The Levitical Cultus and the Partitioning of the Ways in HebrewsKen Schenck

1. Introduction

In his 1991 book, The Partings of the Ways, James D. G. Dunn re-visited the question of

the process by which Christianity and Judaism began to move on trajectories that

eventually resulted in two distinct religions.1 We recognize this book and others like it as

part of the massive wake created by E. P. Sanders’ 1977 bombshell, Paul and Palestinian

Judaism.2 As Dunn works through the evidence again with a “new perspective” in hand,

he concludes that we find “nothing like a clean break over the issues” when it comes to

Jesus and Paul in relation to Judaism.3 Indeed, “A break which was clearer to Paul’s

Jewish (including Jewish Christian) opponents was not so to Paul.” When Dunn turns to

the book of Hebrews, on the other hand, he finds it difficult to reach the same conclusion.

Because Hebrews considers the Jewish cult to be “wholly redundant,” he concludes that

the ways have parted between its author and “a Judaism still focussed on the Temple and

its cult.”

1 The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character

of Christianity (London: SCM, 1991). The second edition remains essentially the same (2006). A number

of related books have come in the intervening years: James D. G. Dunn, ed., Jews and Christians: The

Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 [1992]); Judith M. Lieu, Neither Jew

nor Greek: Constructing Early Christianity (London: T & T Clark, 2002); Adam H. Becker and Annette

Yoshiko Reed, eds., The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early

Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007[2003]); Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-

Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004); Matt Jackson-McCabe, ed., Jewish

Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007).

2 Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).

3 Partings, 162.

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A full examination of the extent to which Hebrews’ thought begins to “partition” its

borders with Judaism would lead us to topics ranging from its Christology to its generally

universalist understanding of the “seed of Abraham” (2:16)—a field far too wide for a

twenty minute paper.4 For this reason, I will limit my treatment to Hebrews’ view of the

cultus, particularly since it is here that Dunn suggests a fundamental break has occurred.

What we will find is that Hebrews has not “parted” from Judaism at all in this regard.

The key is to recognize that Hebrews is a consolation in the absence of a temple rather

than a polemic against a cultus that continued to operate even as the author made his

argument.5 To be sure, this shift in perspective stands in conflict with the current

majority opinion of English-speaking scholarship on Hebrews. This fact results in large

part, however, because of some false and often unexamined assumptions about Jewish

and Christian identity, areas where “new perspectives” have not fully made their way into

scholarship on Hebrews to the same degree that they have penetrated Pauline studies.6

4 To use Boyarin’s more precise term (Border Lines, 1). The rationale is that in fact the boundaries of

both “Judaism” and “Christianity” were too fluid at this point to speak in terms of more absolute parting or

inclusion.

5 I will assume throughout that the author was masculine in the light of the masculine singular

participle in Hebrews 11:32.

6 I am not the only one to begin to advocate for a shift in perspective away from Hebrews as a polemic.

Cf. Gabriele Gelardini, “Hebrews, an Ancient Synagogue Homily for Tisha be-Av: Its Function, its Basis,

its Theological Interpretation” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New Insights, G. Gelardini, ed.

(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 107-27; Pamela M. Eisenbaum, “Locating Hebrews within the Literary Landscape of

Christian Origins,” Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New Insights, 213-37; and Richard B. Hays, “Here

We Have No Lasting City: New Covenantalism in Hebrews,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian

Theology, R. J. Bauckham, D. R. Driver, T. A. Hart and N. MacDonald, eds., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2008).

2

Richard N. Longenecker captures well the Zeitgeist of a generation of English-

speaking Hebrews scholars when he writes, “only on the supposition that the sacrificial

worship of the Jerusalem temple still existed as the heart of the nation’s life and an intact

Judaism continued to offer a live option for the author’s readers does the letter become

historically intelligible.”7 The assumption Longenecker makes is that Hebrews’ rhetoric

on the superiority of Christ’s atonement to that of the Levitical cultus is tantamount to a

polemic against participation in the sacrificial system of the Jerusalem temple. He likely

assumes that the audience’s interest and reliance on the Jerusalem cultus had at least

significantly diminished, perhaps even disappeared, when they believed on Christ. Now,

however, they were tempted to return to reliance on the atonement the Jerusalem temple

offered.8

We can identify two significant problems with these assumptions. The first is the

particular way in which the author of Hebrews formulates his argument vis-à-vis the

Levitical cultus. Arguably, the author never makes the negative argument not to rely on

the mainstream Levitical system. Rather, he consistently makes the positive argument to

rely on the atonement provided through Christ, an exhortation that he then substantiates

extensively by argument. Second, it is unlikely that the earliest Christians initially

thought of Christ’s death as a complete replacement for the temple. It is more likely that

they originally saw Christ’s death in relation to a particular point in Israel’s history rather

than as a replacement of its fundamental institutions. In that sense, it remains to be seen

7 Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 145.

