Re: authorship of Hebrews

From: Jeffrey Gibson (jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu)
Date: Sun Feb 09 1997 - 00:37:40 EST


On Sun, 9 Feb 1997, Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:

> Carlton Winbery wrote:
>
> > Esdras). Remember Paul quotes from the LXX about as often as from
> > something else and Hebrews and I Peter most all the time.
>
> I have heard in the past that Hebrews was probably not written by Paul
> but more probably Appollos (who was mighty in the scriptures), because
> all the quotations in Hebrews are from the Septuagint. Does anyone have
> anymore information about this or comments about the validity of this
> argument?
>
> cheers,
> Andrew
The most forceful recent argument for authorship by Appollos was stated
by H.W. Montifiore in his commentary on Hebrews. But rejection of Paul's
authorship has, to my knowledge, never bee on account of it's author
quoting the LXX per se. It's the way the author quotes it that seems
different from Paul's (See George Caird's article in Canadian Journal of
Theology on this). More importantly, it was stylistic and theological
differences between Hebrews and the Pauline corpus which led to the
rejection by those in the eastern church of Hebrews as Pauline.

As to the argument that LXX quotations = Appollos as author, the logic is
faulty. It works just as well for Lukan authorship (as some have
argued!) In any case, it would argue for Appollos if and only if
Appollos were the only member of the early church who knwe and quoted
from the Septuagint. Incidentally, (if I'm not mistaken) Harack argued that
the author of Hebrews MUST have been a woman -- on the grounds
that only a woman (Priscilla, I think) could have held such harsh
doctrines as "no second repentance!

Jeffrey Gibson
jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu



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