society.”138 Lane argues that the strained relationship between the community addressed and its leaders intimated in 13:17-18 is perhaps one occasion for the use of the household metaphor. By describing the church as a household, the author of Hebrews hopes “to bring the two groups together in a social context of shared cordiality.”139
Lane also suggests that the real tension that emerged came because the current leaders mentioned in 13:17 were not the owners of the houses of the house churches. These owners, as hosts and patrons had a certain social standing and authority over the members. Yet the leadership structures in these house churches were not based on patronage, but “charismatic endowment and service to the congregation.”140 Those who had the gift of preaching within the community emerged as the leaders. Thus he imagines that the implicit tensions were caused by power struggles within the house church movement.141
Craig Koester describes the social history of the community addressed in Hebrews in three phases: 1) proclamation and conversion; 2) persecution and solidarity; and 3) friction and malaise.142 Drawing from clues within the epistle itself, Koester states that the first phase involved Christian evangelists forming the community through preaching and baptism. During this phase, the confession of faith played an important role in uniting its members from different social classes and distinguishing them from those on the outside. Baptism was not a rite of passage as much as a boundary marker identifying who was in and who was out.143 The second phase was characterized by physical hostilities and persecution against the community by non-Christians. Koester sees the reference in 10:32-34 of the members visiting those in prison, losing property, and receiving physical persecution as descriptive of this phase.144 The final phase gave way to a more subtle type of conflict, where Christians were verbally harassed and marginalized in society. There was a general malaise and a tendency to neglect the faith and community meetings. Koester argues that the epistle was written in this third phase of the community’s formation. 145
He also argues that the Christian community fit neither the Jewish subculture nor the Greco-Roman culture and needed to reaffirm its own identity. Koester sees the author of the epistle appropriating and transforming Jewish and Greco-Roman images to reinforce the community’s identity and confession. For example, the author transforms the Jewish idea of priesthood and temple and appropriates these Jewish religious symbols for his own purposes.146 In addition, the unique character of Christ’s sacrifice draws not only from Jewish sacrificial imagery, but also Greco-Roman cultic imagery. Sacrifices were offered at many sanctuaries throughout the Greco-Roman world.147
Social Scientific Studies
In a more specialized study, Harold Attridge interacts with Leo Perdue in determining the social function of the paraenetic sections of Hebrews.148 He does not see the epistle fitting in any of the four functions of hortatory literature as defined by Perdue: protreptic (that which seeks to persuade someone to convert), socialization, legitimation, or conflict.149 It does not seek to convert, because it addresses those who already share common values and religious beliefs. Nor does it socialize its audience into a particular segment of society, giving instructions about social roles or states. However, there is some indication that the epistle may function in legitimizing the Christian community. The references to imitate the community’s leaders (13:7) and to obey them (13:17) seem to legitimate the authority structure of the community. Yet it would be difficult to argue that the whole epistle was written for this particular function. 150 Attridge also admits that the epistle does reflect a situation of conflict (10:32-24; 12:4; and others). But he also argues that this particular function does not account for the epistle as a whole.151
Attridge suggests that the function of the hortatory sections of the epistle is not primarily to engage in polemic, but to confirm the validity of the social world of the community. It is to “reinforce the identity of a social sub-group in such a way as not to isolate it from its environment.”152 The community experiencing suffering is not to separate from the society but to engage it with its values and commitments. This particular function falls somewhere in between Perdue’s categories of legitimation and socialization.153
Following up on Attridge’s suggestion that the epistle may function to legitimize the community, Iutisone Salevao produced a more thorough work on the subject. He argues that the sociological concept of “legitimation” successfully explains the “correlation between theology, situation, and the strategy of the letter [to the Hebrews].”154 He approaches the epistle using sociological exegesis, drawing from the work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann.155 Salevao describes legitimation as the different ways in which a society is explained and justified to its members. “Employed as a sociological model, legitimation relates to the genesis and maintenance of a society and its social institutions; it explains and justifies the existence and continuation of the social world.”156
Salevao describes the situation behind the epistle to the Hebrews in sociological terms. There were separatist members of the community promoting theological views, which were in direct conflict with the views and practices of the community. Some of these separatists still held on to their former religion of Judaism. Saleveo argues that the community in Hebrews was a sect, which he understands as a clearly defined entity, separate and distinct from Judaism. He then shows how the author uses the doctrine of the impossibility of a second repentance in 6:4-6 to curb the threat of deviation from the norms of the community. In addition the author employed a superiority/inferiority structure, which helped maintain the symbolic universe of the Christian community. Finally Saleveo examines the use of the language of Hebrews as a legitimating tool.157
John Dunnill’s monograph, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews attempts to use both sociological and structuralist approaches in its examination of the epistle to the Hebrews.158 Dunnill defines the author as the authorial presence within the text and derives his social reconstruction from textual clues.159 He identifies the addressees of the epistle as a small group of churches who are experiencing persecution from the outside and disillusionment from the inside. To encourage them, the author of the epistle uses the rich imagery of household, which Dunnill notes is even more basic than nation, or clan. The author wants to bring his community, which likely felt cut off from its social and religious past and uncertain about its future,160 back to Melchizedek, the ancient priest and king.
Dunnill uses anthropological insights primarily for the sake of comparison. For instance, after citing some anthropological works comparing gift-giving and -receiving and formal trade, he draws the parallel between the old covenant system,
