Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 94

This Epistle (Hebrews) is the production of an anonymous writer. Some have ascribed it to Luke, others to Paul. In the early days of Christianity it was rejected as Apocryphal.

Hebrews is an oddity in the New Testament. While New Testament tradition is able to name the authors of all the other books, Hebrews eludes us. While the Church Fathers argued for Pauline authorship, the compiler of the New Testament clearly did not think the letter was Pauline. The Pauline epistles are not arranged by date of authorship or by topic, but by length. Romans is the longest, and as we read through the epistles, they get shorter and shorter, ending in the very short letter to Philemon (although some early compilations like Sinaiticus have a different order). After Philemon, this much longer letter to the Hebrews appears, again, indicating that it was written by a different author.

The most likely dating of the book is around the year 65. The book mentions sacrifices in the present tense, and makes no reference to the temple's destruction. The main argument of Hebrews is that it only appears that the Jews who rejected Jesus won the culture war against Jews who follow Jesus. The temple's destruction would have been a knockdown argument that times have changed and the temple sacrifices are no longer adequate. That's another good reason to believe that the book was written before 70.

Hebrews was also quoted by early Church Fathers. Clement of Rome, one of the earliest known sources, quotes from the book of Hebrews. At the very least, this shows that the book had some level of acceptance and that it was written decades before the Second Century.

Troki also charges that the book was rejected as apocryphal. This is not accurate. There is a core of undisputed New Testament documents among the early Church Fathers, and a set of books considered "disputed." The term only means that the book was missing from lists of the Canon of Scripture, not that anyone argued against these books being in the Canon.

The books are:
Hebrews
James 
2 Peter
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation

Hebrews is missing from the Muratorian Fragment. This is not very good evidence that it is missing, since the Muratorian Fragment itself is only partially complete. Hebrews might be in there, but in a part of it that we do not have. The Fragment is better for helping us find out what was included, but not what was excluded.

A Chester Beatty papyrus known as P46 (dated around 200) includes Hebrews in the Canon.

In the early 4th Century, Eusebius was commissioned to look at both the history of Christianity and of Jesus, and to separate fact from fiction. This was the original work on trying to get behind the legends and get a glimpse of the Historical Jesus. Eusebius concludes that the book of Hebrews, unlike the later books which did not make it into the New Testament, received universal attestation from the early church.

A. Lukyn Williams notes that similar problems exist in the Tanakh regarding who wrote Joshua, Judges, Kings, Job, Ecclesiastes, Chronicles, and most of the Psalms. While the rabbis might have attestation in the tradition, the church attributed Hebrews to Paul. One might argue that scholarship, even conservative scholarship, has rejected Pauline authorship. However, the same thing goes for the books in Tanakh as well.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.