The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews

The letter to the Hebrews makes no authorship claims within the text.  The letter is quite old; it is quoted by Clement of Rome in 96 AD in Clement's letter to Corinth (says F. F. Bruce and others) and towards the end of the letter, there is a casual mention of Timothy, a traveler with Paul on his missionary journeys.

It has been suggested, from ancient times, that the writer was Paul, the Apostle.  But there are strong arguments against that.  Biblical commentators say that the letter is written in excellent and learned Greek, very different from the rough Greek of Paul's writings.  Some aspects of the style are different too; readers of Paul's letters would expect his customary greeting at the front of the letter, for example.  But most convincing is the simple statement in Hebrews 2:3, that the gospel "was confirmed to us by those who heard him [Jesus]." But Paul repeatedly stressed, in his letters and in his missionary preaching, that he had heard from Jesus directly and that Jesus had appeared to Paul, "last of all, as one untimely born" (I Corinthian 15:8.)  Paul would never have said, "I heard about Jesus from others", as the writer of Hebrews does.

Still, Paul was often suggested as the author of this book in ancient times.  It has been suggested that the motivation for suggesting Paul's authorship was to assist the letter in disputes about the canon of the New Testament, as letters written by Paul tended to be beyond dispute.

If the letter was not written by Paul, it was likely written by someone in Paul's group of travelers. A century later, Clement of Alexandria suggested that it might have been written by Paul in Hebrew and then translated by Luke into Greek.  Origen says that "the thoughts are the apostle's [Paul's]" but that "some say... it was written by Clement [of Rome] ... others that it was written by Luke, the writer of the Gospel and Acts."

Tertullian believed that Barnabas was the author and claims that others in his circle agreed with him.  There is a certain attraction to this claim, as Barnabas was a nickname, "Son of Encouragement" given to Joseph of Cyprus (Acts 4:36) and this exhortation message certainly fits the image of Barnabas as seen in Acts.  This idea also nicely fits with an ending phrase (Heb 13:22) in which the author of the letter even calls it "my word of exhortation."  But then (as others point out), this may have just been a common phrase for a sermon (see Acts 13:15 for example.)

We might agree with Origen that "the thoughts are the apostle's" and suspect that the author was a traveling companion of Paul's.  This would be in agreement with Hebrews 2:3, where the writer claims to have learned the gospel from others who had heard Jesus.  In the late Middle Ages, John Calvin suggested Luke or Clement of Rome as author.  Martin Luther suggested Apollos, another traveler whose ministry and connections with Paul are described in the book of Acts.

One of my favorite suggestions is that maybe the letter is written by the couple, Priscilla and Aquila, with, possibly, Priscilla doing the majority of the writing.  Arguments for this (in addition to their close relationship with Paul) are (1) the first-person plural pronoun "we" occurs in numerous places and (2) if Priscilla was the author, the tendency for others to question a woman's role might explain the fact that the author's name has disappeared from the letter!

Regardless of the suggestions, the letter is from someone in the first century church, most likely a traveling companion of Paul. Although it is not clear where the readers lived, it is reasonable to believe that they were a Jewish community in Roman, for the letter was known in Rome within the first century.

The next post will be on Hebrews 1:1-4.

I am using an old edition of this excellent commentary on Hebrews by F. F. Bruce.  (My copy was published in 1964; I bought it in 1972.   I think I was probably 3 years old then....)