I am once again in dialogue here with Earl Doherty. His online treatment is available principally on the second page of The Cosmic Christ of the Epistle to the Hebrews: http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp14Two.htm.
Doherty expresses some revealing sentiments concerning the function and importance of Hebrews 8.4 in the epistle; in order to properly understand those sentiments, however, I think we must back up a bit into chapter 7, which will entail reviewing some arguments that I have already made so as to recognize the conclusions from chapter 7 that Doherty has brought into chapter 8 and to compare and contrast them with my own. As Doherty himself reminds us:
We must remember that all division and numbering of Chapter and Verse in the New Testament is the product of a later time and may not always reflect a writer’s train of thought, something which scholars occasionally find themselves having to point out.
I have outlined elsewhere how Doherty exactly reverses what the author says in Hebrews 7.12. The author says that a change of priesthood requires a change of law. But Doherty interprets this as follows:
This may be putting the cart before the horse.... For the thinkers behind the Epistle to the Hebrews, a change of Law required a change of priesthood....
If (contrary to what the author actually wrote) a change in law requires a change in priesthood, then it really does not matter what tribe the new priesthood hails from, just so long as it is not the same tribe as the original priests, as Doherty goes on to make clear:
...and thus, as noted earlier, the newly-envisioned heavenly High Priest, Jesus, needed to be seen as of a different tribe than the Levites.
.... This new tribe is something needed only in principle to identify Jesus as of a different tribe than the priestly Levites.
.... This new tribe is something needed only in principle to identify Jesus as of a different tribe than the priestly Levites.
Doherty thinks that the author settled on Judah because of the putative connection between Salem, of which Melchizedek was king, and Jerusalem, which came to lie in the territory of Judah. Therefore, when Hebrews 7.13-14 points out that Jesus belongs to Judah, a tribe from which no one has officiated at the altar and concerning which Moses said nothing about priests, it is definitely not, according to Doherty, a matter of Jesus belonging to the wrong tribe to be a priest:
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.”
Rather, since (according to Doherty) a heavenly priesthood for Jesus is a given in this epistle, what tribe Jesus belongs to is of no importance to his priesthood. Doherty regards both his Melchizedeckian priesthood and his derivation from the tribe of Judah as purely heavenly realities which are, naturally, superior to their earthly counterparts:
If Jesus being “of the tribe of Judah” is based in the scriptural and heavenly Melchizedek (who has become part of the heavenly side of the equation, the “eternal/forever” side), it stands to reason that the “tribe of Judah" is also conceived as having a heavenly basis. All features about Jesus are regarded as superior to their earthly counterparts, and on the basis of being heavenly. Yet what would make the earthly tribe of Judah superior to the earthly tribe of Levi? We are entitled to assume that for this writer, Jesus’ link with the tribe of Judah has a heavenly character—especially since he denies any relevance to Jesus’ priesthood of derivation from an earthly tribe. It is this dual cosmological orientation, one which saturates the whole of Hebrews, that needs to be applied here.
For Doherty, such a cleanly drawn dualistic cosmology, in which the earthly Levitical priests perform their multiple sacrifices in their sphere of influence while the heavenly Melchizedeckian priest has once for all performed his singular sacrifice in his sphere of influence, renders moot any need to account for or refer to the possibility of overlapping priesthoods or spheres of influence. Once the author has set these two spheres of operation up, there is no need to come back to them and specify, once again, that Jesus does his thing in heaven while the Levites do their thing on earth. There is no need to speculate what might or might not happen if the Levites were to attempt to do their thing in heaven or if Jesus were to attempt to do his thing on earth.
And yet... our author does come back and specify exactly this sort of thing in Hebrews 8.3-4:
For every high priest is appointed to offer forth both gifts and sacrifices; whence the necessity for this high priest also to have something which he might offer forth. If, therefore, he were on earth, he would not be a priest, there being those who offer forth the gifts according to the law....
Does Doherty notice that our author has unnecessarily come back to beat a dead horse? Indeed he does; and he shares the following sentiments about these verses and their place in the epistle (underlining mine):
While this [8.3] may not be the author’s most sophisticated literary moment....
