For it is evident that our Lord has sprung [or is descended] from Judah, with respect to which tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
I wish to highlight something that I think Doherty gets quite right about this verse, and then I wish to point out something that I think he gets very wrong about it.
Doherty rightly asks about this alleged descent from Judah:
What makes it “evident”? There is no appeal to historical record, to any genealogy of Jesus as physically descended from David. .... If he were referring to a well-known historical tradition, we might expect him to state it more directly, perhaps with a reference to David. But everything to this point has been declared of Jesus on the basis of scripture. The writer has consistently said, ‘We know such-and-such about our High Priest in heaven because scripture has said this about him—or he himself has said it, in scripture.’ It is scripture that has consistently supplied what is “evident.” This, then, points to a natural understanding of “for it is evident that” in terms of what is known from scripture, and thus any historical basis or understanding of Jesus as a human member of the earthly tribe of Judah becomes obscured.
So far I quite agree. I think that, when the author says that it is evident that Christ descended from Judah, the only evidence on offer in the epistle is the evidence of scripture. If there is some genealogical tradition lurking behind this statement, the author has indeed obscured it, choosing to make the case solely on the basis of the OT. Doherty continues:
This is rendered virtually certain by the passage that follows:
15 And what we have said is even more clear [a variant word, katadēlon]
if another priest like Melchizedek arises,
16 not according to a system of physical [lit., fleshly] requirements
but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life…
And he once again goes on to quote Psalm 110:4: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
If an appeal to scripture involving Melchizedek makes something “more clear,” then what has previously helped make the topic “clear” is likely an appeal to scripture as well....
15 And what we have said is even more clear [a variant word, katadēlon]
if another priest like Melchizedek arises,
16 not according to a system of physical [lit., fleshly] requirements
but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life…
And he once again goes on to quote Psalm 110:4: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
If an appeal to scripture involving Melchizedek makes something “more clear,” then what has previously helped make the topic “clear” is likely an appeal to scripture as well....
I am not quite certain about the logic here (since one is always free to draw on different kinds of evidence, each kind making the overall conclusion more evident; saying that the time stamp on a receipt makes the case clear, while DNA testing makes the case even clearer, does not imply that the DNA test is the same kind of evidence as the time stamp on a receipt); nevertheless, I do agree overall with the conclusion that, in fact, in this particular case, our author has used evidence from scripture to make the case clear and then more evidence from scripture to make the case even clearer. It is scripture all the way, so far as what we are being presented is concerned.
I suspect that Doherty and I would agree also on the main source of the scriptural evidence for this second point, the point about Melchizedek that makes things all the clearer, as it were: it is Psalm 110.4 (109.4 LXX), which the author has quoted and alluded to several times already in the epistle (5.6, 10; 6.20; 7.11), and will again only 2 verses later (7.17).
But we differ pretty dramatically on the source of the scriptural evidence for the first point, the original point about the Lord being descended from Judah in the first place. Doherty and I take two very different tacks, and the difference in the results of our argumentation ought soon to be fairly evident, to reach for the easy pun. Basically, Doherty attempts to retrace the thinking that went into the text before us; I will start with what he calls the possible genesis of the Hebrews soteriological scenario:
If the passages about Melchizedek were being read messianically by this group, with Melchizedek envisioned as a heavenly figure (aided by the trend to regard some angels as heavenly priests, even offering a type of sacrifice themselves), it could have led to the whole imagining of the Messiah/Christ as a superior kind of High Priest in heaven, following in Melchizedek’s “order.”
Now, speculation about Melchizedek ran rampant in some circles, so I doubt there is anything inherently unrealistic about our author thinking in these terms. From here, however, Doherty still has to make the connection to the tribe of Judah, and (moreover) to make it evident (or at least evident enough for our author and his or her first readers). After all, Melchizedek lived two generations before the twelve tribes were even founded, and he had dealings with Abraham (Genesis 14), the progenitor of all twelve of the tribes, not just of the tribe of Judah, so how does identifying Jesus with Melchizedek make it in any way evident that Jesus was a descendant of Judah? Doherty begins this identification by postulating that all that was really needed was a tribal affiliation, any tribal affiliation, that was not Levite:
It is not surprising that the writer never speaks of David, or enlarges on Jesus being of the tribe of Judah. This new tribe is something needed only in principle to identify Jesus as of a different tribe than the priestly Levites.
