major means of identity formation is to confer on its Gentile readers the
prestige of Israel’s sacred rites and institutions. The readers are “living
stones” being built into a “spiritual house” in which they serve as members
of a “holy priesthood” and offer “spiritual sacrifices” (2:5). They are a
“chosen race,” a “holy nation,” and “God’s own people” (2:9; cf. LXX Exod.
19:6; Isa. 43:20; Hos. 2:25). Again, not a single reference to non-Christian
Jews surfaces.
Falling roughly at the same point on the continuum of positive ap-
propriation to negative engagement is the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
traditional title is a complete misnomer. With epistolary features coming
only in the closing lines, it is more a sermon than a letter. It was directed
not to Hebrews but Christians, perhaps from a Jewish background but
possibly from a Gentile one. Rome may be the intended destination. The
addressees have experienced persecution, though of what sort and by
whom are not specified. They have grown weary in their commitment to
Christ and are in danger of falling away. There is no clear support in the
text for the traditional view, frequent among commentators, that the au-
thor wrote to dissuade a Jewish-Christian audience from reverting to
Judaism. The homily’s poetic prologue contains some of the highest
christological affirmations in the New Testament: Christ as divine Son is
mediator, heir, and Lord of the entire cosmos. He is “the exact imprint of
God’s very being” — an honorific that early Jewish tradition conferred on
the figure of divine Wisdom personified (Heb. 1:3; Wis. 7:26). Hebrews as-
serts Christ’s superiority to angels, to Moses, and, most extensively, to the
levitical priesthood, employing a variety of sophisticated rhetorical de-
vices and frequent exposition of passages in the Psalms and other Jewish
Scriptures (e.g., Gen. 14:17-20; Jer. 31:31-34; Pss. 2:7; 8:4-6; 95:7-11; 110:4). Its
signal contribution to New Testament Christology is its designation of Je-
sus as an eternal, heavenly priest in the line of Melchizedek whose atoning
death has established a new covenant ratified in the heavenly sanctuary
(chaps. 7–10). Strikingly, though, the author of Hebrews never so much as
glances at a living Judaism or at the Jerusalem Temple and priesthood of
the first century. The points of comparison, contrast, admonition, and
warning are made rather with respect to the newly formed levitical priest-
hood in the days of Moses and Aaron, the desert tabernacle, and the Isra-
elites of the exodus generation. The author is familiar with interpretive
traditions concerning Melchizedek, Moses, and angels known from a va-
riety of Second Temple texts, and his Platonism has affinities with the
thought of Philo of Alexandria. He engages in typological, midrash-like,407Early Judaism and Early ChristianityEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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