I have suggested that the reason the writer inserted the thought of verse 4 was to give an illustration, lame as it may be, of the idea that both types of priest could not perform their respective sacrifices in the same venue, namely on earth. ....
This verse [8.4] is a rather trivial thought, and quite unnecessary, but how fortunate for us that he expressed it! In verse 2, he has placed Christ in the “real” heavenly tent, one pitched by God, not man, so it should be clear to the reader in verse 3 that Christ offers his gifts and sacrifices in his own (heavenly) territory while the earthly high priests do so in theirs, making verse 4 superfluous—regardless of what tense we might put it in. And yet he has added this idea that Christ if on earth would not have anything to do, since there are already priests there who perform the business of sacrifice. This somewhat awkward remark does nothing more than serve to illustrate the author’s point (v.3) that each kind of priesthood, with its particular type of sacrifice, has its own venue, one on earth one in heaven.
I have suggested that the reason the writer inserted the thought of verse 4 was to give an illustration, lame as it may be, of the idea that both types of priest could not perform their respective sacrifices in the same venue, namely on earth. ....
This verse [8.4] is a rather trivial thought, and quite unnecessary, but how fortunate for us that he expressed it! In verse 2, he has placed Christ in the “real” heavenly tent, one pitched by God, not man, so it should be clear to the reader in verse 3 that Christ offers his gifts and sacrifices in his own (heavenly) territory while the earthly high priests do so in theirs, making verse 4 superfluous—regardless of what tense we might put it in. And yet he has added this idea that Christ if on earth would not have anything to do, since there are already priests there who perform the business of sacrifice. This somewhat awkward remark does nothing more than serve to illustrate the author’s point (v.3) that each kind of priesthood, with its particular type of sacrifice, has its own venue, one on earth one in heaven.
Do not forget that Doherty is here referring to what is a keynote passage for him, a pair of verses that he calls a smoking gun for his brand of mythicism. I suggest that, if by your own reckoning your keynote passage stands out as unsophisticated, lame, trivial, unnecessary, superfluous, and somewhat awkward, then perhaps you have misunderstood the passage, especially if you are going to point out later, on a slightly different matter, how sophisticated the author is:
And it is hardly likely that he created this non-sequitur by accident. This author is too efficient and sophisticated to be guilty of that kind of faux pas.
Something is amiss, and I think it can all be traced back to how Doherty treats the tribes of Levi and Judah in chapter 7. He does not take seriously enough the stated fact that Jesus belongs to a nonpriestly tribe; he does not notice that part of the argument of chapters 7 and 8 is intended to support and supplement the raw scriptural statement in Psalm 110.1-4 (109.1-4 LXX) that the Melchizedeckian priesthood is heavenly (at the right hand of God), that is, that a heavenly priesthood is not simply assumed in the epistle, but is argued for; furthermore, if I may anticipate my own main conclusion to this discussion, he does not perceive the implications of his own observation that the epistle postpones Jesus becoming a priest until after his death.
So let us delve back into chapter 7 and see what happens to the argument if we take these considerations seriously. Let us do so, however, with one particular phrase in mind from Hebrews 8.4, a phrase to which Doherty pays scant explicit attention; I will include verse 3 for context and also underline the phrase in question in verse 4:
For every high priest is appointed to offer forth both gifts and sacrifices; whence the necessity for this high priest also to have something which he might offer. If, therefore, he were on earth, he would not be a priest, there being those who offer forth the gifts according to law [κατὰ νόμον]....
What does it mean for someone to offer forth a gift according to law? Is that just another way of saying that these gifts are prescribed in the law? Or is there more to the phrase? It so happens that our author does not even mention the law (Greek νόμος) in this epistle until chapter 7, at which point it begins to pop up regularly all the way through chapter 10. The following are all the instances of this word in chapter 7, leading up to that instance in chapter 8:
[Hebrews 7.5:] And those indeed from among the sons of Levi receiving the priesthood have a commandment [ἐντολὴν] to collect a tithe from the people according to the law [κατὰ τὸν νόμον], that is, from their brethren, although they have come out from the loins of Abraham.