8 Some interpreters who take this line of thought are not clear about whether the audience had earlier

found the temple significant before believing. They speak in terms of it gaining significance at the time of

writing (e.g., Barnabas Lindars, The Theology of Hebrews [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991]).

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to what extent they had ever “left” reliance on the temple in the first place, despite their

affirmation of Jesus as Messiah. Both of these observations point to continuing,

unexamined assumptions by scholars in relation to the distinctness of Christianity and

Judaism in this period.

2. The Nature of Hebrews’ Exhortations

2.1 Hebrews 1:1-10:18

Hebrews’ alternation between exhortation and exposition is well known.9 It is instructive

to approach the situation Hebrews addressed by seeing the exposition as extensive

substantiation of the exhortations. The exhortations get directly at the rhetorical situation

behind Hebrews, while the exposition clarifies the nature of the exhortations. Apart from

a brief mention of Christ as high priest in 2:17, the cultic dimension of his identity does

not appear explicitly until 4:14. The exhortations from 1:1-4:13 consistently have to do

with the perseverance of the audience in faith to the end (2:1; 3:7-8, 12-13; 4:1, 11).

The exhortations of Hebrews relative to Christ’s atonement thus do not explicitly

begin until 4:14. The central section of Hebrews argument from 4:14-10:18 is then

flanked by parallel passages with the two most explicit cultic exhortations of the

sermon:10

9 See especially George H. Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Approach (Leiden:

Brill, 1994).

10 As Wolfgang Nauck first pointed out, “Zum Aufbau des Hebräerbriefes,” Walther Eltester, ed., in

Judentum, Urchristentum, Kirche: Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1960),

199-206, esp. 201-3. A general consensus has emerged that Hebrews is a sermon of some sort, based to a

large degree on the author’s description of it as a “word of exhortation” (13:22; cf. Acts 13:15). See also

Hartwig Thyen, Der Stil der jüdisch-hellenistischen Homilie (FRLANT 47; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &

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e1xontej a0rxiere/a me/gan … kratw=men th=j

o9mologi/aj (4:14)

e1xontej i9ere/a me/gan … kate/xwmen th\n o9mologi/an

(10:19, 23)

Both of these key exhortations admonish the audience positively to hold to their

confession in the light of Christ’s high priesthood. Neither tell the audience to stop

relying on the Levitical cultus or try to dissuade them from turning to it for atonement.

Within this central section, the audience is told to proceed to perfection (6:1), but the rest

of the discourse consists of substantiation of the greatness of Christ’s high priesthood.

Never is the audience told not to rely on the Levitical means that the author suggests are

palaiou/menon, ghra/skon, and e0ggu\j a0fanismou= (8:13).

2.2 Present Language of the Cultus

We should probably pause at this point to consider several aspects of Hebrews’ central

argument that, at least superficially, do sound as if the Levitical cultus might still be

operating at the time of writing. The central section, for example, consistently uses the

present tense in reference to the Levitical cultus.11 The fact that the author speaks

theoretically of the wilderness tabernacle, rather than concretely of the Jerusalem temple,

Ruprecht, 1955) and Lawrence Wills, “The Form of the Sermon in Hellenistic Judaism and Early

Christianity,” HTR 77 (1984): 277-99. Gabrielle Gelardini in fact has as her thesis that Hebrews was a

synagogue homily for Tisha Be-Av in remembrance of Jerusalem’s destruction, “Verhärtet eure Herzen

nicht”: Der Hebräer, eine Synagogenhomilie zu Tischa be-Aw (Leiden: Brill, 2006).

11 F. F. Bruce, for example, while acknowledging that the argument was not definitive, observed that

“our author writes as if the ritual were still going on” (The Epistle to the Hebrews [Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1964], xliii).

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alleviates this objection to some extent—the argument is somewhat “gnomic” in

character rather than concretely about the Jerusalem temple. At the same time, however,

we cannot agree with William L. Lane’s claim that “the writer of Hebrews shows no

interest in the temple in any of its forms nor in contemporary cultic practice.”12 The

author may speak in theoretical terms, but unless the temple is a matter of the distant past,

it is implausible to think that the audience would not draw certain conclusions about it

from Hebrews’ argument.13 Nor is it reasonable to suggest that the author would not have

intended them to do so. We suspect that such statements underestimate the centrality of

the Jerusalem temple in Jewish thinking even in the Diaspora.14

Nevertheless, despite the prima facie force of the present tenses, we observe a

number of post-70 authors who refer to the activities of the Jerusalem temple in the

present tense. In Contra Apionem, Josephus goes so far as to say that the Jews offer

continuous sacrifices for the emperors and the people of Rome daily at the expense of the

Jewish community.15 Startlingly, he makes this statement in the present tense not only

12 Hebrews 1-8 (Waco: Word, 1991), lxiii. Despite this claim, Lane nonetheless dates Hebrews prior to

Jerusalem’s destruction, specifically in between 64 and 68CE (lxvi). Erich Grässer dates Hebrews post

70CE, but like Lane questionably suggests that Hebrews’ argument is “völlig unabhängig von den

historischen Gegebenheiten,” An die Hebräer (Hebr 1-6) (Zürich: Benziger, 1990), 25.

