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‘Somewhere Someone Testified’: The Hermeneutical Function of Indefinite Citation Formulae in the Epistle to the Hebrews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2024
Abstract
The author to the Hebrews makes the seemingly strange choice to introduce two quotations from the LXX with indefinite markers (Heb 2.6; 4.4). While some commentators do not consider these introductions, others have argued that they function either rhetorically to engage the audience or theologically to highlight the divine speaker. This article argues that a hermeneutical function better explains the author's choices: the author uses the indefiniteness to guide his audience in how to interpret each quoted passage. The author uses the indefinite marker of place (που) to remove both Gen 2.2 and Ps 8.5–7 LXX from their salvation-historical context; this results in the rest of God (Heb 3–4) and the role of humanity within creation (Heb 2) applying equally to the present and the coming ages. He pairs this with the indefinite marker of person (τις) in his introduction to Ps 8 to indicate that the audience should not interpret it prosopologically as the speech of the Son to the Father; rather the Psalm testifies to the role of humanity within the present and the coming worlds, a role which the Son incarnate fulfils. This hermeneutical explanation aligns with other instances of indefinite citation markers in Second Temple Judaism, most notably in Philo. This argument, therefore, both adds depth to the characterisation of the author as a careful reader of Scripture and brings out the intended meaning and function of Ps 8 and Gen 2 in the discourse of Hebrews more clearly.
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References
1 Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews 6 (NPNF 114; Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1889) 382–3.
2 Calvin, John, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (trans. Owen, John; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1853) 58Google Scholar.
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4 E.g. Westcott, Brooke Foss, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1892) 43Google Scholar.
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7 Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (ALGHJ 4; Leiden: Brill, 1970) 576–9.
8 The Greek text of Philo is taken from the Loeb editions.
9 Attridge, Harold W., The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989) 70–1Google Scholar; Ellingworth, Paul, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1993) 148Google Scholar; Michel, Otto, Der Brief an die Hebräer (7th ed.; KEK 13; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Witherington, Ben, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Hebrews, James and Jude (Downers Grove: IVP Academic; Nottingham: Apollos, 2007) 143Google Scholar.
10 David Lewis Allen, Hebrews (NAC 35; Nashville: B&H, 2010) 203–4; George H. Guthrie, ‘Hebrews’, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) 944; Thomas R. Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews (Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation; Nashville: B&H, 2015) 87–8; Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians, 143. See also de Wet, who states that the ‘vagueness of the expression could almost be sarcastic’. Chris L. De Wet, ‘The Messianic Interpretation of Psalm 8:4–6 in Hebrews 2:6–9: Part II’, Psalms and Hebrews: Studies in Reception (ed. Dirk J. Human and Gert J. Steyn; LHBOTS 527; New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) 115.
11 Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, 87.
12 E.g. Allen, Hebrews, 203–4. Cf. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (3rd ed.; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919) 742.
13 Markus Barth, ‘Old Testament in Hebrews: An Essay in Biblical Hermeneutics’, Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (ed. William Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder; New York: Harper & Row, 1962) 59. Johnson raises the possibility that the Psalm is not spoken by God, although he deems it impossible to know whether this is the case. Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 89.
14 F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (New London Commentary on the New Testament; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1964) 34; Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 127; H. J. B. Combrink, ‘Some Thoughts on the Old Testament Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews’, Neot 5 (1971) 22–36 at 22; Susan E. Docherty, The Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews: A Case Study in Early Jewish Bible Interpretation (WUNT 2/260; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) 189; Guthrie, ‘Hebrews’, 944; Simon J. Kistemaker, Psalm Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 148; John W. Kleinig, Hebrews (ConcC; St. Louis: Concordia, 2017) 114; Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 36; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 214; Schreiner, Commentary on Hebrews, 87–8; Michael Theobald, ‘Vom Text zum lebendigen Wort (Hebr 4,12): Beobachtungen zur Schrifthermeneutik des Hebräerbriefs’, Jesus Christus als die Mitte der Schrift: Studien zur Hermeneutik des Evangeliums (ed. Hans-Joachim Eckstein, Christof Landmesser and Hermann Lichtenberger; BZNW 86; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997) 758.
15 William L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8 (WBC 47A; Dallas: Word, 1991) 46; Michel, Der Brief an die Hebräer, 136–7.
16 Madison N. Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoken Quotations in Scripture (SNTSMS 178; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) 96.
17 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 22.
18 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4.
19 Matthew W. Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of Paul's Method of Scriptural Interpretation (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012).
20 Bates states that this ambiguity need not be a function of the original text itself, but may come from other places, such as the inclusion of the passage within a testimonia. Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 216–7.
21 Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 216–7.
22 Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 219–20.
23 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 20–1.
24 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 202–9. See also the earlier delineation in Matthew R. Malcolm, ‘God Has Spoken: The Renegotiation of Scripture in Hebrews’, All That the Prophets Have Declared: The Appropriation of Scripture in the Emergence of Christianity (ed. Matthew R. Malcolm; Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2015) 179–80.
25 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 160–2.
26 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 22.
27 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 96.
28 διό semantically encodes inference. BDAG s.v. ‘διό’.
29 Harold W. Attridge, ‘“Let Us Strive to Enter That Rest”: The Logic of Hebrews 4:1–11’, HTR 73 (1980) 279–88, at 280.
30 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 138–53.
31 Cf. Joshua W. Jipp, ‘The Son's Entrance into the Heavenly World: The Soteriological Necessity of the Scriptural Catena in Hebrews 1.5-14’, NTS 56 (2010) 557–75, at 560–1.
