Who Wrote the Book of Hebrews?

who wrote the book of hebrews almost every book in the new testament was written as a letter with a clear signature by the author luke claimed that he was the author of the gospel of luke in the book of acts john claimed that he wrote the gospel of john the epistle of first and second and third john and revelation peter claimed that he wrote the epistles of first and second peter and so on but there is one book that stands out notably the book of hebrews many people assume that paul wrote this book since paul did write most of the books of the new testament but paul was specifically called the apostle to the gentiles because his ministry was focused on reaching not primarily the jews but the non-jewish people of europe with the gospel the book of hebrews on the other hand is all about the jews and the jewish tradition sacrifices and laws is that really the kind of book that paul would write plus paul himself says that he always includes a signature with his letters in 2 thessalonians 3 17 he writes the salutation of paul with mine own hand which is the token in every epistle so isn't it kind of important that we know who wrote it i mean if it wasn't written by a trusted source isn't that kind of a big deal how can we accept hebrews as scripture if we don't even know who wrote it well there are a couple different theories on the authorship of hebrews some have theorized that hebrews was written by the mighty teacher apollos apollos is mentioned several times in scripture but he is first found in the city of ephesus in acts 18 where the faithful couple aquila and priscilla found him aquila and priscilla were great supporters of paul and when they found apollos he was teaching the baptism of john which seems to mean that he was teaching that men should repent because the messiah was coming soon that's what john preached but of course he was unaware that jesus the messiah had already come so aquila and priscilla took him aside and taught him the gospel of jesus of his life of his death and his resurrection acts tells us that apollos not only became a believer in christ because of aquila and priscilla but he also began to mightily convince the jews and that publicly showing by the scriptures that jesus was christ this is exactly the kind of content that we find in hebrews hebrews is a book to the jews that shows how jesus fulfills the old testament scriptures so i can see how some may think that apollos could be the author but there is a problem with this theory because while apollos was a great teacher he was not an apostle every other book of the new testament was either written by an apostle or was written by someone who got their information from the apostles for instance the gospels of matthew and john were written by the apostles matthew and john but the gospels of luke and mark were written by luke the physician who followed paul the apostle and john mark who was a disciple of peter the apostle these two men make it clear in their gospels that though they were not apostles themselves they received their information from apostles peter was clearly the main source of information for both of them which explains why both of their accounts are so similar and include largely the same stories because they both had the same human source anyway what i'm pointing out is that if hebrews was not written by an apostle or sourced from an apostle can we really trust it as scripture before jesus left he told the apostles that to them the holy spirit would come and that he would guide them into all truth that he would teach them all things and bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever jesus had said to them this was jesus predicting the writing of the new testament through the apostles the holy spirit would remind the apostles of what he'd said and guide them and teach them what would then be passed on to the church in the form of new testament writings but apollos wasn't there to hear what jesus said if he was the writer of hebrews how could the holy spirit have brought to his memory the things that jesus said if apollos wrote hebrews it would be the only book in the entire new testament that did not come from the apostles themselves so i think the author must have been someone else another logical conclusion is that perhaps the apostle peter wrote hebrews because peter's ministry as opposed to paul's was primarily to the jewish people paul himself said it this way that god wrought effectually in peter to the apostleship of the circumcision or the jews and that he was mighty in paul toward the gentiles but the problem is there's really no other reason to think that peter wrote the book especially since the argumentation and style of peter's writing is very different from the writing we find in hebrews plus during the concluding farewell of hebrews we find this interesting statement they of italy salute you this suggests that the book was written from italy and the preceding statement speaks of the imprisonment and release of timothy paul's faithful companion as far as we know peter was never imprisoned with timothy in italy but it's very likely that paul was timothy didn't travel with peter he traveled with paul which brings us to the original theory that most people believe the idea that the apostle paul wrote the book of hebrews paul not only traveled with timothy but also spent many years in italy during the time of the writing of this book but if this is the case why would he write this book if his ministry was to the gentiles and not the jews and why was paul's signature not included like he did in every other letter well first of all though paul's ministry was primarily to non-jewish people he commonly preached and reasoned with jews in fact in every city he visited he would regularly start by attending the jewish synagogue to reason with them from the scripture before ever preaching to the gentiles of the city and one of the greatest themes throughout all of paul's writings