13 Pamela M. Eisenbaum has indeed argued along these lines that the temple stands significantly in the

past in “Locating Hebrews,” esp. 224-31.

14 Philo, for example, is the consummate Hellenistic Jew, yet the temple plays a significant role even

for him (cf. Spec. 1.67-70; Prov. 2.64; Legat. 184-348). Even groups that rejected the current temple like

the Dead Sea community looked to a time when a pure temple would be re-established (cf. the Temple

Scroll). See below.

15 Ap. 2.77. See also Ap. 2.193-98; Ant. 3.151-60, 224-57.

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decades after the sacrifices had stopped, but at a time when what had been a Jewish tax

for the Jerusalem temple now flowed to the Capitoline temple in Rome by way of the

fiscus Judaicus! Clement of Rome also speaks of the appropriateness for those who have

been commanded to make offerings to do so, yet he makes this comment several decades

after any such offerings could be literally offered.16 The clear impression we get is that

the finality of the temple’s removal is far more obvious to us now than it was to Jews of

the late first century.17 Apparently, it was perfectly intelligible to discuss its operations as

if they continued to take place long after they had ceased—at least when one was

speaking of them generally as Jewish institutions.18 As Marie Isaacs put it, “It was only

with the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135CE that all hope of its restoration (other

than in a future messianic age) came to an end.”19

This fundamental observation equally undermines two other common sense

arguments for a pre-70 date. David deSilva, for example, points out the author’s

question, ou0k a2n e0pau/santo prosfero/menai … tou\j latreu/ontaj

a3pac kekaqarisme/nouj; (10:2). On a surface level, this question seems to imply

16 1 Clem. 40. So even more clearly the Epistle to Diognetus 3.

17 See also Martin Goodman, “Diaspora Reactions to the Destruction of the Temple,” Jews and

Christians, 27-38.

18 Indeed, K. W. Clark went so far as to argue that sacrifices continued on the site of the destroyed

temple between 70 and 135CE, “Worship in the Jerusalem Temple after A.D. 70,” NTS 6 (1969-70), 269-

80.

19 Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (JSNTSS 73; Sheffield:

JSOT, 1992), 43. 4 Ezra seems to provide evidence that the reality of the situation was beginning to sink in

by 100CE for at least some, if we should date the apocalypse to around this time.

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that Levitical sacrifices had not ceased being offered at the time of writing.20

Nevertheless, we have not only the fact that several authors did speak of its operation in

the present tense post-70—an argument against our common sense. We also recognize in

this particular case that the author was not so much addressing the time of the audience as

the fact that sacrifices never stopped throughout “biblical history” as found in the Jewish

Scriptures. Would the sacrifices in Scripture not have stopped a long time ago if any of

them had actually taken away sins? No, instead God prepared a body for Christ (10:5).

The setting of the comment is thus the time before Christ rather than the time of

Hebrews’ writing.

Similarly, Luke Timothy Johnson makes the common sense observation that if the

Jerusalem temple were already destroyed at the time of writing, “one would think that

some reference would naturally be made, not to a covenant growing obsolescent and a

cult being ineffective, but rather to a cult proven to be broken and a cult demonstrated by

God’s action as a thing of the past.”21 If, however, post-70 Jews and Christians could

continue to speak of the temple’s operation as current—as some did—then what seems

common sensical to us may not have been common sensical to them. Was it clear, for

20 Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 20.

21 Hebrews: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 39. While 8:13 does refer

technically to the “old covenant” rather than to the Levitical system per se, the comment is flanked with

cultic references both before (8:1-5) and after (9:1-10:18). The recapitulation of Jeremiah 31:33 in

Hebrews 10:16-17 makes it clear that atonement stands at the heart of the author’s concern and, indeed, that

the author virtually equates the Law with the Levitical system (so also Mary Rose D’Angelo, Moses in the

Letter to the Hebrews (SBLDS 42; Missoula: Scholars, 1979), 243-46 and Susanne Lehne, The New

Covenant in Hebrews [JSNTSS 44; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990], 23).

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example, that the temple’s destruction would have relegated it to the past? Would the

climate of Judaism in the late first century have justified a claim that the cult was broken?

Indeed, as we will argue, Hebrews 13:9 seems to indicate that a cultic orientation did

continue in some form, regardless of the state of the temple at the time of writing.

