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, which seemed to work more on the basis of trade, and the new system, which is based on the idea of gift giving.161
Similar to the approach of Snyman, Dunnill moves away from traditional historical criticism in his use of structuralism. Yet he goes further than Snyman in seeking to bring out the modern reader’s contribution to meaning.162 He wants to understand the text, “better than the author himself, and better than the first readers too.”163 He substantiates his right to do so by noting that the author of Hebrews himself is claiming to know the Levitical symbols better than the original author or the first readers.
In conclusion, Dunnill writes, “Hebrews claims for itself the image of a liturgy, a symbolic action in the sacred sphere: more particularly, a covenant-renewal rite, of which the book’s words comprise a long prophetic exhortation.”164 Dunnill sees the author of Hebrews drawing from Old Testament cultic symbolism and re-interpreting it in the light of Christ. He argues that the structuralist method helps put the particulars of the letter into a larger system or context, unraveling deeper, more opaque meanings. Dunnill contrasts this with historical methods, which tend to reduce the unusual and ambiguous to conformity.
Socio-Rhetorical Approach
Description of Method
From our survey we have seen attempts from rhetorical critics to use sociological insights and attempts from social scientific critics to use rhetorical criticism. The “new rhetoric” of Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca is keenly sensitive to the social situation that stands behind the text and the work of Bruce Malina demonstrates his dependence on rhetorical criticism. Another scholar who also sees a very close relationship between these two approaches is Vernon