the author’s judgment that their initial support amounted to a denial of
Jesus Christ. At first, they may have thought that they were merely sup-
porting a Jewish liberation movement, and it may have been precisely the
pressure to recognize Bar Kochba’s messianic status which led to their
withdrawal and subsequent execution. It was rare for divisions within
Judaism to turn so critically on questions of messiahship, and even rarer
for Christian Jews to be treated so severely by other Jews. But the pas-
sions and tensions aroused by the Bar Kochba rebellion, and the temporary
overthrow of Roman rule in a small part of Judea, produced a situation in
which both the definition and the punishment of defection took an unusual
turn.
The author of Hebrews refers obliquely to a problem with Christians,
who, in his eyes, had reneged on their Christian commitment. They had
already tasted the benefits of membership in the Christian community:
knowledge of the truth, heavenly gifts, experience of the Spirit, and the
goodness of God’s word. Yet now they had fallen away (parapesontas,6:6),
and had—to use the unusually strong language of the author—spurned or
re-crucified the Son of God and made a mockery of his death. Repentance
for such renegades is out of the question, and their punishment will be
severe, even more severe than the punishment for those who breach the
Mosaic Law (6:4–8; 10:26–31; cf. “drifting away,” 2:1, “falling short,” 4:1,
“shrinking back,” 10:39). These defections appear to lie in the past at the
time of writing; but, although the author expresses confidence in his read-
ers (6:9), the issue is raised presumably because the possibility of a recur-
rence was not out of the question. What led to the defections is not clear,
but the allusion to past experiences of persecution, public harassment,
confiscation, and imprisonment may be the best clue (10:32–34).
A number of other things remain unclear. The persecution may have
been instigated by Jews, but is perhaps more likely an allusion to state
harassment during the reign of Nero or Domitian. Anthony Ernest Harvey
(1985, 89) thinks in terms of synagogue discipline. But did Jewish courts
have the right to confiscate and imprison? The date (whether before or
after 70 CE) and the setting of Hebrews have been much discussed, but for
our purposes are not very important. David A. deSilva (1996) likens apos-
tasy to a client spurning a patron. The readers are commonly thought to
have been Jewish Christians. The deep concern to establish the superses-
sion of Jewish traditions, especially those related to the cult, together with
the exhortation to “go to him [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the abuse
he endured” (13:13), certainly suggests that the author of Hebrews is try-
ing to wean his readers from their hankering after Jewish thought and
nora
(Nora)
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