We also wonder if there is not a subtle circularity in Johnson’s common sense

argument. In other words, we will find it stranger that the author has not used the

destruction of the temple in his argument if we think his argument is primarily against

reliance on the Levitical system. By contrast, if the fundamental thrust of Hebrews is in

response to the temple’s destruction, then its destruction makes no sense as one argument

in the author’s overall polemic. It becomes an underlying reality obvious to the audience

that it would not need to be mentioned explicitly.22

Of course the author may in fact allude to the destruction of Jerusalem in more than

one place in the sermon. Jerusalem places high on the list of candidates for what the

author means when he tells the audience that they have no me/nousan po/lin on earth

(13:14). While this statement could simply allude to a standing Jerusalem with an

operating cultus, it would take on particular poignancy in the wake of the temple’s

destruction.23 We observe the same thing about 11:14, where the author speaks of

Abraham seeking a patri/j. The author’s choice of vocabulary is intriguing if Jerusalem

and the temple are still standing—it becomes radical in its reorientation of space. If, 22 We might also mention here the case that Ellen B. Aitken has made for reading Hebrews against

various Flavian celebrations of the Roman defeat of Jerusalem in “Portraying the Temple in Stone and

Text: The Arch of Titus and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New

Insights, 131-48. Space does not permit a full defense of the dating of Hebrews or of Rome as its

destination, but Aitken’s article plays well into both.

23 So also Hays, “No Lasting City.”

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however, the Jewish homeland has recently been decimated, the reorientation of space

becomes highly appropriate and takes on particular significance. Hebrews reminds its

audience that they need not be concerned about Jerusalem’s destruction, for they are after

all citizens of heaven rather than earth.

Finally, we should consider that the author associated the old covenant with the

created realm (cf. 12:27) and expected Christ’s second appearance to take place soon

(e.g., 9:28; 10:37). In this regard, the old covenant was near disappearance in the same

sense that the arrival of the Lord and the shaking of the creation was near but “not yet.”24

As long as the world looked the way it did, the old covenant still lingered in some sense,

even though the new covenant had already arrived in some sense. To say that the old

covenant was near its disappearance was thus to recognize that the created realm still

remained and Christ had not yet returned.

We can thus identify several questionable assumptions that play into the “common

sense” that Hebrews must surely pre-date the destruction of the temple. The most

significant relates to the fact that Jews and Christians continued to think of the operation

of the Levitical system in the present tense. It was not nearly as clear to them as to us

either that the temple would lay in ruins for the next two thousand years or that Christ

would not return within the near future. If, further, Hebrews were written, not to argue

against participation in the cultus, but to bolster the audience’s confidence in Christ, the

24 Hebrews is perhaps the first book of the New Testament not to look for the kingdom of God to be on

earth or to look for the creation to be removed rather than transformed. See Understanding the Book of

Hebrews: The Story Behind the Sermon (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 36-39, and my

forthcoming Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice (Cambridge:

Cambridge University, 2007).

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absence of specific mention of the temple’s destruction seems less puzzling. In the end,

the author’s theoretical treatment of the wilderness tabernacle seems more explicable in

reflection on the temple’s destruction than if the temple were still standing. If the temple

were still standing at the time of Hebrews’ writing, it becomes an incredibly subversive

and revolutionary piece that “parts” from Judaism in some of the strongest terms

possible. The sermon does not, however, have this tone.

2.3 Hebrews 10:19-13:25

The cultic dimension of Hebrews recedes again into the background in the final part of

the sermon. After 10:19-25 recapitulates the exhortation of 4:14-16, allusions to the

Levitical system become sparse. The exhortations are rather of the sort to “remember

earlier days” (10:32) and not to “throw away” their confidence (10:35). Hebrews 11

substantiates the audience’s need for continuance in faith with an example list that must

surely imply some of the causes of their wavering commitment. We hear of faith when

visible circumstances do not look the way we might expect (11:3, 7, 8, 20, 22, 26, 39).

We hear overtones of oppression and death, with confidence bolstered by faith in

resurrection (11:5, 13, 19, 35-40). We hear of alienation from homeland (11:13-16) and

conflict with the political powers that be (23-27). Finally, we hear echoes of a “better

sacrifice” (11:4), and a reminder that the proper sprinkling of blood can protect from the

destroyer (11:28).

Hebrews 12 then urges the audience to “run with endurance” the race ahead (12:1).

They are told to lay off the weight of sin that hinders running.25 They are told to endure

25 It would go well beyond the scope of this paper to explore in detail what Hebrews understands such

sin to be, but the evidence points principally toward wavering in commitment to their knowledge of Christ

11

ei0j paidei/an (12:7) and to strengthen their weak arms and knees (12:12).26 Thus far

in the sermon we have not heard a single exhortation not to rely on the Levitical cultus.

Rather, the sermon has positively encouraged the audience to rely on Christ and continue

their confession, while warning them of the consequences if they would not do so. “God

is a consuming fire” (12:28) and he will shake the creation (12:27). At the same time, the

author has not yet told the audience to refrain from the Levitical system.

