I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you. Greet all your leaders and all the Lord’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings. – Hebrews 13:23-24

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 12, 2018): Hebrews 13

A good ending always seems to bring us back to the beginning. And the Epistle to the Hebrews ends with the same question that leaps off the page at the beginning; who is it that wrote the letter? The traditional answer has been Paul, although support for Pauline authorship has never been strong. Even by the end of the First Century, just a couple of decades after the writing of the letter, the idea that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews seemed like a convenient lie. There is just too much that is different about the letter when we compare it to other Pauline letters of which we have copies. Even the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews is dramatically different from any other letter that Paul wrote. The themes might be things that Paul would agree with, but that only means that the author was familiar with Paul and agreed with his theology.

So who wrote the letter? If it wasn’t Paul, then we have a long list of names that could have written the letter. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Apollos, and Luke the Evangelist, who wrote both the Gospel of Luke and Acts, have all been suggested. My guess is that it might have been Priscilla who wrote the letter. If Priscilla did write Hebrews, then a woman writing a letter like this in a male-dominated world might explain the anonymity of the letter. The addition of Priscilla’s name, unlike Paul’s, would not increase the authority of the letter for those who read it. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the original recipients of the letter knew the identity of the one who wrote it.

The fact that the letter seems to have been written from Rome (“those from Italy send you their greetings”) would also give the idea of Priscilla as the author some credence. After all, Priscilla and Aquila had roots in Rome and had left the city only because the Christians had been thrown out by Emperor Claudius. It is quite possible that they returned to the city later in their careers.

But for those who cling to the idea that Paul was the author of the letter, there is support for that view here as well. The author seems to not only know Timothy, Paul’s protégé, but speaks with authority over him. Apparently, Timothy has been released. In itself, that comment is a bit of a mystery. We just don’t know from what Timothy has been released. Some argue that he was released from prison, but we don’t know that Timothy was ever in prison. Those who argue that he was in prison have only this verse to point to as their evidence.

Another theory is that Timothy had been on some kind of a mission, but had been released from that task. This would imply that the writer of the letter was in some kind of ecclesiastical authority, and of all of the possible writers suggested for the letter, it is Paul who most closely would fit that description. This implied authority also makes a strike against the possibility that Priscilla wrote the letter.

In the end, we are only left with our guesses. But as a friend of mine once remarked, “I am convinced that whoever wrote Hebrews, it was written by someone with whom we would be comfortable with their authorship.” In other words, it is written by someone who was deeply respected by the first-century church, and we should honor that respect.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jude 1