High Priest does not really effect how people live, etc., so why was this important?

The New American Bible has an introduction to the text. The introduction said several things. First, this book is usually attributed to Paul, but the style of writing tends to indicate that someone else wrote it. The exact date that it was written is unknown, but that it is first mentioned about 94 A.D. so it must have been written prior to that date. The intended audience is not known, however, the introduction suspects that it was either the Jewish Christians, or the Gentile-Christians.

I thought about this for a short time, and came to the realization as to the correct answer to each of these questions, including the one that I posed, "Why was this such a big issue."

I cannot comment on the authorship, except to say that if could be Pauline dispite the objections mentioned in the introduction. However, I cannot say that it definitely is Pauline, either. I will get back to this later.

This was written prior to 94 A.D. This fact is mentioned in the introduction, and I have no reason to doubt it. In fact, I would give the date of this book as between 70 and 75 A.D. with reason.

Recall this period of time. "Jewery" was divided into Sects, much the way Christianity is today (and I suspect Judism as well). I will note two of these Sects, the Christians, and the Pharisees, and refer to all other sects as "non-Pharisidic Jews." The Sameritans figure into the equation, but primarily they throw their lots with the Pharisees.

Several years ago I read a book by a Jewish Rabbi that compared the Jewish religion with the Christian religion. This book caused me to think a little. The reason that in virtually every instance where a comparison was made between Christians and Jews, the church I belong to (the Community of Christ) had taken a formal or informal stand that sided with the Jews. This tends to support the statement made by my mother when I was growing up, that if I were not a member of this church I would be a Jew. (In part, this may be due to the part of my ancestory that is Jewish.)

This was thought provoking because I wanted to know what the difference was. Why was I not a Jew?

As I pondered this, the reason came to me. According to this book, the "Jews" we know today are really the continuation of the Pharisees. That is, according to the book, about the time of Christ, there were many sects of Jews. Most of these sects were united in their belief in the Jewish temple rites. The Pharesees had rejected the Priesthood, and the temple rites, as had the Sameritans. (A real observant person could see where I'm going here.) The Church of Christ, however, believes in the Priesthood.

Then came the events of about 70 A.D. The Zealots that are mentioned in the New Testament had there way, and there was an uprising against Rome (not a good idea). Rome responded by attacking, finally attacking Jerusalem itself. The temple was destroyed, and the Jews were thown into disarray.

To the Sameritans, the Pharisees, and the Christians, this was significant, but did not rock their world since their worlds did not revolve around temple rites. However, to the other sects, this probably rocked them to the core.

There was a similar time in the history of the Community of Christ. In 1844, the head of the church, Joseph Smith, was killed. Suddenly, the chruch found itself with a problem. Joseph Smith Junior (the prophet) had expected his son, Joseph Smith III to take over as head of the church after him. But Joseph III was only 10 years old at the time his father was killed, and most people thought this too young. Without going into details, this eventually lead the church into a total state of disarray. (In all honesty, this disarray was probably not as sudden as the disarray in Jerusalem.)

In the church, this resulted in two large divisions, plus many smaller groups. The Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ) was one group that took a large portion of the Saints to Utah. (I've seen some estimates that this may have been as much as 10% of the chruch membership.) May people, however, just quit, or became inactive.

As time went by, the people who stayed started publishing a magazine, the "True Latter Day Saints Herald" (which is still published at the "Saints Herald" today). Initially this was a call to those people of the mini-diaspora to join in the Reorganization of the church. This Reorganization became the "Community of Christ."

To me it is obvious that the book of Hebrews is the Jewish equivilent of the "True Latter Day Saints Herald." It is a call to the Jews to join the particular sect that was known as Christianity. I do not know how successful it was.

The references to the "High Priest" is because this was one of the big temple rites. It is mentioned in Luke 1:1-23. Once a year the priestly class would send a priest, called the "High Priest" into the temple inter sanctum that no one else was to enter. With no temple, this could no longer be done. That is, it could not be done because the Romans did not allow it.

I can imagine, therefore, that there was a big push by both the Pharisees and the Christians to get those disillusioned Jews to join their sect. Therefore, the Pharisees probably got these people to join their group by pointing out that the priesthood and temple were not needed. The Christians, in Hebrews, made their plea that, although the priesthood was needed, the temple was not because Jesus had already done the temple rite for all time. That is, Jesus was the "High Priest" forever, the temple wasn't needed.

Therefore, the audience is obvious. It is the "Hebrews" or the Jews, particularly the none Pharisidic Jews. A Christian Jew might have considered the text interesting, but I doubt they were in the intended audience. The Pharisees would not have been interested because they already had their solution to the problem.

The approximate time should be obvious as well. I suspect that there was a window of time when the disillusioned Jews could be influenced. I would think that their would have been a definite attraction to the Pharisees, since the Jews of the time tended to be very exclusive, and the Christians were already allowing non-Jews entry without requiring the Jewish rites.

I need to take a little time to explain why I classed Christianity as a Sect of Judism rather than a seperate religion. The reason is that Jesus was a Jew, and the majority of the membership was Jewish. There were non-Jews, but then all of the Sects accepted non-Jewish converts (they still do, as far as I know). All be Christianity, whoever, required circumcision, except Christianity. (See Acts 15.) (In fact, I notice this scripture refers directly to this practice with regard to the Pharisees.)

The Christians, probably even the gentile Christians, viewed themselves as being Jews. It was only later that the distinction between Judism and Christianity as two religions was made.

It is also significant that the Jews of today more properly are a brother religion rather than a "father" religion. That is, there was a religion established by Moses, or earlier, that was the religion practiced by Jesus. At 70 A.D. there was a major split in this religion that was caused by the distruction of the temple. The major (and maybe only) results are the Rabbinical Judism, and Christianity. (Islam figures in here, but not at this point.) Both have, in my opinion, equal claim to the roots established by Moses. However, I must also concede that the "Jews" refered to in the Bible probably refer to the Rabbinical Jews rather than Christianity since Christianity has long gotten the majority of its converts from the Gentile world.

This paper expressed my opinion. If you agree with me, I am glad. If you disagree, please let me know what your disagreement is about. I can an do change my mind. However, keep in mind that saying "I believe such and such because my priest says it is so," or saying "I believe such and such because biblical scholars agree that it is true," does not by itself impress me.

I did want to express my opinion (not strong) of why this may have been written by Paul dispite a change in style. The reason is the audience. Most of the Pauline letters are written to churchs. These churches have people who are Jews, and gentiles. Therefore, Paul would want to express himself in simple fashion that these people could understand. This letter, however, was to the Jewish elite. This would have been an educated group, as the Jews tended to push education. Therefore, a different style was called for.

Even so, I will not pronounce "Paul wrote this" as I really do not know.