Strangers on the Earth: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Hebrews by James W. Thompson

Abstract

Reviewed by: Strangers on the Earth: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Hebrews by James W. Thompson Scott D. Mackie james w. thompson, Strangers on the Earth: Philosophy and Rhetoric in Hebrews ( Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020). Pp. vii + 191. Paper $25. James Thompson surely is one of the most important Hebrews scholars of the past half century. His The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy: The Epistle to the Hebrews (CBQMS 13; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981) offered a significant challenge to the majority opinion that Hebrews' sole "background of thought" was Jewish apocalyptic. Like The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy, this present volume gathers previously published essays and demonstrates the value that Middle Platonic philosophy holds for understanding Hebrews. After rehearsing scholarship on the thought-world of Hebrews, in "Introduction: The Strange New World of Hebrews," an essay on "The Hermeneutics of the Epistle to the Hebrews" examines the pastoral purposes motivating Hebrews' scriptural interpretations. The conviction that older beliefs and institutions hold precedence over newer ones is contested throughout Hebrews, and in "The New is Better: A Neglected Aspect of the Hermeneutics of Hebrews," T. shows how Hebrews' counterargument, that the "new nullifies the old," is supported by "technical legal language" and categories (pp. 30, 38). T. is at his best in "The Appropriate, the Necessary, and the Impossible: Faith and Reason in Hebrews." Hebrews argues that the "sacrifice of Jesus was both 'fitting' (2:10; 7:26) and 'necessary' (9:16, 23) because it is 'impossible' for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (10:4)" (p. 67). Though such appeals to reason are without parallel elsewhere in sacred Scripture, they are quite common in Greco-Roman rhetoric, philosophy, and the treatises of Philo. Rhetoric and structure in Hebrews 1–4 are the primary focus of "Argument and Persuasion in the Epistle to the Hebrews," while in "What Does Middle Platonism Have to Do with Hebrews?" T. concedes that Hebrews "demonstrates neither a profound knowledge of [End Page 713] Platonism nor a belief in all" its "major tenets." Nevertheless, the author does employ a "major theme" of Platonism: the contrast between the eternal and the transitory (p. 91). Additional Middle Platonic topics discussed are divine transcendence, stability, and immutability, as well as intermediary figures and the contrast between "the one and the many." A number of these themes coalesce in the famous "faith formula" of Heb 11:1: "faith involves taking one's stand, not on the visible realities, but 'on things hoped for.'" Thus, "Faith … is finding a place to stand in the invisible, transcendent reality" (p. 88). The metaphysical divide separating the world of becoming from the noetic realm is the primary frame of reference in "Ephapax: The One and the Many in Hebrews." Thus, Jesus's single and efficacious self-offering (7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10, 14) corresponds to the eternal realm of true Being, while the repeated and inefficacious Levitical sacrifices (7:27; 10:11) are earthly and temporal. This recurring theme clearly "reflects an awareness of Platonic tradition" (p. 106). T.'s most comprehensive discussion of Hebrews occurs in "'Strangers on the Earth': Philosophical Perspective on the Promise in Hebrews." The main threat to the community's commitment is the disparity between their circumstances of suffering and alienation and the "unseen and unfulfilled promises" of a glorious heavenly existence (p. 123). T.'s description of the community's situation is almost unrelentingly bleak. Unlike the eschatology of Paul, which balances the "now" and the "not yet," T. believes Hebrews' eschatology is unfulfilled, unseen, and "remains open as a promise" (pp. 110, 113–14, 120). Hebrews 11:1–3, however, alleviates the community's doubts by offering "an epistemology by which they can experience the unseen reality." Thus, "faith has its own epistemology by which the believer knows what is real" (p. 127). Like Platonic noetic contemplation, which affords the "eyes of the mind" a transformative view of the deity or the Forms, Hebrews' "epistemology of faith" allows believers both to "know a reality beyond the senses" and to "see invisible realities" (p. 128). The possibility that the community may see the exalted Jesus in that heavenly "reality" unfortunately is...