[Hebrews 7.11-16:] If therefore there were perfection through the Levitical priesthood, for upon it(s basis) the people received the law [νενομοθέτηται], what need for still another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not to be said to be according to the order of Aaron? For if there is a change of priesthood, there is also by necessity a change of law [νόμου]. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken shares of another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord has sprung from Judah, with reference to which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. And this is clearer still if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such, not according to a law [κατὰ νόμον] of fleshly commandment [ἐντολῆς σαρκίνης], but rather according to the power of an indestructible life.
[Hebrews 7.18-19:] For on the one hand there is a setting aside of a former commandment [προαγούσης ἐντολῆς] on account of the weak(ness) and the useless(ness) of it, for the law perfected nothing [οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐτελείωσεν ὁ νόμος]; and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
[Hebrews 7.28:] For the law [ὁ νόμος] appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath, after the law [μετὰ τὸν νόμον], (appoints) a son, perfected forever.
[Hebrews 7.11-16:] If therefore there were perfection through the Levitical priesthood, for upon it(s basis) the people received the law [νενομοθέτηται], what need for still another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not to be said to be according to the order of Aaron? For if there is a change of priesthood, there is also by necessity a change of law [νόμου]. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken shares of another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord has sprung from Judah, with reference to which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. And this is clearer still if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such, not according to a law [κατὰ νόμον] of fleshly commandment [ἐντολῆς σαρκίνης], but rather according to the power of an indestructible life.
[Hebrews 7.18-19:] For on the one hand there is a setting aside of a former commandment [προαγούσης ἐντολῆς] on account of the weak(ness) and the useless(ness) of it, for the law perfected nothing [οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐτελείωσεν ὁ νόμος]; and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
[Hebrews 7.28:] For the law [ὁ νόμος] appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath, after the law [μετὰ τὸν νόμον], (appoints) a son, perfected forever.
Notice the tight connection across these passages between the Levites and the law: the sons of Levi collect tithes according to the law; the Levitical priesthood is the very basis of the law; a change of priests (from Levites to something else) entails a change of law; Melchizedek is not a priest according to a law of fleshly commandment (that is, physical descent from Levi); the former law, based as it is on that physical descent from Levi, can perfect nothing; and the law appoints weak (Levitical) high priests. The whole context for the discussion of the law here is the Levitical priesthood. That the law is based on this priesthood is not a throwaway line; it is the same kind of statement as the ensuing one in verse 12 to the effect that a change of priesthood requires a change of law. If there is to be a priesthood that does not reckon its members by descent from Levi, then the law of Moses will have to be rewritten, replaced, or retooled; for the Levitical priesthood is its very basis.
Yet our Lord is not a Levite. No, it is evident (7.14) that he has sprung up from Judah, a tribe concerning which the law (of Moses) says nothing about priests. This is a problem for someone who thinks that Christ is supposed to be a priest; how can he be a priest if he is not from the priestly tribe? (That our author already has a solution squarely in mind is not the issue; the issue is how the argument is being presented to the readers.)
This is where Psalm 110.4 (109.4 LXX) comes in handy. Melchizedek is the solution to this problem: Jesus can be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, an order which does not rely on physical descent at all (let alone from Levi) for its priestly mandate. In fact, this priest of the order of Melchizedek is called upon to sit at the right hand of God in Psalm 110.1 (109.1 LXX), implying that his priesthood is heavenly, not earthly.
But blunt scriptural statements are rarely enough for our author, who delights in demonstrating from close scriptural reasoning that everything works out perfectly in the divine economy if one interprets the scriptures aright. This author has no interest at all in showing that the old covenant tried to do something but failed. That would reflect poorly on God, its originator. No, what our author wants to show is (A) that the old covenant was meant to do only certain things, but also (B) that built into that covenant were indications that a new covenant would come along. The old and the new are not meant to be in direct competition; rather, one is supposed to naturally lead into the other and then fade away.