But this statement requires an explanation, as well. Why not identify Jesus with the Levites, thus making him definitively priestly, but then argue that he is also of the eternal order of Melchizedek, as well? Why can Jesus not be both a Levite and of the new order of priests, a graduated Levite, as it were? To answer this kind of question, Doherty appeals to 7.12:
For if there is a change of priesthood, there is also by necessity a change of law.
Notice the direction of this statement: a change of priesthood entails a change of law. This direction does not work for Doherty, however (emphasis mine):
This may be putting the cart before the horse, because one suspects—especially when taking the wider record of the time into account—that it is the reform impulse that first arose to generate philosophical ways to justify it. This was a period of dissatisfaction with the Law (as also witness Paul), a period of new ideas which declared that the old sacrificial cult and Mosaic law code had proven ineffective on both a national and personal level. (For some, the sacrifices had even become distasteful.) Israel had failed to achieve freedom from foreign domination and her destined supremacy; society had failed to reach social and moral perfection. A vast innovative change was needed. Sectarian groups like the community of Hebrews were led to see this as being brought about through new plans by God, now revealed to them in various ways. Often the new alternative being offered was directed at the personal level, an opportunity for an elect to gain its own salvation, although the theoretical possibility that society as a whole could be won over was not to be ruled out. If it could be seen that God no longer wanted animal sacrifices, the Temple cult would pass away and a new religious order come into being along the sect’s lines of thought. Thus it is not unlikely that the impulse to create something new, a new solution and a new hope, was what led imaginative thinkers and prophets to apply their abilities to a different reading of scripture as a new, updated revelation from God. Under the influence of the intermediary Son/Logos philosophy and the pagan mystery cults, this usually took the form of envisioning a new savior deity, God’s own Son.
For the thinkers behind the Epistle to the Hebrews, a change of Law required a change of priesthood, and thus, as noted earlier, the newly-envisioned heavenly High Priest, Jesus, needed to be seen as of a different tribe than the Levites.
For the thinkers behind the Epistle to the Hebrews, a change of Law required a change of priesthood, and thus, as noted earlier, the newly-envisioned heavenly High Priest, Jesus, needed to be seen as of a different tribe than the Levites.
I do not doubt that Jewish thinkers were rethinking the law at this time in history; take note, however, of the direction of this last statement, as Doherty summarizes the thought process: a change of law entails a change of priesthood. This is exactly the opposite of what the author actually wrote in verse 12. Doherty does not explain why the author wrote the exact opposite of what he or she was thinking (or the exact opposite of the real motivation behind making sure Jesus was not a Levite). Doherty simply needs the thought to run in this direction so that he can explain why the author makes such a point of Jesus not being of Levi! The thinkers behind the epistle feel that a change of law is warranted, and for them this also entails, on principle, a change of priesthood, as Doherty asserts:
...the author believes there is need for the principle of Christ’s assignment to a different tribe....
He sticks to this direction with admirable tenacity, elsewhere noting:
Yes, there is no issue of historical tribal descent, but there is an “issue” nonetheless: the basic philosophical requirement that a new Law needs a new priesthood, including being of a different tribe.
Please note that I am not arguing that change of law leads to change of priesthood is inherently illogical. I am pointing out that this principle is (A) the exact opposite of what the author actually wrote in 7.12 and (B) just that, a principle, one apparently not actually deduced from scripture, in contrast to so much of the rest of this epistle.
And we have still not connected Jesus to Judah. So far we have only disconnected him from Levi. So one more step is required, and Doherty connects the dots as follows:
The Lord’s connection with Judah is apparently derived from Melchizedek who was king of Jerusalem, with which the tribe of Judah became associated in post-Abrahamic times.
Elsewhere he fleshes this out a bit more, pointing out that Melchizedek was king of Salem, which was traditionally the original name of Jerusalem, which eventually belonged to the territory of Judah.
