Hebrews Use of OT

A cursory glance at Hebrews' critique of Israel's fear at Sinai in Heb 12: [18][19][20][21][24][25][26][27][28][29] suggests that the author has misunderstood or manipulated his sources. In the Pentateuch, the appointment of Moses as Israel's mediator following their unwillingness to stand too close to YHWH receives explicit approval (Deut 5:28), while Heb 12:25 labels that request for mediation a "refusal" to heed the word of God spoken to them from the mountain. In this dissertation I argue that Hebrews' use of the Sinai narratives resides on a complex trajectory established by four points: (1) the Sinai covenant according to Exodus, (2) the reenactment of that covenant according to Deuteronomy, (3) the call for a new covenant according to Jeremiah, and (4) the present reality of that new covenant established by God and mediated by Jesus Christ.

Hebrews has more to say about Melchizedek than what is said about him in LXX Ps 109,4 (perhaps also MT Ps 110,4) and Genesis 14. Heb 7,3 says that Melchizedek is ““without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life”” and that ““he remains a priest forever””. I discuss where the author gets this information from. Methodologically, priority should be given to an explanation made on the basis of the hermeneutical techniques that the author uses elsewhere. I argue that the surplus information found in Heb 7,3.8 stems from arguments made from silence. The author explicitly makes arguments from silence in Heb 7,14.20.

This article proposes a better source for the Son’s cry in Hebrews 5:7. It begins by surveying sources previous scholars have identified, including Jesus’ cry in Gethsemane and Golgotha, several Psalms, and the Maccabean martyr literature. It is then argued that these background sources for the language are insufficient. Instead the author of Hebrews has an entire motif from the Psalter as his informing source: the Davidic figure that cries out in trust to be delivered from a death-like experience. Firstly, the motif of the Davidic righteous suffering in the LXX Psalms is demonstrated. Secondly, Hebrews’ use of the Messianic royal figure is demonstrated and thirdly, Hebrews 5:7 as a portrait of the Christ who cries out for deliverance is demonstrated. Thus, Hebrews 5:7 sees the Son as the Davidic king who is the true representative human exercising trust in YHWH, bringing to fulfilment the theme from various Psalms.

Atonement (kpr) as it is defined within the Levitical system is often conceived of in a manner which is roughly correct in terms of its gist, but quite mistaken in terms of its specifics.  It can more accurately, I believe, be summarised as follows.  (1)  The purpose of the sacrificial system is not, for the most part, to deal with ‘moral transgressions’, but to purify the Tabernacle (and those associated with it) when a very specific type of transgression occurs, namely an unintentional transgression or a transgression of a ceremonial nature.  (2)  The blood of OT sacrifices is not normally applied to ‘sinners’;  rather, it is applied to those who serve in the Tabernacle, or to the vessels or altar of the Tabernacle, or to the Tabernacle itself.  As mentioned above, its primary concern is the purification of God’s sacred space.  (3)  The sins of believers are completely forgiven in the OT;  hence, David can confidently proclaim, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does [the LORD] remove our transgressions from us”, and Paul can ground the doctrine of justification in David’s statements of his forgiveness (Rom. 4.7-8 cf. Psa. 32.1-2).  The OT believer does not obtain forgiveness through sacrifices (or even through ‘sacrifices infused with Christ’s power’).  He obtains forgiveness in exactly the same way as the NT believer, namely through faith in God insofar as God has revealed himself.  (4)  The sense in which the OT sacrificial system foreshadows the sacrifice of Christ is, therefore, as follows:  just as specific animal sacrifices put right specific ‘ceremonial issues’ in OT times, so now Christ’s sacrifices deal with all sin, be it ceremonial or moral, intentional or unintentional.  As such, Christ’s is a better sacrifice than the OT’s in every conceivable way.

