THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS: a brief guide for correctly interpreting it.
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- Опубликовано: 13 апр 2020
- Some important things to know about the purposes and audience of the Letter to the Hebrews that will help correctly interpret its "warning passages." Another helpful video from ASKABIBLEPROF.COM.
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Thanks for sharing.
Glad to know you watched it, I hope you found it beneficial.
Thanks.
Thanks for watching.
Thank you for your teaching. I find it interesting that we are only concerned with the biblical audience when we are interpreting passages that do not fit our presuppositions. The fact is, we can find warning passages throughout the entirety of scripture...directed toward (either) Israel or the N.T. believer. We can also find passages that ensure our election...both are true at the same time. We fail to understand because we are not infinite beings...we are limited by time and space; God is not.
Your observations make a good point. However, passages that warn of certain damnation and separation for the Lord are not possible for the authentic believer that trusts in Christ. It is to those that disingenuously confess belief that such passages extend a valid warning. God never makes meaningless warnings. As with the case in Hebrews, those can confess trust and devotion to God but reject the sacrifice provided by the Lord Jesus Christ. One can't claim belief in God and reject his provision for sin at the same time. To these and others that might make others similar confessions, the warning passages of Hebrews explain that such confessions have no hope for avoiding certain wrath from God.
@@askabibleprof7099 I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I do enjoy your teaching, even though we may disagree in certain areas.
@@eriksgamingpage It's always nice to have reasoned interaction with viewers. Thanks for watching. Blessings.
Doc, another excellent teaching video. Thank you.
Glad that you found it helpful. Blessings.
Thank you for sharing this! I find these videos helpful in my study and give me a more in-depth look into appropriately questioning my review of the text for better understanding.
Great, always glad to know someone is benefiting from these videos.
Excellent
Glad you found it helpful.
Regarding Heb 3:12. The writer seems to be referring back to the Israelite mindset in the psalm as that of an evil, unbelieving heart, and thinks that many in his audience may be subject to the same condition. Interestingly, if you look up the Greek original the word order "evil heart of unbelief" which makes you question whether an evil heart gives rise to disbelief or disbelief gives rise to an evil heart. Or, my translation grammar is inaccurate.
James, sorry it took so long to respond, I actually thought I had done so. Wallace states the genitive word "unbelieving" is a genitive of general reference, which is basically a catch all for these types of grammatical constructions that some find difficult. It is therefore interpreted as "an evil heart with respect to unbelief." I think this is not likely. A more compelling interpretation is an "Attributive Genitive" (Wallace, Beyond the Basics, 86). The is more likely because as Wallace explains it is consistent Semantic mindset. It means that the genitive noun is explaining an distinctly inherent quality of the head noun it relates to (i.e., "heart"). So, this construction would be "an evil heart that is controlled by unbelief." The point is that it is not a question of what makes the heart evil (that it is filled with unbelief, which sounds like a genitive of mean, which is not common). The writer is simply describing the condition of the heart of unbelievers. He is not saying that their hearts are evil because of unbelief, or their hearts are unbelieving and therefore evil. I thought there were some other possibilities, but Wallace described them as either not common or even rare. I would have been okay with a genitive of means, but again, I would prefer to stick with common explanations, and the attributive genitive seems likely since it is consistent with a Jewish way of explaining or describing things. Hope that gives you some direction. If you don't have Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, then I highly recommend it. Very usable and useful.
This was pretty good. Thanks for the video. Hebrews is an epistle that has caused me a great deal of consternation over the years. Is there a commentary you would recommend?
Great question, the current commentary I rely on most is Bruce's commentary in the NICNT series by Eerdmans. That is not to say I agree with everything he wrote, but it is the one I rely on the most when working through Hebrews. I'm sure there are others that are good, but I have a great preference for commentaries by Bruce because he writes in a concise and clear manner. Hope this helps.
@@askabibleprof7099 That's helpful. Thanks for the info. I have long had study Bibles but have only recently moved toward buying dedicated commentaries. I will have to look that author up.
