The Case for Assigning Hebrews to Barnabas, not Paul


We have not surveyed the content of Hebrews because we do not consider it a writing of Paul, although down through the centuries, many other Bible students have included it among his epistles. But when tracing this attribution backward in time, we come to a halt at Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215).1 The many earlier writers who cite it fail to name the source.2 Centuries later, after linking the epistle to Paul became common practice, the church in Rome, its likely place of origin (Heb. 13:24), persisted in denying that Paul was the author.3 A tradition first affirmed in extant literature by Tertullian of Carthage (ca. 155-240) agrees with us in assigning authorship to Barnabas.4

Several reasons can be brought forward against viewing the epistle as Pauline.

  1. The early church fathers as a whole were uncertain who wrote it.5
  2. Like some other New Testament writers, the author declines to identify himself. Paul, however, always signs his name. Earlier, we suggested that anonymity was a natural choice for humble Barnabas.6 Yet in his opening words we find another explanation for his retreat into the background: "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" (Heb. 1:1-2). He wanted readers to understand that the epistle before them is not merely the words of a man. It is the Word of God.
  3. The author of Hebrews states, literally, "How shall we escape if we disregard so great a salvation, which, after it had its beginning in being spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard?" (Heb. 2:3).7 In the same manner as Luke (Luke 1:1-5), he acknowledges his dependence on the witness of believers who saw and heard the living Christ.8 Paul, to the contrary, is always bold in telling us that Christ appeared and spoke to him personally (1 Cor. 15:8–11). Through Luke his physician and helper, he reveals that Christ came to him not only on the road to Damascus, but on several later occasions as well (Acts 18:9-10; 22:17-21; 23:11). Never does he present himself as a secondhand source of truth.
  4. As far as many commentators are concerned, the decisive reason for rejecting Pauline authorship is that the literary style of Hebrews differs radically from what we find in Paul's compositions.9 The contrast is so sharp that it has always puzzled commentators who favor Pauline authorship. Clement of Alexandria decided that Hebrews must be Luke’s translation into Greek of Paul’s original version written in Hebrew.10
  5. Not only in style, but also in many features of outlook, Hebrews echoes the mindset of Barnabas, not Paul. The keen literary judgment of a scholar like A. B. Bruce carries special weight: "The style, the temperament, and the cast of thought characteristic of this Epistle are markedly different from those traceable in the [Pauline] letters . . . . The difference in style has been often commented on, but the contrast in the other respects is even more arresting. The contrast has its source in diversity of mental constitution and of religious experience. Paul was of an impetuous, passionate, vehement nature; hence his thought rushes on like a mountain torrent leaping over the rocks. The writer of . . . [Hebrews] is obviously a man of calm, contemplative, patient spirit, and hence the movement of his mind is like that of a stately river flowing through a plain. Their respective ways of looking at the law speak to an entirely different religious history. The law had been to Paul a source of the knowledge of sin, an irritant to sin, and a murderer of hope; therefore he ascribed to it the same functions in the moral education of mankind. The writer of . . . [Hebrews], on the other hand, appears to have gained his insight into the transient character of the Levitical religion and the glory of Christianity, not through a fruitless attempt at keeping the law with Pharisaic scrupulosity, but through a mental discipline enabling him to distinguish between shadow and substance, symbol and spiritual reality. In other words: while Paul was a moralist, he was a religious philosopher; while for Paul the organ of spiritual knowledge was conscience, for him it was devout reason."11
  6. Bruce's analysis helps to overcome one prejudice against recognizing Barnabas as an author of Scripture. The sketchy picture of Barnabas in the Book of Acts does not show him to be a man of commanding intellect. Therefore, Christians in later centuries tended to doubt that he could have composed Hebrews. Instead, despite strong evidence to the contrary,12 they credited him with the markedly inferior work known as the Epistle of Barnabas.
  7. At the close of Hebrews, the author speaks of Timothy recently being set free from prison (Heb. 13:23). Yet we find no mention of his imprisonment in any of the recognized epistles of Paul, not even in Second Timothy, a letter to Timothy himself written near the close of Paul's house arrest in Rome. This historical detail suggests that Hebrews is a somewhat later work,13 perhaps written after Paul's martyrdom.
  8. Hebrews offers profound insights on the true meaning of the Levitical system (Heb. 5–10), exactly the wisdom discoverable by the kind of intellectual searching natural to a Christian who was, by birth and training, a Levite (Acts 4:36).14

Many modern scholars agree with us that Paul did not write Hebrews.15 Some also agree with us that the author was Barnabas.16

Footnotes

  1. Homer A. Kent, Jr., The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1972), 17; Eusebius Church History 6.14.
  2. Kent, 15–16.
  3. Ibid.; Robinson, 217–218.
  4. Tertullian of Carthage On Modesty 20.
  5. Kent, 15–22; Robinson, 215.
  6. Rickard, Perils, 1.209.
  7. Kent, 49.
  8. Robinson, 219; Kent, 19.
  9. Polhill 3; Kent, 19.
  10. Kent, 21-22.
  11. Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The First Apology for Christianity, 2nd ed. (n.p., 1899; repr., Minneapolis, Minn.: Klock & Klock Christian Publishers, 1980), 22–23.
  12. Lightfoot and Harmer, 239-40.
  13. Robinson, 219.
  14. Kent, 19.
  15. Polhill, 3; Hayes, 70-71; A. B. Bruce, 22.
  16. George Edmundson, The Church in Rome in the First Century (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), 157–160; Vernon Bartlet, "Barnabas and His Genuine Epistle," in vol. 5, The Expositor, Sixth Series, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1902), 411–427; Robinson, 217–220.

This page is one chapter of a larger book. Therefore, not all references are complete. You can see full citations in the bibliography.

Further Reading


This lesson appears in Ed Rickard's In Perils Abounding, vol. 2, Commentary on Acts 15-28, which is available from Amazon.com. Also available is volume 1, covering Acts 1-14. For information on how to obtain them, click here.