El concepto del “reposo  de  Dios”  en Hebreos 4  es  uno de  los temas controversiales de  dicha  epístola, muchos cristianos no cuentan  con un estudio profundo de  este pasaje. Aunque  se  ha  escrito sobre  este punto, en  el mundo teológico  aún no se  presenta un consenso  general sobre  el significado de  este pasaje a  la luz  del sábado semanal del Antiguo  Testamento. Generalmente se  interpreta  el “reposo de  Dios”  en  Hebreos 4  desde una  perspectiva  espiritual  o escatológica, negando  la validez  del sábado en  el  Nuevo Testamento. En esta investigación  se  analizó  el significado del reposo de  Dios en  Hebreos 4 desde  la perspectiva  de  la  epístola  y  las  alusiones al  sábado semanal  en  el  Antiguo Testamento,  determinando su consecuente  aplicación, de  manera  que  se  pueda  presentar la definición que el autor de  Hebreos le  otorga  al “reposo de  Dios”  y  cómo debe  influir en la vida del creyente.

This article analyzes Heb 13, particularly vv. 7–19, applying the methods of spatial analysis. Of specific interest is the space described as “outside the camp” in Heb 13:11–13. As the term seems to allude to three different spaces in time, namely, the spaces outside the desert camp, outside Jerusalem, and outside Rome (the addressees’ location as generally assumed), a practice of overlapping maps can be observed, in which the first shapes all subsequent maps. This first map points to Sinai, where the ritual related to Yom Kippur was introduced. As Sinai is also the location where Israel’s leader Moses, to whom Jesus in Hebrews is compared, left the camp due to its defilement, the primary intertext underlying Heb 13 is identified in Exod 33, particularly in vv. 7–11. A detailed spatial analysis of the Sinai narrative adopting Edward W. Soja’s trialectic of Firstspace, Secondspace, and Thirdspace, together with additional readings from various Targumim as well as Philo of Alexandria, results in a useful model that seems to have served the author of Hebrews to interpret the spaces, bodies, and actions in ch. 13. This analysis not only sheds new interpretative light on a chapter widely considered to be a crux interpretum but also strengthens the position that this chapter is an integral part of the preceding text in Hebrews.

Excerpt from Caleb T. Friedeman, ed. Listen, Understand, Obey: Essays on Hebrews in Honor of Gareth Lee Cockerill (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2017). Used with permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers (http://wipfandstock.com/listen-understand-obey.html).

The absence of NT damnation terminology in Hebrews calls into question the widely held assumption that the author's purpose was to warn his readers of eternal judgement. Furthermore, to limit the warnings to a distant future judgement overlooks its nearness and diminishes its relevance to the first-century audience facing the dangers arising from the first Jewish revolt. There are many clues throughout the epistle that point to the physical threat posed by the coming Roman invasion to those Christians who lapsed back into Judaism. These clues point immediately to the destruction of Palestine, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. These conclusions are confirmed by a close examination of the OT texts cited or alluded to in Hebrews 10:26-31. Rather than eternal destruction, the OT examples warn of physical judgement coming upon Israel because of covenant unfaithfulness. If they sought refuge in Judaism, the readers could suffer the same fate of the Jewish rebels by the Romans. However, the readers could avoid God's wrath coming upon the Jewish nation by holding firm to their confession, bearing the reproach of Christ outside the camp (13:13), and looking to the heavenly city instead of Jerusalem now under the sentence of destruction (13:14).

The author utilises Abraham and his family in a sophisticated  paedagogical way. He or she initially opens the entrance into the family of Abraham to all; afterwards the author narrows the membership over the course of the letter in order to urge the addressees to remain steadfast on their way to the heavenly city. Only thus they can continue to belong to Abraham's family.

The Son's being led into the oiKouμEVTJ where angels worship him is not a
reference to his incarnation, though what is said of him in Hebrews 1.6
does not occur without his becoming flesh and blood (2.14). The Son's
being made lower than the angels for a little while, during the days of his
flesh (5.7), was necessary so that by his death he might sanctify his siblings
(2.11) and finally subject the οίκουμένη to come to us for whom he tasted
death.

