Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [181]
• Hebrews
Frequently calling up the names of the “heroes” of the Hebrew scriptures, Hebrews was probably aimed at Jewish converts to Christianity. Few non-Jewish Christians of the early period would have understood the letter’s references to Noah, Abraham, Lot, and other familiar Israelite characters. The likelihood is that some of these Jewish converts, faced with the growing persecution of Christians by the Roman empire, may have been wondering if making the switch was such a bright idea. The letter was written to shore up their nerve.
This book has fallen into a kind of literary limbo. It is addressed to no specific church or person and begins without the personal greeting typical of other New Testament letters. The letter’s author is unnamed, and for centuries Paul was just assumed to have written it. Augustine, the most influential Christian writer after Paul, accepted that opinion; and when Augustine spoke, people listened. Hebrews was linked with Paul’s other letters in early New Testament collections, and some authorities still say it is Paul’s work. Other scholars thought it was by another early church leader or an unknown scribe who had recorded Paul’s teachings, and the modern scholarly opinion is almost unanimous that Hebrews was not written by Paul.
Since Hebrews makes no specific reference to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple in 70 CE, many scholars also believe that the letter was written before that date. Others argue for a later date, during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Domitian near the end of the century. They cite this line as a reference to the fallen Jerusalem: “For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” (Heb. 13:14)
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. (Heb. 4:12-13)
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1)
• James
Unlike Paul’s letters and Hebrews, in which the titles reflect the recipients, this and the other “General Letters” are named for their supposed authors. Which “James” wrote this one is a mystery. The letter was traditionally thought to be written by James, the brother of Jesus, a leader of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. There were also two apostles named James and the letter-writer isn’t more specific about himself. Possibly because the letter challenges Paul’s ideas, a later writer used this “important” name to give his work more authority.
James is addressed to “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion,” so it is presumably directed, like Hebrews, to Jewish converts to Christianity. The author addresses a group of Jewish Christians who are told to consider their trials as a privilege, and temptation as an opportunity to do right. They are told to assist the poor especially if they themselves are comfortably off.
Although James was recognized as part of the authorized New Testament as early as the second century, not everyone accepted it without reservation. The famed German reformer Martin Luther hated the book. Luther (1483-1546) literally ripped it out of copies of the Bible. He felt that parts of it contradicted Paul, and he called it an “epistle of straw.”
Luther’s objection lay in the book’s major theme: the author believes that faith without accompanying “good deeds” is no faith at all. Some of the passages seem to attack Paul’s central doctrine of “justification by faith,” whereby people are saved by their faith alone, not by “works,” by which Paul specifically meant keeping certain religious laws. In other words, is belief in Jesus by itself enough to guarantee salvation? Or must one also be a “good-deed-doer,” as the Wizard of Oz