4 Hebrews and Scripture

4 Hebrews and Scripture

The Letter to the Hebrews contains around 37 explicit quotations, drawn mainly from the Psalms (16) and the Pentateuch (13), with comparatively few from the Prophets (6). In the light of the rest of the New Testament, it is surprising that there is only one quotation from Isaiah, albeit split into two parts (Isa. 8.17–18/Heb. 2.13). On the other hand, there are some particularly long quotations (Jer. 31.31–34; Ps. 95.7–11) which are repeated in summary form, together with some quotations that occur more than once (Ps. 2.7; 110.4). Thus if we were to proportion the quotations in terms of the number of words, it would look like this: Psalms (47 per cent); Prophets (32 per cent); Pentateuch (18 per cent); 2 Samuel and Proverbs (3 per cent). The Psalms are clearly important to the author and have been the
subject of a number of studies.1 The author, however, despite the ascription to the apostle Paul in the King James Version, is unnamed and remains unknown…

Taken from THE LATER NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS AND SCRIPTURE by Steve Moyise