Quotes, Allusions and Echoes in Hebrews 8

With Hebrews 8 we get to the raison d'etre of my SBL paper. The theme of the section is "Reconfiguring Houses and Family Households," and my paper is about Hebrews' reconceptualization of the sanctuary in the texts of the Pentateuch. It's ended up a bit strangely configured because of the way I ended up giving the paper, but oh well:

1. intertextuality: quotes, allusions, and echos
2. reconceptualization of the sanctuary of the Pentateuchal text
3. intertextual echoes of Jerusalem and the temple's destruction

I will probably do 10 minutes of #3 and then 15 of #2.

So on to Hebrews 8. With verse 2, we recognize that the author is going to consider the earthly tabernacle a less authentic sanctuary than the true sanctuary in the heavens. Throughout the section, it is not the temple in Jerusalem that the author is directly addressing, but the wilderness tabernacle of the Pentateuch.

If Jesus were on earth, he would not be a priest (8:4). Earthly priests serve the heavenly "in a shadowy illustration" (8:5). I will argue what I have often written elsewhere, partially agreeing with Lincoln Hurst: "copy" is a completely inappropriate translation for hypodeigma. The literal "house" of the Pentateuchal text (Hebrews doesn't actually use the word house this way, I think) has become a shadowy pointer toward the true heavenly one.

8:5 quotes Exodus 25:40, spliced together in a manner attested in Philo with 25:9: Look, you will make everything according to the type that was shown you in the mountain. We are to understand that Moses was instructed to build the tabernacle according to what he saw on the mountain.

But what did he see? Was it an actual structure in heaven? Was it heaven itself? But what did he see? Was it an actual structure in heaven? Was it heaven itself? A Platonic model of the tabernacle?

What does the "all" mean? If "all" really means that every single thing in the earthly tabernacle corresponded to the equivalent in the heavenly sanctuary, then we are surely talking either about an apocalyptic temple structure in heaven or a Platonic archetype. One might argue that the splicing of the "all" from Exodus 25:9 into 25:40 implies emphasis on the word "all."

It may very well be that the author of Hebrews did think that every item in the earthly tabernacle had some allegorical significance. But, as mentioned above, the particular splicing together the author does here is also attested in Philo (as are several other "unique" Hebrews splicings), so we cannot know for sure how much significance to see in the way he makes the quote.

In general, the notion of an apocalyptic temple in heaven, especially one waiting to be revealed on earth, does not fit Hebrews tabernacle rhetoric very well. For one thing, Hebrews gives little basis for seeing an outer room to the heavenly sanctuary. Accordingly, neither a Platonic archetype nor a heavenly temple that serves as an exact prototype fits the bill very well. Further, Hebrews has no place for a sanctuary on earth in the eschaton. Indeed, Hebrews gives scant evidence for the existence of an earth in the eschaton at all.

With the throne room of heaven as the clear correspondance to the heavenly Holy of Holies, with scant basis for an outer room to the "heavenly sanctuary," with clear evidence of the author amalgamating multiple earthly OT sacrifices as a varied and "shadowy" correspondent of the singular heavenly "sacrifice," it seems more likely than not that the heavenly sanctuary is not a distinct structure in heaven at all but a metaphorical treatment of the highest heaven itself (e.g., 9:24).

The author has thus "reconfigured" the earthly house of God, the tabernacle/temple, as heaven itself. The place of God, the highest heaven, is the true tent, of which the wilderness tabernacle was only a shadowy illustration. And the sacrificial practices the earthly priests made in Levitical sanctuaries were only shadowy illustrations of the one true "sacrifice" made by Christ.