Quotes, Allusions and Echoes in Hebrews 1

A last minute addition to the SBL program this year is on Intertexuality in the New Testament. An old friend of my, B. J. Oropeza at Haggard School of Theology, solicited suggested topics and, to make a long story short, I find myself giving a paper on... Hebrews :-)

So between now and November I want intermittently to dawdle through the text of Hebrews--13 dawdles. The operative question is whether we find allusions and echoes to the destruction of Jerusalem. I'm particularly interested in Scripture citations, allusions, and echoes.

Hebrews 1
1:2--"in these last days"
This is an allusion to the "days are coming" passages of Jeremiah related to the new covenant, especially Jeremiah 31. These passages are about return from exile and the restoration of Jerusalem. However, the Christian use of new covenant imagery pre-dates the fall of Jerusalem and Hebrews times such things with the speaking of the Son. It is thus not clear at all that we can make a connection to the destruction of Jerusalem.

1:6 "into the inhabited world"
This citation from a form of the LXX of Deut. 32:43 comes from a passage that speaks of judgment. I have argued that this most likely refers to Christ's entrance into heaven rather than his birth, with the second coming a close second possibility. Again, there could be an echo of the judgment of Israel and the coming punishment of its [Roman] enemies. But there is far from enough evidence to say so.

I have also argued, however, that Hebrews here redefines what the truly "habitable world" is. It is not the earth that is the civilized world. It is heaven. This redefinition, I have argued, makes great sense as a consequence of the removal of Jerusalem from play by the Romans.

These were the only two references that came to mind in chapter 1.