Now, as it stands, this is a pretty weak broth. It is not at all evident that the one and only charter member of the priestly order of Melchizedek should have to be of the tribe of Judah simply because Melchizedek ruled a city which much later fell to Judah in the tribal allotments. This is why Doherty has to emphasize that the real issue was that Jesus not be a Levite. Once you have to go looking for another tribe to assign your high priest to, I suppose any little advantage will do. Judah wins only because the other tribes perform so poorly, so to speak.
Also, consider how 7.14 is supposed to relate to 7.15. The former says that it is evident that our Lord is a descendant of Judah, the latter that a priest arising after the likeness of Melchizedek makes this even more evident. But Doherty thinks that the connections, such as they are, between Melchizedek and Judah are what make descent from Judah evident in 7.14; so what does Melchizedek add to make this even more evident in 7.15? I suppose one could divide up the Melchizedek connections between the two verses somehow; Doherty points out at one juncture that Psalm 110.4 was originally addressed to a Hebrew king of the Davidic line, so perhaps this is the extra evidence that 7.15 adds. But, for my money, on the face of it, it appears that there is a line of (scriptural) evidence in 7.14 that is independent of Melchizedek, a line of evidence to which adding Melchizedek into the mix actually makes a positive difference.
It is not impossible that our author has done exactly what Doherty has outlined above: Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, so he cannot be from Levi, because a change in law requires a change in priesthood (even though what actually got down on parchment was that a change in priesthood requires a change in law). So what tribe is he from? Well, Melchizedek was king of Salem, and Salem became Jerusalem, which was eventually allotted to Judah. Dan or Asher or any of the others would do in a pinch, but Judah holds a territorial (though decidedly nongenealogical) edge; so Judah it is.
But I happen to think that there is a much better way to assemble these particular pieces of the puzzle, one which (A) is eminently more worthy to be called evident, (B) fully explains what the author actually wrote rather than simply reversing it, (C) fits right into the usual practice found in this epistle of deriving things from scripture, as opposed to asserting them on principle, and (D) makes more sense of the evidence actually mounting between 7.14 and 7.15.
(Please, please, please do not turn this thread into a debate over whether we have to take descendant of Judah literally or figuratively or physically or spiritually or allegorically or sexually or warily or in any other way adverbially. This thread is about how the text deals with the categories it has set up in scriptural terms: likeness of Melchizedek, line of Levi, line of Judah, and so forth. It is not about how we interpret those categories, except insofar as that interpretation is essential to our understanding of why Melchizedek matters to our author.)
I start from a different conceptual spot than Doherty; he started with the order of Melchizedek, but I will start with the tribe of Judah.
(Let the reader understand that none of this is meant to actually sketch out the literal order of thoughts the author had while coming up with the whole scenario we find in this complex epistle. Rather, this is all about how the author presents the argument in the text. Whether the author actually started with Melchizedek or with Judah as fodder for the interpretations contained therein does not really matter, and is of course unrecoverable anyway. What I am retracing is the argument as the original readers were supposed to follow it.)
In short, I think Doherty has missed something obvious: that the messiah was commonly expected to be a descendant of Judah, through the line of David. Descent from David was not the only option for the messiah (Greek Χριστος, Christ) in Jewish and Christian thinking, but it was an extremely common one, possibly even the most common one; furthermore, it was one firmly grounded on various scriptural passages. I cannot imagine how or why Doherty misses this obvious point, but he does, going so far as to consistently downplay any connection to Judah or David in this epistle (despite the fact that the author explicitly takes for granted that Christ descended from Judah). Let us start with Genesis 49.10:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet.
Judah is here identified as the tribe of kings. Bear in mind that the Davidic dynasty derives from Judah in the OT. Next, the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24.17a specifies only Israel (Jacob), not Judah in particular, but the scepter image returns, and it would thus be easy to connect the two oracles:
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall rise up from Jacob, and a scepter shall rise from Israel.
(The reason behind the boldfacing of those words above, and throughout these texts, will become apparent later.)
Put these two texts together and you might get a star springing up out of Judah. Later prophets specified the Davidic line, of course, as the line of kingship coming out of Judah. Jeremiah 23.5:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I shall raise up for David a righteous branch; and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.
Zechariah 6.12:
Then say to him: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for he shall branch out from where he is; and he will build the temple of the Lord.
