Who Wrote Hebrews?

Question 1197.

The authorship of Hebrews is the oldest literary puzzle in the New Testament, and honesty requires me to say at the outset that nobody can answer it with certainty. The book itself is anonymous. Unlike Paul’s letters, which open by naming their author, Hebrews simply begins with a majestic statement about God speaking to us by his Son and never once tells us who is writing.

That has not stopped the church from asking the question for nearly two thousand years, and working through the candidates for the authorship of Hebrews is a genuinely useful exercise in how we weigh internal evidence, style, and early church testimony against each other.

Why the Letter Itself Is Anonymous

Every other New Testament epistle names its sender in the opening line. Hebrews does not, and this was almost certainly deliberate rather than accidental. The writer was evidently well known to his first readers, since he asks for their prayers and mentions Timothy by name as someone they both know, so anonymity here is not a mystery to be solved so much as information lost to us across the centuries through the ordinary erosion of historical memory.

This has not prevented confident guessing. Origen, writing in the third century, gave what is probably still the wisest verdict on the authorship of Hebrews: who wrote the epistle, only God knows for certain. I find that a healthy place to start, since it keeps us from more dogmatism than the evidence can bear.

It also explains why the letter’s early reception varied by region. Eastern churches, more inclined to link the letter with Paul through his known associates, accepted it into the canon relatively early. Western churches, less persuaded of Pauline authorship and more attentive to the stylistic differences, were initially more hesitant, though acceptance became universal well before the fourth century councils that formally recognised the New Testament canon as we now have it.

The Case for Paul

Paul was the traditional favourite in parts of the early church, particularly in the East, and the letter’s theology of the new covenant, priesthood and sacrifice certainly overlaps with Pauline concerns. Timothy’s association with the writer also fits Paul’s known circle of co-workers.

Against Pauline authorship stands the style. Hebrews is written in the most polished, literary Greek in the New Testament, strikingly different from Paul’s own more rugged, argumentative prose. Paul also routinely opens his letters by naming himself, and Hebrews 2:3 has the writer numbering himself among those who received the gospel message from others who heard the Lord, a description that sits awkwardly with Paul’s own emphatic insistence elsewhere that he received his gospel directly from Christ and not from human intermediaries.

Other Proposed Candidates

Because the Pauline case runs into difficulty, other names have been proposed across church history. Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus and companion of Paul, would explain both the priestly interests of the letter and its independence from Paul’s usual style. Apollos, described in Acts as an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures and instructed in the way of the Lord, fits the letter’s polished rhetoric and deep grounding in the Old Testament unusually well, and this suggestion goes back at least to Martin Luther.

Others have proposed Priscilla, Silas, or Clement of Rome, each on the basis of partial evidence, a stylistic echo here, a plausible connection there. None of these proposals commands anything like consensus, and each remains a reasonable but unproven guess rather than a demonstrated conclusion.

The Priscilla proposal is worth a further word, since it is sometimes presented as though it settles the question. The theory rests mainly on Priscilla’s prominence as a teacher in Acts and on a plural self reference in Hebrews 13, we consider it good, which some have taken as concealing a female author whose name a later, more patriarchal scribal tradition suppressed. The evidence is thin, and most conservative scholars, myself included, regard it as an interesting but ultimately speculative reconstruction rather than a serious rival to the other candidates.

Why the authorship of Hebrews Matters Less Than Its Authority

It is worth pausing on why the church received Hebrews as authoritative Scripture despite an unresolved authorship of Hebrews. The letter’s inclusion in the canon rested chiefly on its content, its consistency with apostolic teaching, and its widespread reception and use by the churches, not on a settled certainty about its human author.

This is actually instructive for how we think about inspiration generally. The authority of a biblical book flows from its divine origin and its confirmed apostolic content, not simply from a name attached to the opening line. God superintended the writing of Hebrews as fully as he did any signed epistle, whichever gifted teacher held the pen.

It is worth noting that this is not unique to Hebrews within the canon. Several Old Testament historical books, including Judges, Ruth and the books of Kings, never name their human author either, and the church has never regarded that silence as a threat to their inspiration. Divine authorship, confirmed through consistent content, prophetic and apostolic endorsement, and the settled use of the wider believing community, has always been the decisive test, human authorship a secondary and sometimes unrecoverable detail.

What We Can Say With Confidence

Whoever wrote Hebrews was clearly a second generation Christian leader, someone who received the gospel from those who had heard the Lord themselves, was thoroughly trained in the Greek Old Testament, and wrote with real pastoral concern for readers who were wavering under pressure and tempted to drift back toward the old covenant system.

He also wrote with unmistakable authority, addressing his readers as one entitled to instruct and warn them rather than simply offer a private opinion. Whatever the authorship of Hebrews, the letter carries apostolic weight and was received as such from a very early date.

This picture also fits neatly with the letter’s five solemn warning passages, urging perseverance and pressing hard against the temptation to drift. Whoever he was, this was a shepherd who knew his flock’s particular danger of relapsing under pressure, most likely a Jewish Christian congregation feeling the social and religious cost of abandoning temple worship and synagogue standing for faith in a crucified and risen Messiah.

How to Hold This Question Well

I think the healthiest approach is to hold the authorship of Hebrews with an open hand while holding the letter’s message with a firm one. Speculating about Apollos, Barnabas or Paul can be an enjoyable piece of biblical detective work, but it should never become a distraction from what the letter is actually saying about the supremacy of Christ over angels, over Moses, and over the entire old covenant priesthood.

Scripture itself models this kind of restraint. God did not consider it necessary for our faith that we know the human author of Hebrews, only that we receive its message about his Son, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

I have preached from Hebrews many times over the years without once needing to settle the authorship question first, and I doubt any congregation has been shortchanged by that restraint. The argument of the letter stands or falls on its own considerable merits, not on a name we can attach to the final line.

So, now what?

Rather than getting stuck on the authorship of Hebrews, let the anonymity itself preach to you. The letter matters because of what it says about Jesus, not because of whose name is attached to it, and that is a good corrective in an age obsessed with credentials and celebrity teachers.

It is also a helpful case study in intellectual honesty. I would rather tell you plainly that the authorship of Hebrews is unknown than manufacture a false confidence the evidence does not support. Scripture itself is not diminished by our not knowing every detail about how it came to us, and a settled trust in its divine origin does not require certainty on every historical question surrounding it.

If you enjoy this kind of background question, my study on who wrote 2 Peter works through a similar authorship debate with a rather different, and more settled, conclusion, since the internal and external evidence there points more clearly toward the apostle himself.

You might also read my piece on how the canon of Scripture was formed to see how the early church weighed books like Hebrews for inclusion even without certainty about their human author, and my article on biblical inspiration for how this question fits the wider doctrine of Scripture.

Whatever conclusion you reach about the authorship of Hebrews, let Hebrews do its intended work in you, drawing your eyes away from lesser mediators, whether angels, Moses, or the old covenant priesthood, and fixing them firmly on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Hebrews 1:3, ESV