Thus we arrive at the verse in question, 8.4, in which the author assumes three facts with which his or her readers can scarcely disagree and derives a favorable conclusion from them. The three facts are (A) that Jesus is of a nonpriestly tribe, (B) that according to law (that phrase I highlighted above) only the tribe of Levi performs the priestly duties on earth, and (C) that Jesus is nevertheless a priest, as per the Psalm. The irresistable conclusion to this triad is that Jesus is a priest indeed, but not on earth; rather, he is a priest in the heavens (at the right hand of God), thus vindicating Psalm 110.1 (109.1 LXX). See? The divine plan all works out. This is the author saying voilà!
Hebrews 8.(3-)4, then, is yet another proof that Christ operates as a priest in heaven, which is one of the main theses of the epistle. It is part of an elaborate argument showing how Jesus can even be a priest at all, given that he comes from a nonpriestly tribe. It is not unsophisticated or lame or trivial or unnecessary or superfluous or somewhat awkward... at least not any more so than the rest of the epistle. But, if one does not take the tribal affiliations laid out in chapter 7 seriously, I can certainly see why the beginning of chapter 8 might not make much sense.
But those tribal affiliations have more of a role to play here, I think. I mentioned that Doherty does not seem to perceive the implications of his own observation that Jesus becomes a priest only after his death in this epistle:
Attridge illuminates the issues involved here when he addresses [p.146-7] the “problem connected with the perennial conundrum of when Christ became High Priest.” He observes that the two Psalm verses (2:7 and 110:4) suggest Jesus’ sonship proceeds from his exaltation (by which he means the resurrection to heaven after his death on Calvary). Furthermore, certain references to Jesus becoming High Priest (as in 5:9-10 and 4:14-16) seem to be positioned in a similar way: following his exaltation to heaven after suffering and death. This is a recognition on Attridge’s part that the author confines Christ’s high priesthood to the period after his death; he defines it as something existing only in heaven. Christ was not High Priest before his exaltation to the heavenly sanctuary.
This is indeed perceptive, and certainly the text often (I would say, exclusively) conveys that very thing.
This is indeed perceptive, and certainly the text often (I would say, exclusively) conveys that very thing.
And this is where Judah and Levi play a crucial role in my own interpretation of Hebrews 8.4. For the obvious question that arises here is why? Why does the epistle make Jesus a priest only after his death? Why not depict him as a priest already when he actually offers himself up to die? Allow me to press this question as far as I can, using points developed in previous posts on Hebrews.
On the one hand, I pointed out in my note on Leviticus 1.1-17 & Exodus 24.4-6 that the actual slaughter of most sacrificial animals is not necessarily a priestly act. A nonpriest might very well bring an animal to the door of the tabernacle, lay hands upon it, and then kill it before the priest takes over to handle the blood and the burning of the flesh upon the altar. So is it possible that our author postpones the priesthood of Jesus until after his death because the slaughter itself is not a priestly act?
I would say this is possible, but not at all probable. For, on the other hand, I also demonstrated in that same note that priests can slaughter the animal; nothing prevents a priest from doing the slaughtering himself; so what would prevent our author from including the death of Jesus under the rubric of his priesthood? Even more important, however, is the strong expectation in the case of some of the most important sacrifices, including the daily sacrifices and the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement, that a descendant of Aaron would do the slaughtering himself. Our author has already compared the sacrifice of Jesus to the daily sacrifices, as I point out in my note on Hebrews 7.26-27, and he will go on to compare the sacrifice of Jesus to the Day of Atonement rituals, especially the cleansing of the tabernacle with the sacrificial blood, in Hebrews 9.23-26. Since the Day of Atonement sacrifices are the primary ones to which our author compares Jesus, with a secondary nod to the daily sacrifices, and since a descendant of Aaron himself performed the slaughter for both of these occasions, it seems a priori likely that the author should consider the death of Jesus as part of his priesthood.
Indeed, Doherty wonders out loud why the author does not do so (underlining mine):
It might be claimed that even if he doesn’t outright define the sacrifice as including the suffering and death which preceded the bringing of the blood into the heavenly sanctuary, doesn’t the writer treat it as of some importance, a necessary part of the picture? It is given a significant role in chapter 2, in the “test of suffering” which parallels that of the believers, and in the obedience learned through suffering in chapter 5, and the enduring of the cross in chapter 12. Wouldn’t this show that if pressed, he would have had to include it in the picture of the sacrifice, even if he seems, for whatever reason, to have deliberately avoided doing so in his presentation?