Isaiah 11.1:
Then a staff will spring from the root of Jesse, and a flower from that root will rise up.
Jesse was, of course, the father of David.
As mentioned above, several of these passages include words that I have boldfaced. I have done so in order to highlight the fact that, underneath the diversity of English words often used to translate the Hebrew, the Greek word underlying all of those boldfaced words in the LXX (quoted so often in our present epistle) is either the noun ανατολη or its corresponding verb, built on the same root and prefix, ανατελλω. The verb can mean to spring up, to branch out, or to rise; correspondingly, the noun can mean a variety of things that spring up or rise, such as a sprout or branch or even the dawn (sunrise). The verb ανατελλω appears right at the beginning of Testament of Judah 24:
And after these things a star shall arise from Jacob for you in peace, and a man shall rise from my seed....
Since the putative speaker here is Judah himself, the author has obviously combined the star from the Balaam prophecy with the more specific prophecies about descendants of Judah.
The scrolls discovered at Qumran preserve messianic speculation along these same lines. 4Q285 mentions a shoot which will emerge from the stump of Jesse; it also mentions the bud of David. 4Q174 (4QFlorilegium) uses the Hebrew word translated into Greek as ανατολη in Jeremiah 23.5 to interpret 2 Samuel 7.14 messianically: I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. This (refers to the) sprout of David. 4Q252 uses that same Hebrew word to allege that the messiah of righteousness will come, the sprout of David, for to him and to his descendants has been given the covenant of the kingship of his people for everlasting generations.
The NT obviously follows suit when it comes to linking the messiah with David or with Judah. Revelation 22.16b puts words into the mouth of Jesus himself:
I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.
Examples could be multiplied. But consider Luke 1.78, part of the prophetic utterance of Zechariah...:
...because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the dawn [ανατολη] from on high shall visit us....
...in light of what John T. Carroll has to say about the scriptural references being echoed here:
The metaphor of rising dawn (or star) for divine visitation is evocative yet also difficult to pin down because the word anatolē (lit., rising) and the cognate verb anatellein (rise) appear with varying nuances in LXX texts that refer to a messianic ruler....
The word ανατολη or its corresponding verb became an easy back reference to all those LXX texts that lent themselves so easily to being interpreted messianically. Why do I mention this? Because the verse under dispute, Hebrews 7.14, uses this verb, too:
For it is evident that our Lord has sprung [ανατεταλκεν, the perfect indicative of ανατελλω] from Judah, with respect to which tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
Much how commentators find it difficult to pin down which scriptural reference lies behind Luke 1.78, it is also difficult to pin down the exact scriptures behind Hebrews 7.14, and for the same reason: not a paucity of potential texts, but rather a surfeit of them, a veritable embarrassment of allegedly messianic oracles identifying the once and future Christ as a descendant of Judah through David. I submit that this cluster of texts and related concepts is a much worthier source of the authorial confidence displayed in 7.14 (the confidence, namely, that the dominical descent from Judah is evident) than the notion that Salem eventually fell to Judah. Doherty is right when he says that it is evident from scripture; he just gets wrong which cache of scriptures makes it so evident. (Why does the author choose to write that the Lord has sprung from Judah instead of from David? Because the author is comparing tribes, not individuals. Levi is the tribe of priests, Judah the tribe of kings. There is no clear, exact Levitical parallel to David, no X is to Levi as David is to Judah.) Once we are clear that Christ descending from Judah comes straight from the scriptures, and not just from some roundabout, nongenealogical reasoning about them, the infelicities into which Doherty stumbles and the weird reversal in which he indulges become unnecessary.
For example, recall that Doherty had reasoned that the main issue in 7.14 was that Jesus not be a Levite. Now we can see that, actually, his putative descent from Judah is a vital part of his messianic identity. Dan and Asher will not do in a pinch; nor will Levi. Whole streams of scriptural precedent depend on it being Judah. Judah is a starting point, not a decision made after the fact just because it cannot be Levi. And the argument flows better when Judah is both starting point and evident: one generally argues from what is evident to what is not quite so evident. Our author starts with something the epistolary readership can be counted to agree on: Christ is descended from Judah, as evidenced in scripture, and from there the less evident points must follow.