The author does, however, make two comments in the final portion of the sermon that

might very well amount to such a prohibition. The first is a cryptic remark in 12:16,

where the author tells the audience not to be godless like Esau o4j a0nti\ brw/sewj

mia=j a0pe/deto ta\ prwtoto/kia e9autou=. A startling warning then follows

that tells the audience that Esau later failed to inherit the blessing even though he sought

restoration with tears.27 It seems at least possible that this comment might allude to

something concrete in the community’s situation, something of a cultic nature from

which the author wished to dissuade the audience.

Our suspicions are only strengthened when we get to 13:9-10. Here the author

mentions “various and foreign teachings,” which in itself might be taken in a very general

sense.28 As the author substantiates this admonition, however, he speaks of the heart

(cf. 5:11-12; 9:7; 10:26).

26 I find unconvincing arguments from 12:4 that, since the audience has not yet “shed blood” in their

resistance against sin, we cannot date Hebrews prior to the Neronian persecution in Rome (e.g., Lane, lxvi).

The author is speaking of the current situation, not about the entire history of the community. The

comment thus says nothing about the history of the audience prior to the present conflict.

27 Although I favor metanoi/a as that which Esau sought with tears, it makes little difference here

whether he sought it or eu0logi/a.

28 So Craig R. Koester, Hebrews (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 567.

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being made confident by grace and not brw/masin, “by foods,” which reminds us of the

earlier comment about Esau. The further claim that e1xomen qusiasth/rion e0c

ou[ fagei=n ou0k e1xousin e0cousi/an oi9 th|= skhnh|= latreu/ontej

makes us strongly suspect that the author has something more specific in mind than false

teaching in general. We wonder if the author has some cultic food in mind that the

audience thought might have some atoning significance.

Clearly the “food” of the Jerusalem temple would be a significant candidate for the

referent here, but then we must ask whether an early Christian would refer to such

participation in temple sacrifices as “foreign teaching.” As we will argue subsequently,

the evidence does not justify such a marked divergence at this point between Christian

Jews and non-believing Jews on the temple. As such, assumptions about the distinction

between early Christianity and Judaism come once again into play. Further, these

comments come as one of several loosely connected admonitions in chapter 13. They

thus seem more of a related aside rather than, finally, a revelation of what the author had

been addressing in the central exposition.29 We might expect that various, strange ideas

for how to substitute for the atonement of the temple might arise in the period after its

destruction, although we have insufficient evidence to speculate about what these might

be exactly.30

What we find, therefore, after proceeding through the exhortations of Hebrews, is that

they aim primarily at the continued endurance of the audience in faith despite disturbing

29 Pace Barnabas Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge

University, 1991), 10-11.

30 Cf. Jukka Thurén, Das Lobopfer der Hebräer: Studien zum Aufbau und Anliegen vom Hebräerbrief

13 (Åbo: Akademi, 1973).

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circumstances. The principal cause of their wavering would seem to have something to

do with the Levitical cultus. However, only one oblique exhortation seems to instruct

them not to rely on it in some way. Even in this case, some Levitical derivative seems

more likely in view than the temple cultus itself. Hebrews 13:9-10 seem to address

practices related to the central exposition of Hebrews that are nevertheless not that

exposition’s main referent. The character of Hebrews’ exhortations thus is much more

that of a reflection on the Levitical system than a polemic against it. Such reflection

would fit well the aftermath of the temple’s destruction. Prior to its destruction, such an

argument would likely require a more vigorous polemic to make the same point.

Hebrews does not take such a polemical tact.

3. Christian Jews and the Temple

A second factor that often plays into reconstructions of Hebrews’ situation is the

assumption that Christian Jews did not participate in the sacrificial system of the

Jerusalem temple. Those who conclude that the audience of Hebrews is contemplating a

return to reliance on the Levitical cultus inevitably assume that at some point they had

stopped such reliance. It is highly doubtful for any number of reasons, however, that

even most Christian Jews initially understood Christ’s death to replace the atoning

functions of the temple in toto.

For one thing, the historical-cultural landscape of Judaism at the time makes such an

understanding unexpected at the very least. We find no explicit evidence of any

contemporaneous Jewish group (that valued their identity as Jews) who did not have a

place for a temple in their religious paradigm. While the community of the Dead Sea

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scrolls rejected the current temple, the very existence of the Temple Scroll—the longest

scroll discovered at Qumran—indicates that they expected a magnificent structure to be

part of the messianic age. Even Philo, one of the most Hellenized Jews from the ancient

world that we know, highly respected the Jerusalem temple and was outraged at

Caligula’s near desecration of it (Spec. 1.67-70; Prov. 2.64; Legat. 184-348). Even 2

Thessalonians 2:4 indirectly identifies God with the Jerusalem temple when it

contemplates the actions of a “man of lawlessness” in it. Surely we are meant to

understand part of his offense as the fact that he sets himself up as god in the place where

the true God has placed his name.