is the old testament law and how it is fulfilled in jesus christ just read the books of romans galatians colossians and practically every other pauline epistle in fact the theme of hebrews though directed at the jews is actually very paul like but here's the kicker we actually do know that paul did write scripture to the jews check out second peter 2 15. here peter is writing to jewish believers and he says even as our beloved brother paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you and he says that in paul's writing to the jews there are things hard to be understood which they that are unlearned and unstable rest as they do also the other scriptures so peter actually tells us that there is a holy spirit inspired scripture that paul wrote to the jewish people what else could that be but the book of hebrews but then if paul was the author of hebrews why didn't he sign the book well there are three theories about this that could be correct and if true would explain the lack of signature first it's been thought that perhaps paul didn't sign the book because he knew his name was controversial among the jews in acts 21 the jewish believers told paul of how he was perceived by other jews saying thou see his brother how many thousands of jews there are which believe and they are all zealous of the law and they are informed of thee that thou teaches all jews which are among the gentiles to forsake moses saying that they ought not to circumcise their children neither to walk after the customs paul when preaching to gentiles did not command them to follow all of the rituals of the old testament law in turn many jews thought that he had rejected the old testament which of course he did not but maybe since paul knew that some jews thought poorly of him he chose not to sign his name to the letter to the hebrews maybe he intended to let the argument stand for itself without his name preventing many jews from ever reading it maybe but still i don't think that's the best answer i mean the jews did eventually find out who wrote it because peter wrote about paul writing it right so then there's another theory as to why he didn't sign his name maybe he wasn't the only author you'd probably be surprised to know how many different people helped paul write his epistles for example philippians was written by both paul and timothy colossians was written by paul and timothy with input from aristarchus and justice and epaphras and luke and demas so maybe just maybe this book was written by paul and apollos and maybe others as well maybe there were so many names attached to it that it didn't make sense to write the names in a salutation maybe they just wanted it to be about the message and not the names behind it this is actually a very plausible answer but i think there is another element to this that we may not have mentioned yet that is that hebrews is a very preachy letter by that i mean that it reads like a sermon rather than a letter it doesn't begin with greetings it begins with god who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets half in these last days spoken unto us by his son and it continues in a logical flow of thought all the way through to the conclusion with no breaks for the writer to stop think and then decide to write on a new subject it all flows together as one speech and i think it was perhaps the message that paul preached from synagogue to synagogue perhaps every time he came to a new city he would go to the jewish worshipers and preach the sermon that is now the book of hebrews and maybe after years and years of preaching this luke and timothy and paul got together to transcribe it into the book of hebrews this explains why it doesn't read like a letter because it's not a letter it explains why there is no signature because this was a sermon not a letter and it was probably penned by several men who had heard paul preaching the message not necessarily by paul himself either way when the churches received this message they recognized that it was from a trusted source and accepted it as scripture so we can be sure that those who personally knew the apostles knew that this book one way or another came from them we don't have to doubt the authenticity of hebrews as a book of holy scripture [Music] but i think that paul was the human author of the book of hebrews though it probably was written down on paper by someone else like luke or timothy what do you think was paul the author of hebrews or do you think it could have been someone else if it was paul why didn't he sign it could it have been a pauline sermon that was simply transcribed by luke or timothy i think so let me know what you think in the comments below now before i go i want to sincerely thank you for watching this video if you like this content don't forget to hit subscribe to support the channel and to see more content like this and follow the bible explained on facebook at facebook.com forward slash the bible explained i really do appreciate your support also i want to remind you that the entire bible is ultimately about one thing the redemption of mankind by jesus christ you see the bible teaches that all men are sinners and that no sinner can have eternal life with god in heaven because we must pay for our sins for eternity separated from god in hell that's definitely bad news but the bible is all about this one thing the good news that jesus died to pay the penalty for our sin on the cross since your sin has been paid for by christ all that is left for you to do is to accept that gift by faith if you've never accepted the gift of god by faith won't you do that today leave a comment or send me a message and i'll be happy to talk to you more about having your sins forgiven by jesus christ you

Channel: The Bible Explained

Views: 9,641

Keywords: Bible, Scripture, Jesus, Christ, Christian, God, Faith, Truth, Hebrews, Paul, Apollos, Peter, Timothy, Luke, Apostle

Id: P5KTi8ko8Is

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020