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KarenHebrews: a key to the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Restoration?
Posted by joespencer on February 9, 2007
If you go to here, you should see a very long list of questions on Hebrews chapter 1. I’ve spent the past week or so generating these questions in hopes of having some very fruitful discussion here on the blog about the first chapter of Hebrews (and I’d like to continue doing this, chapter by chapter, all the way through the Book of Hebrews, if possible). I’ve also done this with an eye (per recent discussions about the relation between the blog and the wiki) to taking any and all discussion back to the wiki in translated form as commentary (here’s your chance to help add to the wiki by writing on the blog!).
But enough meta-meta-discourse. On to meta-discourse.
Why the Book of Hebrews? As the title of the post suggests, I’m more and more convinced that the Book of Hebrews is a kind of central book for Latter-day Saints. It offers the most sustained and complicated theology in the New Testament. It presents an almost systematic interpretation of the Old Testament. And the more I read of Joseph Smith’s writings, sermons, and revelations, the more I am convinced that it was at the heart of all of his thinking. That is, it presents a sort of guide to Restoration thinking as well. Since we are all studying the New Testament this year, it might be nice to try to think, through the Book of Hebrews, about how the theology of the New Testament opens the possibility of interpreting all scripture. Oh, yeah: and scriptures are cool, too.
But enough meta-discourse. On to discourse.
I generated these questions going verse by verse trying to generate questions, not by trying to interpret or study that chapter. Whenever a question came, I immediately wrote it down, and I did not look for an answer at all. This has provided me with a kind of bird’s eye view of the chapter, and it has suggested some interesting things to me. I’d like to draw attention to a couple of themes that emerged in the course of asking these questions, and then I’d like to ask anyone and everyone to discuss anything they would like from the chapter. Perhaps the best format for the discussion would be to quote a question in italics and then offer some thoughts as to an answer. Or, of course, if anyone has thoughts that don’t answer one of the questions, feel free just to write up some thoughts. I’d love to see where this goes. Anyway, a couple of themes:
The chapter is a bit of prose, followed by a string of quotations, and then again a bit of prose. This suggests to me a kind of central importance in these quotations, especially because the author of Hebrews never again gives us such a long stretch of quotations all in a row. But this list of quotations is hardly a list! The quotations are arranged into a complex argument, an argument that often ignores the original context of the quoted texts in order to make the point. I think all of this should give us some insight into how the author thought of the Old Testament. More importantly, I think the argument develops a kind of reading of the “plan of salvation,” one that is very different from our circles and lines diagram, but one that is very scriptural: a veil splits the universe into two parts, one side being the Father and an exalted Son (but how is He exalted here?) surrounded with angels who worship until they are sent across the veil to speak to the “heirs of salvation,” who are to be brought across that veil by the angels. Really, this view of the plan is very much like our temple experience’s view (and here is a good example of how prevalent this book’s thought is in Joseph’s revelations, etc.). But I’m not sure how I should think about the relatively loose relation the author has with the stringencies of the OT texts. And I’m not sure what that should tell me about my own “enlightened” relation to the texts. In fact, all of this raises a number of questions for me.
At the very least, I’d like to think about these several questions, then: What does this chapter tell me about reading scripture? What does this chapter teach me about the plan of salvation? Who is Jesus Christ, and what does it mean for Him to be the Son (does this imply a “late” exaltation or an eternal one)? And why are angels so profoundly central to this vision?
Like this:
This entry was posted on February 9, 2007 at 7:41 am and is filed under On studying, Scripture topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Robert C. said
Regarding angels: I think most commentaries take the angels as heavenly beings, very distinct from humans, but I’m thinking Joseph might have come to read this more in terms of angels as sanctified or pre-fallen humans. So I think you are right to hint in your questions (or at least I read this hint into your questions) that the Son was one chosen from among the angels. This would change dramatically the part played by the questions in this chapter which are usually interpreted as questions with obvious answers.
