2 - Qumran
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2009
Summary
History of discussion
When the discovery of the Qumran sect and its writings resulted in numerous fresh speculations regarding the nature of the NT writings, it was not surprising to find that Hebrews was, in its turn, affected. Scholars have seen varying degrees of importance of the sectarian writings for the epistle, ranging from decisive to virtually none at all.
As noted above, the first serious treatment of Hebrews and Qumran was that of Yadin in 1958. According to Yadin, the discussion of whether the recipients were Christianized Jews or Christianized Gentiles must be abandoned for a new hypothesis: before their conversion to Christianity, they had been members of the Qumran sect, which Yadin identified with the Essenes, who entered the church “carrying with them some of their previous beliefs.” Yadin summarized the principal points of contact between Qumran and Hebrews: (a) The Qumran sect assigned a superior status to angels, which Hebrews combats in chs. 1 and 2. (b) The sect held to a belief in two Messiahs, one priestly and one lay, which forms the backdrop of Auctor's portrayal of Jesus as combining both offices in one person. (c) Heb. 1:1, which juxtaposes the revelation of Jesus with that of the prophets, “is obviously directed against the belief … that in the eschatological era a prophet should appear – a prophet who is not to be identified with the Messiah himself.”
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- The Epistle to the HebrewsIts Background of Thought, pp. 43 - 66Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990