The Son's exaltation in the oiKouμevri is also not his parousia. What is
said of the Firstborn in 1.6 does not occur disconnected from his second
advent. His being led into the otKouμevri is already accomplished in the
Firstborn's ascension into the heavenly realm that angels inhabit. The
man Christ Jesus, led into the oiKouμevri by God (1.6), is now enthroned
'at the right hand of God' as he waits 'until his enemies should be made a
footstool for his feet' (10.12; 1.2, 13; 2.8-9). He will appear a second time
to consummate the inheritance of all whom he came to help (9.28; 1.14),
not angels but Abraham's seed (2.16), to whom he will subject the
οίκουμένη to come (2.5). Thus, the Son has brought the old era of the first
covenant with its earthly shadows to a close and has inaugurated the new
aeon of the new covenant with its heavenly realities. Heaven has come to
the cosmos in order that the cosmos might finally come to its consummation
in the world that is to come, the habitable world that will be subject to humans, not to angels, thanks to the exalted Son who was once made lower than the angels for a little while.

The author of Hebrews describes his work as a “word of exhortation” (13:22).  In the sermon, the author makes steady use of narratives to warn, encourage, and exhort his hearers.  After making some preliminary observations on narrative theory and the appropriateness of a narratival approach to Hebrews, I address the larger stories at play in the sermon.  Given time constraints, this paper can deal in specific detail with only two passages: the story of the wilderness generation in Hebrews 3-4 and the story of Jesus in the Habakkuk 2:3-4 citation in Hebrews 10:37-39.  These passages depict stories of faith and unfaithfulness, which function as two stories into one of which everyone participates.  The author leaves his hearers with no doubt about the ending of each story.  For those who continue in unfaithfulness, they can expect to die in the wilderness and fail to enter the rest (3:12-19).  Put succinctly, shrinking back leads to destruction, while faith(fulness) leads to life (10:39).  If they are participating in the story of faith, then they already know their end, since the story has already been told in Jesus.  Readers are left to decide into which story to participate, but the author expects better things for his hearers (6:9-10; 10:39; 11:40).  Read through the lens of theological exegesis, these narratives function as illocutionary speech-acts that speak as God’s word even to readers in the present.  These narratives in Hebrews do more than tell a story – they are pastoral tools.

A growing number of scholars have argued that Christ's offering in Hebrews is not limited to the cross but extends into heaven; in recent work David Moffitt contends that Christ's heavenly, atoning offering is perpetual and coextensive with his intercession. This article calls this further step into question, by examining the function of Christ's heavenly session in Hebrews' construal of sacrificial process, and by exploring the nature of his heavenly intercession and its relation to his offering and enthronement. It argues that Christ's session is a hinge, marking an emphatic close to his sacrificial work for the forgiveness of sins, and inaugurating his royal reign and priestly prayer.

This article examines the ways Old Testament promise passages have been interpreted incorrectly.  Using Joshua 1, it explores the approaches the New Testament writers used in quoting from Old Testament promise passages in the hopes of gaining some strategies for preachers and teachers when approaching Old Testament promise passages.

The unknown author of Hebrews uses the hapax legomenon θεράπων in his reference to Moses as a "servant" when he contrasts Moses with Jesus in Heb 3:1-6. He states that Moses was faithful as a servant (θεράπων) in God's house, whereas Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. Why did the author of Hebrews choose this particular term? Through a study of the use of θεράπων in the literature from antiquity specifically the cultic and prophetic elements associated with the termit might be concluded that the author of Hebrews deliberately employs this term for Moses in order to depict him as a religious or temple servant, as a priest in the service of Christ, the "Son".

The present volume contains a collection of fourteen essays applying the latest and neglected methods and offering new and innovative insights into the interpretation of the New Testament book To the Hebrews.
The excitingly diverse contributions, which stem from an intriguing international group of senior and younger Hebrews, New Testament, and Old Testament scholars, are presented in three parts: Part One focuses on cultic language, concepts, and practice in Hebrews; Part Two on sociology, ethics, and rhetoric in Hebrews; and Part Three on textual-historical, comparative, and intertextual approaches to Hebrews.
As the first ever compilation of essays on Hebrews by a range of authors, this volume presents an important contribution to the field of New Testament studies. It will particularly appeal to students, teachers, and scholars interested in a variety of critical perspectives on Hebrews and on the New Testament’s third great theologian next to Paul and John. Moreover, the treatment of hermeneutical, cultic, sociological, and comparative matters in the context of biblical, Greco-Roman, and rabbinic literature will make this collection valuable to an even broader readership.