In particular, I think most scholars read the question in 1:5, “For unto which angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee?” as having an obvious “no” answer in the mind of the listeners, explaining away in various (but ultimately not-very-satisfactory, to my mind) ways the fact that some OT passages (not obvious in the KJV, but see Gen 6:2, 4; Ps 29:1; 89:7; Job 1:6; note also Ps 2:7 and 2 Sam 7:14…) refer to angels as sons. But I think we (Mormons that is) have more reason to question the ambiguity of the question here–that is, the question the writer is asking here isn’t just for rhetorical flair, but he is asking a question that, at least if taken seriously, isn’t actually that easy to answer. If any of this has merit, it significantly changes how we might read vv. 13-14.
In particular, verse 13 might be read as a question with a more obvious answer than verse 5. Verse 13: “But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand…?” My answer as a listener: “Well, perhaps it’s true that angels were referred to as sons, and though I can’t remember any of them being addressed individually as God’s son (let alone his begotten son), perhaps I am just not remembering–but I’m quite sure that God never told any of them to sit at his right hand (angels always stood, and the most honored guests at a feast sit at the right hand of the host…).” So, in the end, the effect on how we read verse 13 is perhaps only a subtle difference.
But, if ambiguity is raised in verse 5 and then resolved again in verse 13, verse 14 becomes all the more shocking in calling up the ambiguity of verse 5 again: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” A listener response might be: “The angels, who were possibly referred to as sons in the OT, though I don’t remember for sure, are sent forth to minister them who shall be heirs of salvation? If Christ is declared to be God’s Son and He will be heir (v. 2), then who are these heirs being referred to here that angels minister to? If angels are sometimes referred to as sons, are angels ministering unto other angels? This seems unlikely b/c angels were usually sent to humans. But then in Isa 6, it seems Isaiah was numbered among the angels of heaven and then sent back to mankind as a messenger. So it seems mankind, angels, and sons/heirs are all being linked here….”
Of course I second guess myself on all of this b/c it’s contrary to what seems to be the scholarly consensus, and I haven’t looked carefully at issues such as LXX vs. MT renderings of these angels-as-sons passages, etc. And I’m also not sure if this type of asking ambiguous questions has any precedent in ancient Greek rhetoric. At the least, I wonder if Joseph didn’t have this men-angels-sons ambiguity in his mind while reading this. Also, it is tempting to think about the Vision and the three degrees at work here: humans-angels-sons/heirs.
Robert C. said
Regarding the OT quotations: First, I think this is a very important question. I think this is something that Mormon Studies is going to have to think really hard about. My sense is that there is a lot of what Joseph Smith wrote and said that will have this same flavor, taking scripture passages and putting a spin on them that doesn’t reflect their original context. But that’s too big of a question for me to want to even try to attempt to answer here (I think a typological view is one promising approach; related, I think a reader-response view is another approach worth considering–essentially a “scripture as springboard to revelation” view…).
But more specifically, I think it would be helpful if you fleshed out in more detail how you see the context of these OT quotations being changed. I’ll briefly take up the switch in who’s speaking in Heb 1:8 quoting Ps 45:6-7.
First, I take it as very significant that Ps 45:6 seems to be the psalmist addressing the king as “God.” I’m inclined to read the interplay going on here as Christ “showing the way” for the rest of us to become heirs, by fulfilling that which the annointed king symbolized–hence, Christ is the first-born that makes the way possible for others to become begotten of God. Next, I think that the writer of Hebrews is taking past scripture as the current word of God, regardless of who was speaking. I think this is corroborated in Heb 4:12 where the word of God is described as “living and active.” Also, more generally, I wonder to what extent we should assume the audience knows OT scripture–how literate were they, how frequently did they hear OT quotations, how significant should we take slight word variations and/or more significant context changes (like this one)? I’m inclined to think that the writer was writing, or knew what he was saying would be written, and anything written will be scrutinized more closely, so even minor changes should in fact be taken as significant. And it’s for this reason that it’s really hard for me not to see in this chapter some very significant interplay going on between what is divine and what is not: sons, the Son, men, kings, king-gods, angels, angels-as-sons, men-as-heirs, etc.