Doherty does not really have a good reason why the author did not include the death as part of the priestly sacrifice. In fact, he stresses that the author could have easily done so, with no complications:
Maybe so, but he could do that and still avoid all those complications: if the suffering and death were viewed as not on earth. He could have made them part of the sacrifice and still have everything take place in the heavens, with none of the complications related to a location in the physical realm—complications which he shows no sign of being aware of.
He is correct. If the suffering and death are not envisioned as occurring on earth, then the author could have included them as part of the priestly function of Jesus as he makes the one sacrifice that fulfills the Day of Atonement rituals and the daily offerings and, really, all of the sacrifices. Yet, instead of doing exactly that, the author has chosen to treat this particular slaughter as if it were one of the ordinary sacrifices which an Israelite might bring to the tabernacle.
I suggest that the author has exempted the death of Jesus from his priestly duties because he or she envisions Jesus as having died on earth.
If Doherty is correct that the author could have made Jesus a priest before death and still have avoided all those complications if his death is viewed as not on earth, then the fact that the author did not make Jesus a priest before death may well suggest that there are such complications, and therefore that his death is viewed as on earth.
I noted above that our author has no interest in making the two covenants, old and new, directly compete with one another in a way that would imply that God had planned poorly. Hebrews 8.4 is a ready example of this noncompetitive approach. Jesus cannot be a priest on earth because that is where priests are already doing their duties according to the law (κατὰ νόμον) that only Levites may be priests. The fact that his death is not reckoned as part of his priesthood makes perfect sense... if he is envisioned as having died on earth. If he had been imagined to have died anywhere else: heaven, hell, the abyss, the sky... anywhere but earth, his death could easily have been drawn into his priestly purview without risk of competing with the earthly Levites. But, if he has died on earth, his death has to be separated from his priestly function; he can become a priest only after death precisely because he cannot be a priest on earth, which is where his death has taken place.
Note that this argument is not simply a matter of pointing to Hebrews 7.14 and exclaiming: Look! Tribe of Judah. That is a tribe on earth! Booyah.
There may be some merit to that approach, but my approach integrates more of the text into the argument, more of the explicit authorial concerns, and without assuming in advance that the tribe of Judah has to be earthly. My approach gives good reasons why the priesthood is postponed till after death, why the derivation from Judah is considered evident and not actually argued for, and why 8.4 was written in the first place.
I am quite open to being shown that our author does not view the suffering and death as earthly in this epistle. I would love to read a robust defense of a location besides earth, one which takes into account, not only the tribe of Judah in 7.14 and my observations here concerning 8.4, but also the inhabited earth of 1.6 and the blood and flesh of 2.14 (two verses which are easy to integrate with my view but may require some explanation on other views). I have already striven to dispose of the supposed earthly implications often read into yet another passage in my note on Hebrews 13.11-13 (that pesky gate); perhaps the same can be done for 1.6, 2.14, and 7.14. Or perhaps the arguments that both Doherty and I make concerning the postponed priesthood may be dismantled; and, if it could be shown that Jesus is considered a priest at his death in this epistle, all my arguments concerning 8.4 would be cleanly flipped, so far as that verse and its context are concerned, at any rate, as I have mentioned before. Or perhaps there is another approach out there that I have not considered that could do the trick.
Doherty himself has several considerations against an earthly venue for the suffering and death that I have not dealt with here, but I have found them to be either completely unconvincing or even reversible. I may at some point go through them, or perhaps they might arise in debate on this thread.
Finally, I want to stress that, even if my argument is sound and the envisioned venue for the crucifixion is earth, not one shred of an argument for its actual historicity has been offered here. I do not think I have said anything here that would shake the G. A. Wells variety of mythicism, for example, whether before or after 1999.
Ben.
It changes the landscape for historical research. Instead of searching for some variant of the gospel Jesus under Pilate - the landscape opens up to the whole of Hasmonean/Jewish history from Alexander Jannaeus to Pilate. 