In Heb 9:28, the author of Hebrews expects Christ to “appear a second time,” and in Heb 10:37, the author quotes Hab 2:3: “the coming one will come and will not delay” (10:37). There is little doubt that "the coming one" in 10:37 is a reference to the Messiah. The coming one’s coming without delay is taken by most interpreters as a reference to the Parousia. For example, Craig Koester writes, “The author does not cite Hab 2:3 to prove that Christ will return, but to articulate a belief in the second coming that his listeners already consider to be true on the basis of common Christian teaching.” This essay challenges a Parousia understanding of 9:28 and 10:37. Rather than a second coming to earth, I propose that the Messiah’s coming is a visitation to deceased faithful ones awaiting resurrection. This reading is substantiated by an intertextual reading with Isa 26, a text to which the author alludes at the beginning of Heb 10:37: “in yet a very little while” (Isa 26:20). In Isa 26, Israel is depicted as sufferers awaiting divine rescue out of death. Along similar lines, Jesus’ coming “a second time … to save those eagerly awaiting him” (Heb 9:28) and his coming in Heb 10:37 involves delivering deceased faithful ones out of death. The author is not clear as to the timing of this deliverance, but encourages his hearers in the interim to take heart by looking to Jesus, who despite dying lives and sits at the right hand of God (12:2-3).

The authors of the Book of Jeremiah know the Torah’s establishment structures of diaspora and nation. They know the respective theologies associated with each of those establishment structures and in the face of the nation’s destruction by the Babylonians they envision a future in which the entire dispersed population will assume the roles of both the conquered warrior class and the disappointed priestly class by returning to the pastoral theology of Genesis and “writing the Law on their hearts.”
The author(s) of Jeremiah have the Lord promise the beleaguered population that the days are coming when they will embody their oral traditions in the absence of their national institutions: the temple, the priesthood, and the written law.
The author(s) consideration of the circumstances is entirely within the framework of the Torah loop foreshadowing the theology and ministry of Jesus Christ in the Gospels as argued by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews who replicates Jeremiah's "Gospel before the Gospels" in his letter.

Note: Since the theological argument of the Letter to the Hebrews is the same theological argument of the Book of Jeremiah, and also the pastoral theology of Genesis, the Letter to the Hebrews cannot be anti-Semitic. It is an internal argument within Judaism over the abandonment of the Torah loop which prescribes "writing the Law on your heart" when the nation's institutions are destroyed and its people forced into diaspora...

ZNW 2 015; ‫وﻫﻮ‬ -‫ﻫﺺ(ﺀةس‬ Filtvedt ‫ﻇﻪ‬ > ‫ا^اﺟﺎه‬ in Hebrews ‫ﻫﺄاه^اﻫة‬ Creation and Ansicht infrage zu stellen, dass der Hebräer -' ‫إﺀ‬ ‫ا؛‬ Aufsatz sucht ‫ا‬ ‫ار‬ ‫آ'‬ : Abstract licht auf die Schöpfung habe. Zunächst wird das Verhältnis‫؛‬ brief eine negative als Mitschöpfer aller Hinge u n d seiner Stellung als escha -‫ن،[[<ﺀﺑﻤﺎ‬ ‫ا‬ ‫الﺑﻢ.،‬ zwischen tologlscher Erbe aller Hinge untersucht. Sodann wird die Tatsache in den Blick genom m en, dass sich der H ebräerbrief au f die Schöpfung«.'rziihiung der Genesis bezieht, um eines seiner eschatologischen H auptthem en zu entwickeln, näm lich

