QUESTION: Hello pastor, my name is Andrew, and I am in a Bible school. My question is: is it the Apostle Paul who wrote the book of Hebrews? Andrew.
RESPONSE: Dear Andrew,
We are grateful for the question. We should emphasise that it is a question about authorship and not one about the book’s canonicity.
The question of authorship is about who wrote the book and one of canonicity questions the content of the book and whether believers like us can believe what the book teaches.
These are two important questions that both believers and non-believers should ask.
On the question of authorship, there are four views in support to the idea that Paul could not have written Hebrews.
We may take Donald Hagner’s exposition (in his introduction to the New Testament- NT) as among the clearest and most representative of the non-Pauline position.
The first reason is that Hebrews is anonymous. All of Paul’s undisputed letters are not anonymous. Therefore, it would seem to be strange if there was only one exception.
Again, it is necessary to point out both that Hebrews is anonymous, and that anonymity is not a bar to canonicity.
I point this out because many writers who reject Pauline authorship seem to be afraid of recriminatory accusations from Pauline-authorship types to the tune of “Well if you deny Pauline authorship, you are undermining its authority.”
I want to make it clear that I hold no such position. However, to answer Hagner’s argument here, if Hebrews is a sermon turned into a letter (the “word of exhortation” of Hebrews 13:22).
It might very well not have appeared necessary to the author to sign his name to it.
None of Paul’s undisputed letters are sermons, either. The difference in genre accounts for a good deal and is an essential part of the answer to the other arguments as well.
The second argument is the most substantial, namely; that the author appears to place himself among those only having a second-hand knowledge of the Lord (Hebrews 2:3 is always the verse quoted).
Paul always claimed to have a first-hand knowledge of the Lord. So, why does the author say what he says in 2:3 if he is Paul?
The answer has several parts to it. Firstly, a sermon often finds the preacher identifying with the congregation to whom he is preaching, even if things he says may be more strictly true of the listeners than of the preachers.
We may call this phenomenon “the sermonic ‘we’”. Secondly, as John Owen notes in his commentary, the verb should not be translated as “attested” in Hebrews 2:3, but rather “confirmed.”
Paul, of course, denies that he heard Jesus second-hand. However, a reading of Galatians 2:1-2 indicates that Paul wanted confirmation of his message.
So, even if Hebrews 2:3 means something different for preacher as distinct from congregation, it could very much still refer to Paul in a way consistent with his undisputed letters, as long as the verse is understood to be saying that the message was “confirmed,” and not the much more comprehensive “attested.”
The third argument is the argument from style. Hebrews seems much different from the undisputed Pauline epistles.
The Greek is closer to classical style (Hagner calls it “the most elegant in the NT”).
Hagner says that one could attribute this fact to a different secretary. However, the difference in genre could be a much more effective explanation of the difference in style.
A letter is going to be less formal in its language than a sermon is.
The trappings of epistolary elements are much more subdued in Hebrews than in any of the obvious epistles in the NT.
There is an inherent problem with the stylistic argument.
We don’t have a large enough sample size in the NT to be as confident about stylistic differences as many commentators seem to be today.
In fact, given the small sample size, I remember reading somewhere a claim that any of the NT authors could have written the whole thing!
Several authors have pointed out that the so-called stylistic differences have also been exaggerated.
The fourth argument is the weakest, in my opinion. It is the idea that theology differs from Paul in key ways, such that ideas normal in Paul are absent in Hebrews and vice versa.
A sermon, however, is a very focused, narrow sort of document usually. It is not usually intended to speak about every major tenet of teaching.
As there is nothing in Hebrews that contradicts Paul, there is no reason to suppose that Paul could not have written something like this.
These views of Hagner are ably shared by Greene Bagginson and they ably represent the school of thought that does not believe Paul is the author.
In the future, we shall look at the views that insist Paul is the author. For now, as a student ponder on these views.
Answered by
Pr Isaiah White.
whitemwine@gmail.com
