Introduction to Hebrews' Paper

I thought I'd share the introduction to my Scotland Hebrews paper:

"As the Holy Spirit Says": Hebrews' Theology of Scripture
Hebrews has no explicitly stated theology of Scripture. Indeed, the word graphe does not even occur in the sermon. What Hebrews does have is a pervasive sense of God speaking and, thus, of God's word, his logos. It would of course be anachronistic to make some direct equation between the word of God in Hebrews and the Jewish Scriptures. From every perspective, logos is a much larger concept than some written text or texts.

Nevertheless, the author assumes without even considering the need for argument that the Scriptures are a witness to truth. The conversations of Scripture where God speaks are truly incidences when God spoke. At the same time, the "literal" meaning of Scriptural texts is not the only possible meaning. Indeed, it may not be the most important signification of the text. The author knows the difference between literal and allegorical, and at times he operates on a literal level. But his most significant points as often flow from some deeper meaning made clear by the Holy Spirit.

In this paper, we will unfold the following dynamics to Hebrews' use of Scripture. First, while Hebrews demonstrates an awareness of the human instruments involved in the origins of Scriptural texts, human authors play almost no appreciable role whatsoever for the author in the meaning of Scripture. He prefers to speak of the witness of the text itself.

Secondly, the literal meaning for the author is conceived thoroughly in a pre-modern way. The author makes no distinction between the story in the text and the real world story in which those texts are historically located. The events, characters, and settings of biblical narratives (narratives both explicit and implicitly derived) are not examined in their own right, but primarily for how they might constitute exempla for contemporary understanding.

However, in the most significant instances, the author understands the text to speak directly to the audience in some way. The author seems to believe that in many such instances, the Holy Spirit is speaking directly to the audience through the words of the text. In other cases, early Christian traditions or various aspects of the Scriptural context lead the author to read passages as if Christ were the one speaking the words. In one situation, the author believes the words of Scripture are most appropriately placed on the lips of himself and the audience! In these instances the author is aware that he is going beyond the literal--it is just that the literal meaning is not the important one at that point.

Behind all these dynamics, driving the specific interpretive courses of action, is the author's theology brought to bear on a specific rhetorical situation. This theology obviously involved a hefty Christological component. But more than anything else the author's lens was eschatological. The author locates himself and the audience at the consummation of the ages brought about by Christ. And he argued from the biblical text to move the audience to his desired end.