On a related note, as a single-ish (technically double) volume commentary, do you have an opinion on The Bible Knowledge Commentary? And are there any other single-volume commentaries that you would recommend?
@@sorenpx
Bible Hub has commentaries for all the canonical texts - though most are older - BUT some very valuable efforts - cf Alford (NT), Meyer (NT) - simply the considerations they make are most helpful!
@@greglogan7706 Thanks for the info! I do use Bible Hub occasionally. I will have to pay more attention to the commentaries.
@@sorenpx
If you spend the time to work through some of both Alford and Meyer, while perhaps not entirely satisfied with their conclusions, you will become familiar with a much more rigorous level of analysis - inc. the kinds of issues to consider in exegeting a passage.
Paul, in fact, did call them brothers but not holy brothers.
There is an eternal difference.
Please refer to my previous reply.
Please take a look at the Greek and you will see that Peter and Stephen did not call the crowd that gather around them brothers. They called them “men of Israel”. The writer to the Hebrews not only called his readers “brothers” but “holy brothers”. He is clearly speaking to a saved audience.7
As to your assertion that Peter and Stephen did not refer to their unbelieving audiences as brothers: Peter called his unbelieving audience "brethren" (which is the same Greek word) in Acts 2.29; and in Acts 7.2 Stephen referred to his unbelieving audience as "brethren." The same Greek word "adelphoi" was used by Peter, Stephen, Paul, and the writer of Hebrews when addressing audiences to which they were presenting the gospel. I hope this helps with observing the biblical evidence that supports the assertion that the author of Hebrews was writing to a mixed audience of both believing and unbelieving Jews.
Michael - Yes, painfully obvious isn't it...
But pet doctrines must be maintained using any sleight of hand and dishonest ruse.... esp. by evangelical leadership....
The argument that the writer is talking to unbelieving Jews ignores this statement at the beginniong of chapter 3:-
Hebrews 3:1 - New International Version (1984) (US)
1. Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.
Hebrews 3:1 - KJV
1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
Hebrews 3:1 - New American Standard Bible (1995)
1. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession;
In each of these translations, the audience is CLEARLY identified as ‘HOLY brethren’ and sharers or partakers in a 'Heavenly calling’.
There is no possible way to make this text apply to unbelievers of ANY kind; Jew or Gentile. Unbelievers are not HOLY, nor are they sharing in the Heavenly calling that all Believers share. Granted that the term ‘BRETHREN’ on its own doesn’t limit the audience to Born again people, the modifier ‘HOLY’ emphatically insists such a limitation, as does the added qualification that these brethren are sharers of a Heavenly calling, which totally denies any possibility that the intended audience consists of unbelievers, as such people don;t have any such calling.
To claim that the writer was addressing unbelieving Jews (or ANY unbelievers) is absolutely an exercise in EISEGESIS (reading INTO the text) rather than EXEGESIS (reqading OUT OF the text) The letters of the New Testament are ALL written to BELIEVERS and although an unbeliever may hear the voice of the Holy Spirit through the reading of any part of the word of God, the oriuginal INTENT of the writer of each Epistle is to INSTRUCT, CORRECT, and WARN the target audience regarding things of God. Paul states that the unbeliever CANNOT understand the things he writes about, because the unbeliever doesn’t have the ability to understand spiritual things. Taking this statement and applying to the claim that the writer of Hebrew was including UNBELIEVING Jews in his intended audience, we can see that it’s impossible because the unbelieving Jew cannot understand the spiritual things included in the letter, any better than an unbelieving Gentile would.
I appreciate the interaction, but I recommend that any comments be more manageable and brief, and deal with one issue at a time. I'm sure we won't be able to agree on all things. Nevertheless, the author clearly views unbelievers as part of his audience because he directly identified them in Heb. 3.12. He's appeal only makes sense if one recognizes that the author understood that some unbelievers would be in his audience. If fact, pretty much all of chapter 3 points to the unbelief of Israel (cf. vss 7-18). If one is inclined to view these verses as applying to true believers, then I have to respectfully disagree. Nevertheless, thanks for watching.