Joe Spencer said
Wow, I set up this gigantic project, and not even I have had enough time for it. Let me get at least a brief response out on angels, broadly speaking.
I think that the traditional discourse of angels as so profoundly different from humans is important. I don’t think Joseph Smith would have liked to hear us conflate the two. In the Book of Abraham, there is a careful distinction between planets and stars, and I think it parallels the distinction between men and angels. One almost gets the sense that angels are related to men, but are ultimately wholly other than men (like a star to a planet). Perhaps we can begin to think about Margaret Barker’s work on apotheosis in this light.
Perhaps this question can also be thought along the lines of the strong distinction/parallel between heaven and earth that runs through Hebrews and the JST. Angels are in heaven, men in earth, and there are different “natures” for each of them in their relative spheres, but they are closely related somehow. This seems to be how Joseph Smith understood them in the “Before 8 August 1839 (1)” discourse (this is in TPJS, though I much prefer the original notes by John Taylor in The Words of Joseph Smith). In fact, the vision of things Joseph has in that discourse undergirds much of my interest in Hebrews. It might be worth posting it bit by bit along the course of this project, or something. Or at least putting it on a wiki sub-page. Hmm….
Robert C. said
Joe #3: I think you’re right that we need to carefully pay attention to the distinction between angels and humans and not conflate the two. Reading a bit more, I’m ready to scrap the approach I was proposing in #1, though I do think these relationships (angels, humans, son, gods) would’ve caught Joseph’s attention and should be considered as possibly influencing some of his views that come out in his writing, for example these passages in D&C 132 where those who enter the everlasting covenant have power over angels who will minister unto them, and the angels are described as those who do not enter into the everlasting covenant (v. 16).
More generally, I still don’t have a good sense as to how much new ground Joseph was staking in his view of angels as former prophets and patriarchs–are there others that have beliefs like this? Would this have been a bit of a shock to Joseph, simply something he hadn’t considered, or something he was somewhat acquainted with (that is, put crassly, having dead prophets appear to him as angels)?
Also, I think you’re right though to think in terms of perhaps a veil between heaven and earth, and therefore angels as the messengers going back and forth between heaven and earth. Fallen man, then, cast out of God’s presence, is lower than the angels (2:7, 9). Nevertheless, the angels are ministers/servants to those “who are to inherit salvation” (1:14).
Joe Spencer said
This is the crux of the issue, this dead people coming back as angels business. I don’t know if we can read a parallel of this in the role Elijah plays in the NT or not. I need to do a little research. It was certainly key to Joseph’s understanding of the whole business. This passage from the “Before 8 August 1839 (1)” discourse is what clinches this for me:
What a way to understand Malachi 4! How does this link up with Hebrews?
Robert C. said
Wow, thanks for this quote–I’ve looked at the “Before 8 Aug” lecture before, but hadn’t remembered this part. I think this is a very place to think about the implications of Joseph’s family theology: the temple is the central place for this intersection between heaven and earth, and the work that goes on in the temple is all about sealing families together.
Thanks, this discussion has really deepened my enthusiasm for studying the rest of Hebrews, looking to see what we can learn about these issues in particular.
Joe Spencer said
In a sense, it looks to me like the first two verses announce the structure of the first chapter: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” The English structure of the verse places between “God” and “his Son” this question of “sundry times” and “divers manners,” as well as “fathers” and “prophets.” The two singulars are split by so many plurals. In a sense, this anticipates the comparison between the singular Son and the plural angels. Even more, it anticipates the gathering up of so many disparate and unconnected OT quotations in the name of the Son (to Whom almost none of them “originally” referred). Is it significant on this account that there are seven quotations gathered together, by the way? Revelation and Hebrews seem implicitly tied together in a number of ways (if for no other reasons than their shared connections to the OT temple and their far more Hebrew flavor): might the number seven be chosen out here for some theological reason? Could the seven verses, these sundry and divers verses, be like the seven angels before the throne, all of whom are gathered together into the single son (seven branches of the singular lampstand)?