You can find the full thesis here:
http://hdl.handle.net/2263/63345

This thesis makes a unique contribution in the field of New Testament studies with specific attention to New Testament theology and the Christology of Hebrews. It explores the relationship between Sonship and the ascension in the book of Hebrews. It argues that the ascension of Jesus reveals the nature of his Sonship.
First, chapters two and three of this study examine the Sonship of Jesus in Hebrews 1. It portrays Jesus as both the Messianic and the divine eternal Son. While recent scholarship has questioned whether the Son in Hebrews is a divine Sonship, this thesis demonstrates that Hebrews portrays Jesus as divine.
Second, this study argues that Heb. 2 contains a “Second Adam Christology.” The Son shares in true humanity and is appointed to fulfill the destiny of humanity. In this humanity, he is crowned with glory and honor in fulfillment of Ps. 8. The Son stands in solidaric representation of the people of God. This second Adam function is both kingly and priestly as representative who leads God’s people to this glory.
Third, as this eschatological man who is crowned as king and priest the Son ascends into heaven. This is set against the background of apocalyptic literature where heaven is a temple and the dwelling place of God. The Son is portrayed in Hebrews as ascending into a true tabernacle that is heaven itself. He enters heaven as both king and priest of the age to come because he himself has first come to participate in the age to come.
Finally, the study demonstrates that the obedience of the Son qualifies him for his ascension and eschatological ‘perfection.’ We argue that the theme of obedient trust and crying out to God is an Adamic-Davidic role with a Psalmic background. We conclude, in the book of Hebrews, Christ is the eternal Son who also functions in the Adam-David role of sonship. His actions as the true human exercising trust and obedience qualify him to ascend up into heaven crowned with humanity’s eschatological glory.

This study recovers the voice of Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531) as a major contributor in the history of biblical interpretation.  Jeff Fisher focuses on Oecolampadius’s Hebrews commentary (1534) derived from his theology lectures at the University of Basel in 1529–1530, and compares it with the exegesis of more than twenty-five of the most relevant interpreters from the early church to the Reformation.  He labels Oecolampadius’s reading of Scripture as Christoscopic, demonstrating how it adapted the Alexandrian interpretive notion of Christ as the goal (scopus) of all Scripture.  Fisher shows that when describing the shifts in biblical interpretation at the time of the Reformation, it can no longer be overlooked that Oecolampadius’s approach served as an essential step in the development of the interpretative approaches used by John Calvin and others, and that Oecolampadius remains influential to the way the Bible is interpreted today.

What is the discipline of the Lord? What do you normally think of when you hear that phrase, and how does “the discipline of the Lord” relate to suffering? Relating suffering to the concept of discipline might at first seem foolish or absurd. But, could this understanding of the discipline of the Lord be based on the wisdom of the Word?

In Heb 12:1-13, the writer grapples with just this issue.  Carefully reflecting on this passage can help us answer the questions, What exactly is the discipline of the Lord, and do faithful believers experience it?

The meaning of the firstborn’s eisagoge into the oikoumene in Hebrews 1,6a is greatly disputed. Proposed interpretations are the presentation of the Son after the creation, his incarnation, his baptism, his exaltation and his parousia. The arguments seem to speak for the lastmentioned and against the currently very popular exaltation reading.

This is a timely book. A revision of Filtvedt's PhD thesis (MF Norwegian School of Theology, 2014, under Reidar Hvalvik), it steers straight for the cross-section of two currents in the scholarly conversation. One, within Hebrews scholarship, is the interminable discussion about the ethnic and religious identity of the letter's recipients and the connected, and rather more interesting, question of its relation to the parting of the ways. The other is the application of social-scientific theories concerning identity to early Christian texts, a trend which has largely passed Hebrews by. Filtvedt navigates these potentially treacherous waters with care.

This presentation examines the creation motif in various New Testament passages in order to establish the beliefs of the New Testament writers concerning the creation event in Genesis.  It offers a brief examination of creation passages in the New Testament, including John 1 and Hebrews 1 and compares these texts with the beliefs of modern scholars and offers some conclusions concerning the role of faith in making a decision concerning the creation event in Genesis.

This essay demonstrates that matters of social disparity, stemming from colonization, within a South African context can be addressed by a social-scientific reading of Hebrews 13:11-14. Social-scientific criticism is concerned with laying bare the cultural and social influences upon a text in the ancient world. It is a hermeneutical approach that brings the ancient and the contemporary into dialogue by providing a pool of shared presuppositions that enhance the apprehension of meaning, while safeguarding the modern reader from the merely subjective. This article's central thesis advances a tension in the understanding of the Christ who suffered "outside the camp" and the social reengineering that results in the communities born of his crucifixion. Like the movement from Leviticus 16 to Hebrews 13:11-14' a movement from Hebrews 13:11-14 to modern South African society is qualified, presenting redemptive parallels in a continuum that ultimately addresses South African social ills when "outside the camp" is read from a postcolonial vantage point.

