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 5:11-6:12, Milk, solid food and no way back
The readers should be teachers by now but still need milk, so the writer urges them past the elementary teachings. Those who have been enlightened and shared in the Holy Spirit and then fall away cannot be brought back to repentance, though he is confident of better things for his readers.
Hebrews 5:11-6:12, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer breaks off his argument to scold his hearers for being slow learners who still need the basics when they should be teaching others. He urges them on toward maturity and then gives one of the sternest warnings in the New Testament, about people who have known God's gifts and then turn away. He ends warmly, sure that his readers are not in that position and urging them to keep going with patience and faith. Who is meant by those who fall away is debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/following-a-teacher\/","n":"Following a teacher","s":"A disciple walked behind his teacher, lived with him, learned his ways and carried his reputation. Jesus chose his own, which only radical teachers did.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/proselyte-baptism\/","n":"Ritual washing and convert immersion","s":"Jews washed often for purity, but one immersion happened only once: the bath a Gentile took on becoming a Jew. John's baptism and the church's took that shape.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/laying-on-of-hands\/","n":"Laying on of hands","s":"Hands laid on a person to bless, to heal, or to set someone apart for a task, the way Moses laid hands on Joshua. In the early church it went with prayer, the gift of the Spirit and sending people out.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/deliberate-sin-and-apostasy\/","n":"Deliberate sin and falling away","s":"The law set sins done in ignorance apart from sins done in defiance, and sacrifice covered only the first. Many Jews held that someone who knowingly threw off God's law could not be restored, though teachers argued over who had gone that far.","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":""}
Philosophers told slow pupils they should be teachers by now, and Greek moralists used milk and solid food for basic and advanced instruction (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). Keener takes the basics of 6:1-2 as the instruction given to converts to Judaism, and Carson, Moo and Morris count them among their reasons for Jewish readers; the CSB Study Bible reads the list as the Christian basics, baptism and the laying on of hands for leaders. The washings were Jewish ceremonial washings, the immersion of converts nearest to Christian baptism (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). Most rabbis seem to have thought some could rebel past repentance, though Rabbi Meir held that the apostate Elisha ben Abuya could repent, and the Dead Sea Scrolls barred for ever a member of ten years who turned away (Keener). Who is in view in 6:4-6 is contested. Keener takes the terms as describing genuine converts; Wright and Bird lean toward people on the community's fringe; the CSB Study Bible lists four readings. Carson, Moo and Morris think the readers were drifting toward a Jewish Christianity that was in fact no Christianity at all, so that "apostasy is only a whisker away".
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Hebrews 5:11-6:12, and on Hebrews 5:11-12, 5:13, 6:1, 6:2-3, 6:4, 6:6, 6:7-8 and 6:10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 5:12, 6:2 and 6:6
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 5:11-6:3 and 6:4-20
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 30, The Argument of Hebrews, section 3, and box Emails from the Edge: Salvation in Hebrews
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 17, Hebrews, Purpose