32 Jonathan Griffiths, Hebrews and Divine Speech (LNTS 507; London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 70.
33 Matthew Thiessen, ‘Hebrews and the End of the Exodus’, NovT 49 (2007) 353–69, at 359.
34 Peter E. Enns, ‘Creation and Re-Creation: Psalm 95 and Its Interpretation in Hebrews 3:1–4:13’, WTJ 55 (1993): 255–80, at 278.
35 Enns, ‘Creation and Re-Creation’, 279.
36 Bryan R. Dyer, ‘“In the Midst of the Assembly I Will Praise You”: Hebrews 2.12 and Its Contribution to the Argument of the Epistle’, JSNT 43 (2021) 523–38, at 526.
37 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 160.
38 On this linguistic principle more generally, see Steven E. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2010) 5–7.
39 Cf. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, lxx.
40 Contra Daniel J. Treier, ‘Speech Acts, Hearing Hearts, and Other Senses: The Doctrine of Scripture Practiced in Hebrews’, The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology (ed. Richard Bauckham et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009) 340.
41 Cynthia Long Westfall, A Discourse Analysis of the Letter to the Hebrews: The Relationship Between Form and Meaning (LNTS 297; London: T & T Clark, 2005) 109–10.
42 Jipp, ‘The Son's Entrance into the Heavenly World’, 574–5.
43 Although structural schemes of the catena differ amongst commentators, most place the seventh citation as the solitary climax of the catena. See especially the analyses in Herbert W. Bateman, IV, Early Jewish Hermeneutics and Hebrews 1:5–13: The Impact of Early Jewish Exegesis on the Interpretation of a Significant New Testament Passage (AUSTR 193; New York: Lang, 1997) 232–3; George H. Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Analysis (BSL; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 77;
44 This support is signalled with the connective γάρ. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 51–4.
45 Because of the flow of the logic, few have taken up Fuhrmann's argument that διαμαρτυρέομαι should be rendered as ‘to object’ rather than ‘to testify’. Sebastian Fuhrmann, ‘The Son, the Angels, and the Odd: Psalm 8 in Hebrews 1 and 2’, in Psalms and Hebrews: Studies in Reception (ed. Dirk J. Human and Gert J. Steyn; LHBOTS 527; New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) 89–90.
46 Jason Maston, ‘The Son and Scripture in Hebrews 1–2’, JSNT 44 (2022) 496–515, at 506.
47 Craig L. Blomberg, ‘“But We See Jesus”: The Relationship Between the Son of Man in Hebrews 2.6 and 2.9 and the Implications for English Translations’, A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts (ed. Richard Bauckham et al.; LNTS 387; London: T&T Clark, 2008) 92.
48 David M. Moffitt, ‘The Interpretation of Scripture in the Epistle to the Hebrews’, Reading the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Resource for Students (ed. Eric F. Mason and Kevin B. McCruden; RBS 66; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011) 88.
49 E.g. David I. Starling, ‘“At Many Times and in Various Ways”: Hebrews and the Hermeneutics of Exposition’, JTI 15 (2021) 121–32, at 125.
50 E.g. George H. Guthrie, Hebrews (NIVAC; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998) 100.
51 Thus, this argument proceeds on probabilities since much remains unknown concerning the occasion of the letter. For the affirmative, see Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 35; R. T. France, ‘The Writer of Hebrews as a Biblical Expositor’, TynBul 47 (1996) 245–76, at 262 n. 29; Kistemaker, Psalm Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 83. For the negative, see Blomberg, ‘“But We See Jesus”’, 94; Matthew C. Easter, Faith and the Faithfulness of Jesus in Hebrews (SNTSMS 160; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) 41.
52 George H. Guthrie and Russell D. Quinn, ‘A Discourse Analysis of the Use of Psalm 8:4–6 in Hebrews 2:5–9’, JETS 49 (2006) 235–46, at 243; Westfall, A Discourse Analysis of the Letter to the Hebrews, 101–2.
53 Jason Maston, ‘“What Is Man?”: An Argument for the Christological Reading of Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2’, ZNW 112 (2021) 89–104, at 103–4.
54 Hence when the author returns to Ps 109 LXX in Heb 5, the earthy, human existence of Jesus becomes a central plank in the argument for the way that Jesus fulfils the promise of being a priest in the order of Melchizedek.
55 E.g. David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (NovTSup 141; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 128; Amy L. B. Peeler, You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews (LNTS 486; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015) 73–4.
56 Easter, Faith and the Faithfulness of Jesus in Hebrews, 36.
57 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 179 n. 13.
58 This hermeneutical function of τις also suggests that the author and the readers were likely aware of Jesus's self-referential use of this title.
59 Although he argues that formula minimises the identity of the human speaker, Cockerill also states that the use of the formula ‘shows that Psalm 8 is not spoken by the Father to the Son (1.5–14) or by the Son to the Father (2.10–13)’. Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 127 n.18.
60 See, for example, Barth, ‘Old Testament in Hebrews’, 64.
61 Cf. BDAG s.v. ‘ἐκλɛίπω’. This final participle is functioning as a complement in a subject-complement construction with the passive verb.
62 Philo does not see this as the absence of any mother in a physical sense, but rather the absence of kinship on her mother's side (Ebr 61).
63 Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 96.
64 Ralph Marcus, trans. Josephus vii: Jewish Antiquities xii–xiv (LCL 365; Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1961) 203 n. g; H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus iii: The Jewish War iv–vii (LCL 210; London: Heinemann; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961) 574 n. a.