In this article the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault (on the fallacy of authorial preoccupation) is applied to Hebrews in order to see what could be gained to enlighten us further.  Hebrew’s status as an anonymous text not only allows us to confront the futility of locating authorship, but also questions the power we give to the author in texts whose authorship we are more secure with.

This volume offers the first in-depth analysis of the literary structure of Hebrews against the background of its most frequently mentioned Sitz im Leben, the ancient synagogue. In the context of the liturgical year and its reconstructed cycle of readings, the text is newly interpreted on the basis of Exod 31:18–32:35 and Jer 31:31–34, so as to demonstrate that Hebrews was an ancient homily for the most important fast-day, Tisha be-Av, on which the destruction of the two temples was commemorated.
The first part presents 20th- and 21st-century scholarship on Hebrews and a new structural analysis. The second part offers a detailed discussion of the ancient synagogue and its liturgy. This allows the reconstruction of the readings on which the text of Hebrews is based and a positioning within the liturgical year. The resulting thesis, that Hebrews is an exhortative homily for Tisha be-Av, is confirmed through a motivic analysis of all the biblical texts read on this fast-day. On the basis of the hermeneutical key thereby established, the third part offers seven cumulative readings of the entire text: structural, contextual, intertextual, rhetorical, theological, socio-historical, and hermeneutical-critical. These generate new interpretations and insights within the horizon of current Hebrews scholarship.
The present monograph is the first to connect research on the ancient synagogue and its liturgy with a comprehensive interpretation of Hebrews that also discusses alternative form-critical avenues and establishes intertextual connections, especially to relevant rabbinic texts. The examination is directed not only to those with a specific interest in Hebrews, but also to scholars and students of the New Testament, Theology, Jewish Studies, and Religious Studies.

*****

Der vorliegende Band bietet erstmals eine fundierte Analyse der literarischen Struktur des Hebräers vor dem Hintergrund seines meistgenannten Sitzes im Leben, der antiken Synagoge. Im Kontext des liturgischen Jahres sowie des rekonstruierten Lesezyklus’ wird die Schrift neu auf der Basis der Lesungen aus Ex 31,18–32,35 und Jer 31,31–34 als antike Homilie zum wichtigsten Fasttag von Tischa be-Aw, an dem der Zerstörung der beiden Tempel gedacht wurde, erschlossen.
Die Untersuchung stellt im ersten Teil die Hebräerforschung des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts sowie eine neue Strukturanalyse vor. Der zweite Teil fügt eine profunde Untersuchung der antiken Synagoge sowie der antiken Synagogenhomilie im liturgischen Kontext hinzu. Diese erlaubt die Rekonstruktion der dem Hebräertext zugrunde liegenden Lesungen und eine Positionierung innerhalb des liturgischen Jahres. Die resultierende These, dass der Hebräer eine mahnende Homilie zu Tischa be-Aw sei, wird im Rahmen einer Motivanalyse sämtlicher zu diesem Fasttag gelesenen biblischen Texte bekräftigt. Im dritten Teil wird der gesamte Text auf der Basis des etablierten hermeneutischen Schlüssels sieben kumulativen Lesungen unterzogen, einer strukturellen, kontextuellen, intertextuellen, rhetorischen, theologischen, sozio-historischen sowie einer hermeneutisch-kritischen. Diese generieren vor dem Horizont der aktuellen Hebräerforschung neue Interpretationsmöglichkeiten und Einsichten.
Die vorliegende Monographie verbindet zum ersten Mal Forschungen zur antiken Synagoge und ihrer Liturgie mit einer kohärenten Interpretation des Hebräertextes, die auch alternative formkritische Ansätze thematisiert sowie intertextuelle Bezüge insbesondere zu relevanten rabbinischen Texten benennt. Die Ausführungen richten sich somit nicht nur an solche mit einem spezifischen Interesse am Hebräer, sondern auch an ForscherInnen und StudentInnen des Neuen Testaments, der Theologie, der Judaistik sowie der Religionswissenschaften.