Here we go from Prof Apologist: In order to interpret Hebrews correctly you MUST have the correct APPROACH
Already he sounds like the fake phd white who said the same thing about the greek word theopneustia being interpreted incorrectly in the excellent book _Invention of the Inspired Text, The: Philological Windows on the Theopneustia of Scripture_ (The Library of New Testament Studies) Paperback - October 20, 2022 by John C. Poirier where White "refutes it" immediately BECAUSE the author does not believe it was written by Paul. Yep, that's apologetics 101> Let's see where ProfApol goes.
I'm going to guess he even thinks Paul wrote Hebrews as did the fake phd White. However, even on this guess besides John Owen and his 7 volumes on Hebrews, who also thought Paul wrote it but that was in the 17th century. I think it was 1668 for the first volume. I own all 24 volumes of Owen and the 16 vol of his works I ate beans and rice for a year in order to afford it when there was a sale at Great Christian Books, who no longer exist. Anyway, I'm only 54 seconds in this video so I'd better step it up.
Nope he ain't gonna go into authorship however I am going to find a video to see who he thinks the author is since this is taking up my time> He never does so he probably thinks it is Paul and I assume that because 'normal' people usually bring up the fact that 'nobody knows who wrote Hebrews except God and the author'
OK, his main reason for people not understanding and interpreting Hebrews "correctly" is because one MUST BE a believer.
Over and Out - a saying that is NOT used in real Military jargon but it is usually said in movies. One can say "over" OR "out" but not both at the same time. 'over' means the one party is done speaking so the other one can speak and 'out' means the conversation is totally over.
Also in movies about war they say "I repeat" when it is an important message to be conveyed but in the Military one does not ever say that. If you accidentally say it in training you are bound for deep punishment and discipline. The correct saying is "I say again" NOT 'I repeat' - REPEAT means to bomb again so it can be a deathly error
There is no point in attempting to dialogue with this ProfApol so I am OUT which in Morse Code is: - - - . . - -
-... -.-- . = bye
Interesting. I'm not sure why my credentials are important. Nevertheless, the author of Hebrews is unknown and cannot be identified. I do not hold to Pauline authorship of the epistle. Lastly, one doesn't have to be a "believer" in order to understand the contents of this epistle and its message. Thanks for watching. It would be appreciated if any future comments or interactions were brief.
@@askabibleprof7099 you totally twisted my words, and you twist your own words which I quoted verbatim. I don't think I've seen a more dishonest person on the Internet. Your words were you must have the correct approach in order to interpret the Bible. You're a Putz Brief enough?
@@gmac6503 By "approach" I mean that if you incorrectly understand the author's audience, then it will adversely impact your ability to correctly interpret what he wrote. That is simply fundamental literary analysis. It's not about being a Christian or a non-believer. I don't understand how that is "dishonest." If you have such disdain for me, then why bother watching or commenting?
@@askabibleprof7099 funny how he ignores everything in my comments. Your 'credentials' are mentioned because you go under the name professor and for the fifth or sixth time you're not a scholar nor do you read scholarly works. I gave the reasons at least six times on your vids. It would be appreciated if you'd stop making videos but you're going to go ahead and do them anyway.
@@askabibleprof7099 ok but you understand the authors' audience is an interpretation that one must make also. If Hebrews was written in the second century, as many think, or like the pastoral epistles, which the consensus is, Paul did not write them, and it is definitely written for a later time, and the reason why the author gives new rules on how to behave which contradict Paul's actual writings plus the fact we don't know who wrote the gospels, or the revelation of John and most Christians don't even know that Paul's epistles were written before the first gospel Mark was written. And then we get to the gospel of John, which is antisemitic, and the word Pharisee is totally misunderstood by most, coupled with the fact that Paul's use of the law is totally misunderstood and brings up conflict and some point to him and say he was anti-Jewish! Modern scholarship is dealing with all that. Joseph Sievers & Amy-Jill Levine's book _The Pharisees_ is the most important book on that topic and needs to be read by everyone.