Recall also that Doherty had to exactly reverse what the author wrote in 7.12:
For if there is a change of priesthood, there is also by necessity a change of law.
But now we can see why this is the correct order (and not if there is a change of law, then also a change or priesthood), why this is the direction that the author enclosed in this passage. Yes, of course a change of priesthood necessitates a change of law. Which law? Why, the whole body of law that designates the Levites as priests and ministers in the tabernacle! This is no abstract principle that the author sets up only to effortlessly fulfill with a quick change of tribal affiliation. This is a direct deduction from the scriptures; if there is a new priesthood on the scene, then obviously all those laws about Levites and sons of Aaron must be changed. But that is fine. The law was only a shadow of things to come anyway (Hebrews 10.1).
Doherty goes so far at one point to argue:
But the writer shows no sign that a Jesus being of the tribe of Judah is a “problem.” He never puts it in such terms. The issue is not that “Jesus was born into the wrong tribe to be a priest.”
But this is just tone deafness to the very verse at hand, 7.14, which I quote again, this time along with the verse immediately preceding it, 7.13 (emphasis mine):
For the one [Jesus] concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord has sprung from Judah, with respect to which tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
We can even express this as a syllogism:
1. Jesus is a descendant of Judah.
2. No descendant of Judah is a priest.
3. Therefore, Jesus is not a priest.
2. No descendant of Judah is a priest.
3. Therefore, Jesus is not a priest.
That conclusion is not one that our author would particularly relish, is it? That conclusion is very much a problem. Our author wants to paint Christ in the most priestly colors available... but it is evident (from scripture) that Christ is from the wrong tribe to be a priest. This is a problem to which Melchizedek is the solution (he is probably already a solution to the perennial king versus priest problem in Psalm 110.4, as well): he represents another priesthood, one not bound by law to descend from Levi (one not bound by law to follow any lines of physical descent, according to 7.16).
How do you make Christ a priest if he is of the tribe of Judah? One way is to find another priesthood for him to belong to. (Other ways surface in Jewish literature, by the way, but this is the one our author decided upon.)
Finally, we can now also see why the order of Melchizedek in 7.15 makes the tribal affiliation with Judah even more evident. The scriptures implied in 7.14 linking the messiah with Judah (and David) have nothing to do with Melchizedek; they establish descent from Judah independently of anything to do with Melchizedek. Adding in the fact, in 7.15, then, that there is another, separate order available for priests has the effect of vindicating scripture: after all, those OT passages that seem to predict a priestly messiah might well be seen to sit uneasily beside the clearer and more numerous ones predicting a royal (Davidic) messiah, but Melchizedek bridges the gap. If it was evident already from the royal messianic oracles that the Lord is to descend from Judah, now it is all the more evident from the fact that Melchizedek exactly solves the problem of how a king from Judah can also be a priest. Why, the reasoning might go, would God have even created the priestly order of Melchizedek if not to give the Davidic kings (and Davidic messiah) a way to serve as priest for their people, as well? Melchizedek singlehandedly dispels any suspicions that the royal messianic prophecies might prevent, by Mosaic law itself, the priestly messianic prophecies from coming true (assuming that the priestly and royal figures are to be the same person; not all Jews made the same assumption, but many did, and it is enough that our author appears to have done so). Therefore, Melchizedek and his eternal priesthood make it all the more likely, all the more evident, that the messiah really does spring up from Judah.
(We can even collect all of the connections between Melchizedek and Judah that Doherty adduces, if we are of a mind, and mentally place them here, at 7.15; the addition of obvious Davidic and messianic links from the scriptures does not necessarily nullify the connections that Doherty finds; it just relocates them to where they fit better, in 7.15, with the mention of Melchizedek adding to the evidence.)
There is one aspect of this Melchizedeckian solution to a genealogical problem that I have deliberately left unaddressed: our author also locates the two respective priesthoods in two respective venues (heaven and earth). I do not address that issue here because I think that this authorial move is, at least in part, the solution to a different (but obviously related) problem: how to make the two priesthoods overlap or run concurrently in the authorial present, without bluntly invalidating either of them.
Ben.
