Author of Hebrews?

[RICHinCHRIST]

I called Steve's show a few weeks ago asking about the Didache and why it was not included in the New Testament. It seems that the best reason it, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas were not added to the Canon were due to their lack of apostolic authorship.

It crossed my mind recently that the authorship of the book of Hebrews is debated. I've heard some say that Paul wrote it, or Priscilla, or possibly Luke. Are there any other possibilities? If apostolic authorship is a necessary credential for inspired books, what about Hebrews? Or even Luke and Acts for that matter? It seems that apostolic authorship is not necessary for those books. Are there good answers to these questions? I'm curious...

[backwoodsman]

You might want to read ISBE's article on Hebrews. It doesn't say much about the canonization question, but does cover authorship.

http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/v ... mber=T4218

[Apollos]

In theWest many thought it had been written by Barnabas

[RICHinCHRIST]

Thanks for the comments.

Mark was not written by a follower of Christ, but by a convert of Peter who wrote down Peter's sermons and compiled the Gospel from them.

Yes, Papias informs us of that. I'm not questioning the authenticity of Hebrews, or of Luke or Acts either. It is interesting to me, though, that we accept the canonicity of Hebrews even though we do not know for sure (it seems) who wrote it. There must be better reasons for accepting Hebrews, Jude, or 2 Peter (and all the other 'questionable' books from the council, Revelation I think too..), than for accepting the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas. That is, of course, assuming that the Nicean council made 100% right decisions! I'm in no way coming against their selection (since I have not done much thorough research into this). I would find it interesting, however, if we were to find out later that other books could equally have been included (or excluded from the canon as we have it now). Without doing much research, I guess I have to just take the Nicean council's choices by faith. I hope that God was meticulously sovereign, at least in that process! If not, it would seem that Sola Scriptura itself relies on a church tradition.

[Apollos]

The Nicene Council actually didn't say anything about the canon so far as we know.

[Paidion]

There are various theories concerning the author of Hebrews. A fairly common was is that it was Apollos (i.e. the apostle Apollos, not the Apollos who posts to Theos).

My own thought is that it was Clement of Rome. Some reject this idea out of hand since Clement was not a Jew, and supposedly only a Jew could have written Hebrews, contrasting the Old Order with the New as the author did.
However, to my mind there is a similarity in Clement's letter to the Corinthians, in both style and content, to that of the letter to the Hebrews. I think Clement was quite familiar with Judaism, and the OT prophecies concerning Christ.

I have no solid way to back up my theory — but then neither do others who hold to a different theory as to the authorship of the book.

[Paidion]

As for the "διδαχη", (the "teaching"), there are certainly a lot of good instructions in it. Notwithstanding, some parts suggest either that it was written at a later period, or that it was interpolated with words from a later period.

Here are some examples:
1. In Chapter 7, very specific instructions are given to the baptizer and the baptizee. They are to fast prior to the baptism — especially the one who is to be baptized. He is to be ordered to fast one or two days before being baptized. This sounds legalistic. The first persons to be baptized, as recorded in the gospels and the book of Acts, underwent no preliminaries. They were simply baptized.

2. In chapter 8, "the teaching" instructs us not to fast on the days which "the hypocrites" (presumably the Jews) fast (Monday and Thursday are specified). Rather we are to fast on Wednesday and Friday. No reason is given for this. Did the Lord, through the apostles, really teach us to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays?

3. In chapter 9, the communion is called "the Eucharist" ("the Thanksgiving"). Although this is a beautiful and ancient designation for the communion, it is never mentioned in the New Testament. It is a word which was not used in the first century, for the taking of the bread and wine.

[steve7150]

The whole flow of Hebrews is to convince readers of the superiority of Christ over all creation and that sounds like a theme Paul used in a few books. Also there are about a half dozen Pauline expressions in this book but it is written stylistically superior then Paul's typical epistle. To me it's interesting that Apollos previously was mentioned as being mighty in the scriptures and he did spend time with Paul. Maybe there was a collaberation between the two?