Further, when we search for conceptual models the earliest Christians are likely to

have used to make sense of Jesus’ death, clearly that of sacrifice featured at an early

point. Most, for example, believe that Paul was drawing on traditional material of some

sort in Romans 3:25, which pictures God offering Christ as a sacrifice, a i9lasth/rion

by means of his blood.31 Yet we find no Jewish precedent for a sacrifice with universal,

timeless significance. The scope of a sacrifice was always bound by a particular time

and, indeed, by a particular sin or set of sins. No sacrifice ever implied an end to future

need for sacrifice. The burden of proof is thus on anyone who would suggest that the

first believers would initially have viewed Christ’s death as some sort of ultimate

31 The precise connotations of i9lasth/rion need not concern us here. For a detailed treatment of the

issue, see Stephen Finlan, The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors (AB 19;

Atlanta: Scholars, 2004). Dunn puts it well when he says, “hilastērion cannot have any other than a

sacrificial reference… the only real debate has been whether it should be understood as a place or means of

expiation/propitiation,” “Paul’s Understanding of Jesus’ Death as a Sacrifice,” in Sacrifice and

Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology, Stephen W. Sykes, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University,

1991), 41.

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sacrifice to end all sacrifices.32 Our default expectation is rather that they would have

thought that Christ’s death atoned for a particular set of sins at a particular point of

history.

Indeed, the closest parallels to Christian conceptualizations of Christ’s death in

Jewish literature come from 2 and 4 Maccabees, where the noble deaths of seven

righteous brothers relate in some way to the end of God’s wrath toward Israel. In 2

Maccabees 7:38, the last of the seven expresses his hope that God’s wrath will end e0n

e0moi\ kai\ toi=j a0delfoi=j mou. Although 2 Maccabees does not clarify exactly

how these brothers relate to the end of God’s wrath, clearly their deaths at most relate to a

particular set of Israel’s sins at a particular point of history—certainly not to Israel’s sins

for all time.33 No one would suggest that the author thought their deaths ended any future

need for sacrifice.

4 Maccabees uses language even more directly reminiscent of the New Testament.

Eleazar asks God to accept his blood in lieu of the rest of Israel, to make his blood a

kaqa/rision that might serve as an a0nti/yuxon for the sins of his people (6:28-29;

cf. Mark 10:45). 4 Maccabees 17:21-22 not only affirms that the blood of such

individuals was an a0nti/yuxon for the sins of the nation. These verses explicitly

consider their death a i9lasth/rion, as Romans 3:25 suggests Christ’s death was.

Again, it would be ludicrous to suggest that the author saw their deaths as the end of the 32 The same default would apply to other places where Paul seems to consider Christ’s death a

sacrifice: 1 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:9; 8:3.

33 Two works that strongly resist seeing any atoning value to the deaths of the martyrs in 2 Maccabees

are those of Sam K. Williams, Jesus’ Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept

(HDR 2; Missoula: Scholars, 1975) and David Seeley, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and

Paul’s Concept of Salvation (JSNTSS 28; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990)

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sacrificial system or the temple, as powerful as their deaths were. On the contrary, their

“sacrifice” enabled the purification and rededication of the temple. The burden of proof

is thus squarely on anyone who would argue that the earliest Christians would have

immediately seen Christ’s death as the end of the sacrificial system. It is far more likely

that they would see it as a means by which Israel’s sins in a particular era of history could

be cleansed so that the existing institutions of Judaism could be renewed.

A second reason to believe that participation in the cultus continued among early

Christians is the absence of any rhetoric against such participation in the New Testament

itself, apart from Hebrews.34 Whatever the practice of the earliest Christians was on this

issue, it apparently was not a matter of significant debate. Given the obvious default in

the Jewish context—and given the portrait of the early church in Acts—the burden of

proof once again is squarely on the person who would see non-participation as the

assumed common ground. By contrast, Acts pictures the earliest Christians daily at the

temple to pray (e.g., 2:46; 3:1), and 21:23-26 suggests that they also participated in its

sacrificial dimension.

Only Paul’s writings can of course be dated prior to the destruction of the temple with

certainty, yet we find no evidence in them of debate on this issue, nor any prohibition of

temple use or reliance in Paul’s writings. Indeed, the book of Acts depicts Paul as quite

willing to participate in the sacrificial life of the temple near the end of his life (Acts

21:24-27). Certainly we cannot simply assume the historicity of this event—Acts has its

own theological agendas. Nevertheless, Acts clearly conveys a sense that the earliest

Christians participated in the temple. Whether all Christians believed the temple to have

34 We will consider the case of Stephen in Acts 7 below.

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continuing validity as an institution, Acts implies that many did—particularly those who

lived in Jerusalem.

