Hebrews canonical?

[Guest]

Hi Steve,

You could be right, but the verses in 1 Corinthians don't necessarily suggest that Paul and Apollos had both been there together. Apollos came to Corinth after Paul had moved on from there (Acts 18). Paul's knowledge of Apollos' teaching may have been principally from hearsay (1 Cor.1:11-12). However, it does seem that Paul and Apollos met up somewhere (probably in Ephesus) because Paul had communicated to Apollos a request that Apollos go to Corinth again (1 Cor.16:12).

[Guest]

Eventually, most, at the time the canon was discovered, came to believe it was Pauline.

The canon was discovered? What do you mean by that?

Did not Athanasius formulate the "canon", calling his particular list "wells of salvation" and applying John's words in Revelation to them?

Rev 22:18, 19 I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

As for FF Bruce's criteria for canonicity, the letter of Clement (Paul's fellow worker) to the Corinthians fits this criteria 100%, and yet the book is not part of the "canon" that Athanasius defined ( the same one which constitutes what we call "The Bible" today).

[Guest]

I mean by that that I don't believe the process of canonization was merely scholastic. I believe the Spirit worked in the body to discover what texts should be considered completely reliable.

[Guest]

1. Apostolic authority (it seems about half the church believed it was Pauline)
2. Antiquity (must be from the Apostolic age (Hebrews qualified)
3. Orthodoxy (the doctrine in Hebrews was respected overwhelmingly)
4. Catholicity (Hebrews was almost universally read and admired by Christians)
5. Traditional use (Hebrews had been used for centuries by churches prior to its canonization)

I've come across this sort of argument - but never from primary sources. Does any know if this is all just conjecture, or whether people really did sit down and apply these criteria? There seems to have been a core canon of about 22 books (still used by the Assryian 'nestorian' church I believe) with others on the periphery, with different status' in different areas. Some have suggested that John canonised the books in his old age, and that this list eventually supplanted the more imperfect lists in other areas (though obviously not in Assyria!), though I haven't found absolute proof of anything like this.

[Guest]

I think Hebrews may quite possibly have been written completely by Luke himself, because the writer seems to have traveled with Timothy (Heb.13:23).

There is some evidence that Hebrews was known as the 'epistle of Barnabas' (rather than the one we know by that name) in the West.

[Guest]

What is the evidence?

[Guest]

What is the evidence?

Well briefly - it was written by a Hellenized Jew who was familiar with the Septuagint version and used it for all but one quotation (Heb. 10:30 - at least this doesn't match the LXX as we have it).
I don't know how far we can trust these things, but one writer says that the writer, though familiar with Alexandrian concepts, does not use Alexandrian grammar:

Frederic Gardiner: “The non-use of the optative is also strongly against the authorship of the Alexandrian Apollos.” See Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, vol. 14 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 355.

This would seem to rule out Apollos. Also the Alexandrians Origen and Clement seem very in the dark as to who wrote it.

Then we have a quote by Tertullian that the book was known - at least in Carthage - as the epistle of Barnabas:

For there is extant withal an Epistle to the Hebrews under the name of Barnabas----a man sufficiently accredited by God, as being one whom Paul has stationed next to himself in the uninterrupted observance of abstinence: “Or else, I alone and Barnabas, have not we the power of working?” And, of course, the Epistle of Barnabas is more generally received among the Churches than that apocryphal "Shepherd" of adulterers. Warning, accordingly, the disciples to omit all first principles, and strive rather after perfection, and not lay again the foundations of repentance from the works of the dead, he says: "For impossible it is that they who have once been illuminated, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have participated in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the word of God and found it sweet, when they shall----their age already setting----have fallen away, should be again recalled unto repentance, crucifying again for themselves the Son of God, and dishonouring Him." "For the earth which hath drunk the rain often descending upon it, and hath borne grass apt for them on whose account it is tilled withal, attaineth God's blessing; but if it bring forth thorns, it is reprobate, and nighest to cursing, whose end is (doomed) unto utter burning." He who learnt this from apostles, and taught it with apostles, never knew of any "second repentance" promised by apostles to the adulterer and fornicator.

Next is the Latin Stichometry, of unknown date, in the Codex Claromontanus (6th century), which contains the epistles of Paul in Latin and Greek. This gives the number of lines of the books of the Old and New Testaments. It does not mention the letter to the Hebrews, but it does refer to an ‘Epistle of Barnabas’. Westcott demonstrated that the number of lines assigned to this letter can only give a work the size of our book of Hebrews, and not the significantly larger apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas. Westcott, Hebrews, xxviii-xxix.
Lastly Jerome says that in the West, people even in his day ascribed it either to Barnabas or Clement - by F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 228.

Barnabas was a Levite and was therefore probably quite familiar with the priestly system.

Well that's about it! Not a great case, but enough for me to think that Barnabas is by far the best candidate.