Joe Spencer said
I’m really perplexed by “the fathers.” Especially because it is not “our fathers.” This distancing “the” seems to dislodge the rather traditional reading of “Israelites” or “Jews” or just “former generations.” That “the fathers” is a quasi-technical term in Joseph’s revelations, and especially in the Book of Abraham, is also disruptive of a traditional reading: what is meant by “the fathers” here? If these details suggest that “the fathers” does not mean something like “the Isralites and Jews from the time of Moses on” (beginning, that is, with the Law), then what is one to make of “the prophets,” since one would assume that the author has a rather traditional point of view on them? That is, since the traditional view was that the prophets only functioned under the Law, as primarily political figures who came in the name of YHWH and according to the Law, how can one understand “the fathers” to refer to anything that outstrips the Law? But then who says that the Law-prophets connection was so profoundly a universal way of reading all of this? And how Jewish was the author anyway?
Perhaps this question of “the fathers” is further complicated by the mention of “his Son” in the next verse. It is certainly significant that “his” is italicized. The NRSV takes the Greek more literally: “but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.” Does this justify taking it more literally still: “but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son”? Earlier, He spoke to “the fathers,” but now He speaks by a son. But what does that mean? Is there more at work here than a comparison between so many prophets and a singular Son?
I confess I’m inclined to read along with Joseph and assume that “the fathers” here takes us to the times before the Law, perhaps before Abraham. On such a reading, we are forced to think about a revision of the prophetic role (and I’m not sure how prepared I am to do that!), and we also have to think very seriously about what the connection is between “the fathers” and “a son” (something I’m far more willing to do).
Where to go from here?
Joe Spencer said
A further issue with all of this. Does the indefinite article of “a son” simply highlight the importance of the clauses that follow it? That is, are we supposed to be reading “a son [no comma] whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also created the worlds.” The emphasis here would be on the kind of son spoken through, not on the indefiniteness of that son. This would raise some rhetorical and literary questions, but I’m not sure I’m reading very well there.
Joe Spencer said
Okay, so what on earth does it mean to say that the Son created the “ages” (translated “worlds”)? How can this be understood profitably? I’m not sure at all how to approach this question.
Joe Spencer said
It is just occurring to me now that the subject matter of the first two verses of this chapter is entirely left off after those two verses until chapter 2. This is very rhetorical, but I’m not sure how to engage it. That is, the thrust of the first two verses is that the various times and places, the angelic/prophetic word, have all been replaced by the voice of the Son. But then the author goes on to spend all this time talking about the relation between the Son and the angels/prophets, only in chapter 2 to return to this business of the Son actually speaking. In a sense, it is clear what the author is doing: by spending all of this time working out quite carefully the relation between the Son and the angels, it becomes all the more clear that this last moment, this singular voice of the Son, overcomes or gathers in one all of the angelic moments over so many ages. And yet it makes things somewhat difficult to follow to, at least reading it does.
Does this point to the possibility that this was a public sermon? And if so, how much should it be read in those terms? It is odd that the “letter” ends as a letter, because it certainly doesn’t begin as such. Was this edited to be a letter, or are there two parts of it here? How should we read these kinds of things?
Robert C. said
Joe #8: My Greek isn’t very good, is there any reason to read “the” fathers vs. “a” son? Isn’t it ambiguous in both cases?
I’ve been favoring the “a Son” reading b/c I think it is more consistent with 1:14 where it seems we are to follow the path that the Firstborn has made possible for us. (In other words, I think “a Son” lends itself more to viewing the Son as a type.)
Not sure what to make of “the fathers” though I’ve wondered if maybe there’s an emphasis being placed on spiritual fathers rather than ancestors. Where else is the word “fathers” used to refer to the ancestors, patriarchs, or prophets?
