I have three papers to finish in the next month and a half ... Argh!
I thought I'd pick up with the easiest of the three. Looking for possible allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem in Hebrews. I've done chaps. 1, 2, and 13 already, so I thought I would pick it up with chapter 3 and 4 today.
3:1 "partakers of a heavenly calling" fits into my thesis of a wholesale reorientation of future destiny heavenward rather than around the redemption of the earthly.
3:5 "Moses was faithful in his whole house as a servant" This is an allusion to Numbers 12:7. It is not relevant really to my study, but I mention it because the Intertextuality group is focusing on houses and households. My focus, somewhat forced, is on the different house of the heavenly sanctuary. This is forced because Hebrews really doesn't use house imagery this way. But I put in an earmark here in relation to the section of Hebrews I would better have presented on if I had known the theme they were going to choose at that time.
I did not pick up any clear allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem in Hebrews 3 and 4. The long citation of Psalm 95 does have to do with entering God's rest, entering into Canaan. In that sense it does presuppose that the audience is not in Canaan. And given the rest of Hebrews, it does not seem likely that Canaan is anywhere on earth.
The mention to Christ as one able to help with temptation probably had specific temptations in mind, especially the temptation to give up faith. On my reconstruction, this certainly has to do with the destruction of Jerusalem, but nothing in these two chapters constitutes a concrete allusion or reference.
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We are rereading Hebrews in a local Bible Study - what a depth of usage of the OT! But nowhere can I see allusions to the destruction. If there are, they are carefully veiled.
Given that the most prominent word in the Bible for God's temple is "house," I don't think that thinking that the house/hold in Heb 3 as the sanctuary is far off. Moreover, since it is an allusion to Numbers in a passage that takes place just outside of the Tabernacle, I still think you can go that way...at least, that is the way I go in my dissertation.
What I find fascinating about the rest passage is partly how it is framed between God's house and God's throne. As you well know, people often bring together Heb 3-4with Heb. 11, both places where the "promised" land, the place of rest, is transferred to heavenly realities. So, the "rest" is sandwiched between God's house and throne (presumable within the heavenly sanctuary if we keep with that imagery), yet already reorients towards a future heavenly reality that is, at the same time, "today."
Yet, one thing I find fascinating is that the author of Hebrews avoids any spatial imagery whatsoever. After leaving God's house and before the throne, there is not a single spatial word. The text speaks of entering God's rest, to be sure, but avoids using terminology of land or spatiality.
I think the author is playing with something of a horizons of expectation: he is taking a well-known story (from a Psalm), and people's expectations are spatial, but, avoiding spatial terminology himself, transforms it using temporal imagery of the sabbath, causing one to reorient the entire previous discussion in terms of Sabbath rest.
So, we have "rest" previously understood in terms of the promised land now transformed simultaneously into a heavenly homeland (Heb. 11) and the Sabbath (Heb. 4).
I personally only know one other text that combines heavenly realities like this with the Sabbath (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice). In this case, a text that is the liturgy of a group separated from the activities of the temple. Perhaps a nice parallel to whoever is behind Hebrews (also separated from the daily activities of the temple, because, in your argument, it no longer exists).
Both texts, the Songs and Hebrews, reorient earthly interrelationships between Sabbath and sacred space found in the Priestly source of the Pentateuch into heavenly interrelated realities. Do you know any others?
Bob, I agree it's scanty, but I think chaps. 2 and 13 hold at least a little promise.
Jared, how close is your dissertation to finished? I don't think I'll go with a tabernacle echo in Heb. 3, but I'm open to being convinced.
It partly depends to what degree you expect the audience to catch the scriptural reference to Numbers and to know what god's "house" would be.
Nonetheless, isn't the definition of temple or particularly tabernacle, "God's dwelling"? Anything in which God, or an aspect of God (God's Glory, Name, Shekhinah, etc.), dwells becomes the temple...that's how Paul can argue that the Christians themselves become the temple (a similar idea also seems to lie behind Heb. 3:1-6), since that is where God dwells. Much like how the Qumran community can argue THEY are the temple...
The dissertation is slow coming right now unfortunately, partly because I am teaching as well right now. I have a rough draft of the body chapters complete, however.
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