Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Hebrews 13:7-17, Foods, an altar and outside the camp
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever, so the readers must not be carried away by strange teachings about foods. Believers have an altar the tabernacle priests may not eat from; as the bodies of the sin offerings were burned outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the gate, and they must go out to him, bearing his disgrace, seeking the city to come.
Hebrews 13:7-17, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer asks his hearers to remember their former leaders, copy their faith and obey their present ones, because Jesus Christ does not change. He warns against unfamiliar teachings about food, saying grace rather than meals strengthens the heart. Drawing on the Day of Atonement, when the carcasses of the sin offerings were taken away and burned beyond the camp, he notes that Jesus died outside the city and calls believers to go out to him and share his disgrace, since their lasting city is still to come. What the strange teachings were is debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/food-laws\/","n":"Clean and unclean food","s":"The law of Moses sorted animals into clean and unclean, and keeping kosher marked Jews off from their neighbors. Strict Jews also avoided Gentile food, Gentile wine and Gentile tables.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/day-of-atonement\/","n":"The Day of Atonement and the mercy seat","s":"Once a year the high priest went into the holy of holies with sacrificial blood, for his own sins and then the nation's. It was the one fast the law commanded, and the mercy seat on the ark was the place the blood was brought.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/crucifixion\/","n":"Crucifixion","s":"Rome's public, shaming death for rebels, after flogging, with the charge posted for passers-by to read.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/heavenly-jerusalem\/","n":"The heavenly Jerusalem","s":"Jews looked for a Jerusalem built by God for the age to come, and some spoke of it as already waiting in heaven. Exiles and resident aliens knew what it was to look for a city that would be home.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/put-out-of-the-synagogue\/","n":"Put out of the synagogue","s":"A Jewish community could punish a member by shutting him out of its life for a time or for good. Since the synagogue was the center of town life, expulsion cut a person off from neighbors and worship, and often from a living.","r":""}
What the strange teachings about food were is read differently: Keener takes them as the food laws of Leviticus 11, no longer necessary; Wright reads strange as ironic; the ESV Study Bible thinks of Jewish ideas perhaps in a syncretistic mix. Some see the Lord's Supper in the altar of 13:10 (the ESV Study Bible reports), and the Zondervan dictionary the cross. Burning outside the camp here is the Day of Atonement, whose sin offering could not be eaten (Leviticus 16:27) (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes; the ESV Study Bible). Josephus' own summary says instead that the second goat was burned "within the limits of the camp" (Antiquities 3.10.3); no source read comments on the difference. The cultural backgrounds notes add that "Roman law also required that crucifixions occur outside the city gate." Going outside the camp may mean accepting expulsion from the Jewish community (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes), leaving the world's approval (the ESV Study Bible), or leaving city and temple though called traitors (Wright). Carson, Moo and Morris think the readers "were tired of bearing the shame of living outside the mainstream" of their heritage, and perhaps afraid, since Rome recognized Judaism and not Christianity.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Hebrews 13:7, 13:8, 13:9, 13:10, 13:11, 13:12-13, 13:14, 13:15-16 and 13:17
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 13:9, 13:11 and 13:12-13
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Hebrews 13:9-11 and 13:13-14
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.10.3, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, comment on Hebrews 13.9-16
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Hebrews, Letter to the, III
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 17, Hebrews, Purpose