Paul’s writings may, of course, imply the replacement of the cultus by Christ’s death.

Paul also might have little reason to argue explicitly against participation in the cultus,

since he was writing to primarily Gentile audiences squarely located in the Diaspora.

Paul tells the Corinthians that they are the nao\j qeou= (3:16), which might imply

some sort of replacement theology. Further, if Christ’s death corresponds to Adam’s sin,

then it is certainly possible that he believed the atonement provided by his death extend

to all sin as well. If so, then Christ’s death might eliminate any need for further

atonement. Hebrews in effect makes this argument in its own way.

It is indeed possible that Paul reasoned in this way, but he nowhere does so explicitly

in his writings.35 Once again, however, it is not necessary to argue that all Christian Jews

had a place for the temple in their theology for our understanding of Hebrews to stand,

only that some did and that the audience of Hebrews is a likely candidate. Here we can

easily suggest that those that disagreed with Paul on the scope of justification e0k

pi/stewj 0Ihsou= Xristou= would have disagreed with him as well on any

suggestion that Christ’s death provided absolute atonement, if Paul ever made such an

argument. The fact that Peter and James disagreed with Paul about whether works of law

played any role in justification (cf. Gal. 2:11-21) suggests that they might also have

disagreed with him on the scope of Christ’s atonement if Paul had made a universal

35 We could make an argument, however, that such was not the case. Paul never, for example, clearly

extends the benefit of Christ’s death to those who lived before his death. Similarly, he may see atoning

value of some sort in suffering (Phil. 3:10-11; 2 Cor. 4:11) and indicates a place for works in final

justification (Rom. 2:5-6; 2 Cor. 5:10).

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argument.36 Indeed, Acts 13:38 perhaps gives us their position on justification on the lips

of Paul: dia\ tou/tou u9mi=n a1fesij a9martiw=n katagge/lletai … a0po\

pa/ntwn w[n ou0k h0dunh/qhte e0n no/mw| Mwu+se/wj dikaiwqh=nai.

The implication seems to be that the law of Moses could justify you in relation to some

sins, but through Christ it was now possible to find justification for sins not covered by

the law and, presumably, by its cultic system.

A final argument comes from the way in which New Testament traditions speak of

Israel’s judgment and eventual restoration. These traditions speak of the temple being

desecrated rather than destroyed, with the nation of Israel continuing to have a role in the

eschaton. Space does not allow an extensive defense of these claims, but we can make

the basic thrust of the argument clear enough. We have already mentioned 2

Thessalonians 2:4, which must surely date to the time before the temple’s destruction.

While this text speaks of a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple, nothing is

said of the temple’s destruction or invalidity.

36 I would personally translate Galatians 2:15-16 as, “We who are Jews by nature and not Gentile

sinners, since we know that a person is not justified from works of law unless [it be] through the

faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” Arguably Paul begins with the position of Peter and James here and then

proceeds to his own full position later in the paragraph (cf. Dunn, “A New Perspective on Paul,” Jesus,

Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians [London: SPCK, 1990], 183-214, esp. 195-96). In this

interpretation, however, Peter and James see the role of Christ’s faithful death to provide the essential basis

for justification, but not the absolute basis. Works of law are additionally necessary for justification. If

Paul had a replacement view of Christ’s death in relationship to the cultus—which is not established—we

can imagine nonetheless that an analogous disagreement might have existed on that topic: Christ’s death

provides essential but not absolute atonement.

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Similarly, John Kloppenborg has noted the tension between the framing of Mark 13

and its actual eschatological content. While the framing of the discourse leads us to

expect Jesus to tell us about the destruction of the temple, Jesus instead predicts its

desecration by drawing on Daniel 11:31 (Mark 13:14).37 No doubt a first century

audience of this tradition—or of 2 Thessalonians 2:4—would hear echoes of Caligula’s

attempt to set a statue of himself up in the temple, desecrating but not destroying it.

Kloppenborg thus argues for a date for the final form of Mark after the temple’s

destruction, a date supported by the way in which Mark sandwiches Jesus’ action in the

temple by the cursing and subsequent withering of a fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-25).

The prophetic material within the framing of Mark 13 would date from before that time,

implying that this tradition did not expect the temple’s literal destruction.

We might also note both Paul and Luke-Acts’ sense that Israel’s current hardening

(Paul; Romans 11:25) and the current “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) are only

temporary. Most interpreters of Romans 11:26 would acknowledge that Paul expected

ethnic Israel to believe on Jesus as the Messiah around the time of his parousia.38

Similarly, while the theology of Luke-Acts on this subject engenders more disagreement

at present, a strong case can be made from comments such as Luke 21:24, Acts 1:6, and

3:21-22, that “Luke” saw the turning to the Gentiles in Acts 28:28 as a matter of these

37 “Evocatio deorum and the Date of Mark,” JBL 124 (2005): 419-50, especially 424: “it seems

unlikely that Mark 13:14 was specifically formulated with Titus’s destruction of the temple in view, since it

so poorly fits the details.”