Robert C. said
Joe #7: I like the many-plural idea you pull out of this. Indeed, I think this is something that is developed later in the book and is an important idea to think about for understanding heaven and earth. I’ve wondered before (I’ve heard this before somewhere, so it’s not my thought) if there isn’t an hour-glass aspect to the relationship between heaven and earth: we must enter the strait gate to get into heaven, but once we do, the possibilities opened to us become endless. Perhaps there’s reason to believe that the many sons (and daughters of course) of Adam and Eve might also one-by-one enter through the narrow veil-gate to become the many sons and angels/prophets of God. I think these issues also must be considered whilst reading the intercessory prayer, thinking about Zion as one, etc.
Robert C. said
Joe #10: With my (recent) obsession with recurrence, this bit about “ages” in the TDNT caught my attention, esp. the last paragraph where it says this is contrary to Bible teachings–through a Joseph Smith lens, I’m not so sure:
Joe Spencer said
Wow, that TDNT entry is a lot to swallow. I’ve got some thinking to do.
robf said
So, uh, do we buy that TDNT stuff about “creation and end of the world as asolute beginning and absolute conclusion”? That doesn’t strike me as the LDS view–which seems to be readily accepting of multiple aeons of time, and perhaps even multiple eternities. How supported is the absolute vs. multiples view in the biblical text itself?
Robert C. said
robf #16: Yeah, that’s my point. I think most Christian exegetes would say that the Bible does teach “absolute beginning and absolute conclusion,” though I’m not sure quite where they find this or why they believe this. Also, the scholarly view on this may be changing, the TDNT isn’t exactly the most up-to-date resource….
Joe Spencer said
Robert, Greek does have a definite article, but it has no indefinite article. The Greek reads “the fathers” and simply “son,” which we then translate “a son.” The difficult in the New Testament is that there is a long tradition of inserting definite articles into the text for whatever interpretive reason. But, anyway, the short answer: “the fathers,” and “a son.”
Joe Spencer said
Here is a list of scriptures where “the fathers” shows up in the NT-KJV without a possessive: Luke 1:17; John 7:22; Acts 3:22; 13:32; Romans 9:5; 15:8; 2 Peter 3:4.
The first of these (in Luke) is a semi-quotation of Malachi 4:5-6, which is a rich context for Joseph’s connection with Hebrews (especially in terms of the “Before 8 August” discourse).
The second (in John) uses the term explicitly to refer to those before Moses, “not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers.” This is likewise rich for Joseph, because of how “the fathers” figures in the Book of Abraham.
The third (Acts 3) refers to those who were with Moses and heard his prophecy of the Messiah. I’m not sure how ancestral this can be taken.
The fourth (Acts 13) refers to “the fathers” as those who received the covenant, clearly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which seems to follow Joseph’s usage.
The fifth (Romans 9) is much the same except that it adds explicitly the idea that it was through their lineage (their “flesh”) that Christ came, which meets up beautifully with the JST usage (thinking about the promises to Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, etc.).
The sixth (Romans 15) follows the patter of the one in Acts 13.
The seventh (2 Peter) is the strangest. There “the fathers” are the apostles, to be spoken of only eventually. This might be taken as a parallel, however, to Joseph’s usage if one parallels the creation with the atonement.
Only the reference in Acts 3 seems to me to be somewhat difficult, though not overly difficult (Moses is certainly a patriarchal figure, and perhaps all those who lived with him are as well; they were all certainly before the time of the “prophets” according to the tradition).
All in all, these several references make the business about the fathers and the prophets rather difficult to follow. Or, on the other hand, it suggests a rather broad conception of “the prophets.”
Joe Spencer said
About the hour-glass thing, here is what I at first assumed was a totally speculative piece of work that connects up with these ideas in an interesting way. I was about to scan these pages from my own copy of a book and e-mail them to you, and then I found that someone had posted this online. The original source is N. B. Lundwall, ed., Temples of the Most High (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954), 257-260. Once I found it online and read the remainder of the page, with its references to OTO, it looks like Mr. Bangerter got these ideas from hermetic sources, which is interesting in and of itself….
Joe Spencer said
Finally, as for “ages,” I’m still working through these ideas. (Reading Kojeve lately has made this a more difficult thing to think through for me.) More soon.