38 So James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (Dallas: Word, 1988), 681: “There is now a strong consensus

that pa=j 0Israh/l must mean Israel as a whole.” We need not engage debates over the precise timing in

relation to the parousia.

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“times” rather than a permanent shift of God away from Israel.39 The kingdom would be

restored to Israel in the end.

The nearly unexpressed assumption of these New Testament authors, therefore, is the

continuation rather than the supercession of Israel. Within that framework, we can

imagine that the default assumption of these New Testament texts is continuity with

Judaism rather than discontinuity. The points at which Christian belief came into conflict

with broader Judaism no doubt became the main points of discussion. In this regard, it is

surely significant that we do not find polemic anywhere against the temple in the light of

Christ’s death. Even Stephen’s sermon in Acts 7, which of course post-dates the

destruction of the temple in its current location, does not engage in this sort of rhetoric.40

The author of Acts himself denies that Stephen spoke against the temple (Acts 6:14),

although it is not difficult to hear some sort of critique of the leaders of Israel in relation

to it (Acts 7:48-53). Given 21:24-26, it is more likely that the author wants us to hear an

implicit explanation for the temple’s destruction in Stephen’s words rather than a

condemnation of Solomon for building a permanent temple.41

39 So also Craig C. Hill, “Restoring the Kingdom to Israel: Luke-Acts and Christian Supersessionism,

in Shadow of Glory: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust, Tod Linafelt, ed. (London:

Routledge, 2002), 185-200 and “The Jerusalem Church,” in Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking

Ancient Groups and Texts, Matt Jackson-McCabe, ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 46-48.

40 Most scholars would date Luke-Acts to the period after the destruction of the temple not least

because of the way in which Luke 21:20 redacts Mark 13:14. Further, if Luke uses Mark as a source and

Mark dates from post-70, then Luke must certainly post-date the temple’s destruction.

41 Given the numerous parallels between Stephen’s sermon and Hebrews, William Manson argued long

ago that the author of Hebrews might be a Hellenist in the tradition of Stephen (The Epistle to the Hebrews:

An Historical and Theological Reconstruction [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1951]). However, it is much

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It is thus far more likely than not that the bulk of Christian Jews prior to the temple’s

destruction saw a continuing role for it in the kingdom of God. If Hebrews addressed

such an audience, its rhetoric cannot be about turning back toward Judaism or the temple,

for the audience would have never left it on this subject. Further, it is hard to see how the

Levitical system might be challenging the audience’s faith in such an environment, since

faith in Christ would never have conflicted with reliance on the temple in the first place.

On the other hand, we can easily see how the destruction of the temple might cause a

faith crisis of some sort, as it apparently did for the author of 4 Ezra. In this regard,

Hebrews’ rhetoric on the Levitical system is far from a parting of the ways. It is rather a

testimony to how little Christian Judaism had parted at this point.

4. Conclusion

The preceding discussion argues that Hebrews dates to the years immediately following

the destruction of Jerusalem. Its arguments about the temple thus do not constitute a

parting of the ways with Judaism, for Hebrews is not an attack on the temple but a

consolation in its absence. Rabbinic Judaism would also develop its own coping

strategies in the absence of a cultus in which prayer and worship might function in

sacerdotal ways. We thus cannot speak of any parting of the ways in Hebrews with

regard to the temple any more than we can consider Rabbinic Judaism to have parted.

If time permitted, I would argue that we reach the same conclusion with regard to

Hebrews’ Christology. Despite such exalted language as 1:8, where Christ is addressed

as God, the context is highly poetic and, after all, draws on a Psalm where a human king

more likely that Luke has used individuals such as the author of Hebrews as models in the portrayal of

Stephen, rather than the other way around.

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is addressed as God. Where we see the greatest partitioning of the ways occurs rather in

Hebrews’ universalist attitude in what constitutes the “seed of Abraham” (2:16). Since

the author begins with Psalm 8’s comments on all humanity, the author apparently

considers those Gentiles who have partaken of Holy Spirit (e.g., 6:4) to be part of the

seed of Abraham as well.

Indeed, I believe the current English-speaking majority position that the audience is

Jewish reflects equally myopic perspectives with regard to Jewish and Christian identity.

Hebrews 6:1-2 implies that the “foundation” that the audience experienced as “the

beginning word of the Christ” (5:12) was not specifically Christian, but in fact Jewish.

Hebrews thus looks to a Gentile audience tempted to turn away from the living God of

Judaism (cf. 3:12) rather than a Jewish audience tempted to turn back to Judaism! But,

alas, that argument will have to wait for another time.

Ken SchenckIndiana Wesleyan Universityken.schenck@indwes.edu

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