The Relationship of Jewish and Gentile Believers to the Law Between A.D. 30 and 70 in the Scripture

21 then the high point of his argument would have been the powerful statement of His deity and Creatorship in the introduction (1:3) and all which follows is disappointingly anticlimactic . If this indeed is the author's argument in the book then one must ask if the readership also had questions about the relative superiority of Messiah and Aaron (chapters 7-10) . The answer seems doubtful. Although the theme of the superiority of the person of Jesus to others may seem to explain the text in chapter one, it fails to do so for the rest of the book. 31 The Understanding of the Passage What then is the point of the extended discussion of the superiority of the Son? The problem of the readers (according to the rest of the epistle , 12 :25) was not to exalt angels but to turn from the word of Christ back to the word of angels . There is no hint of rebuke fo r exalting angels as is found in Colossians, as though this had been a problem for the reader– ship . On the contrary, the angels are assigned a positive role (2:2) and there is no polemic directed against angels in the epistle at all . By discussing the superiority of the Son to angels the author was not instructing the unlearned but simply building his argument to a crescendo giving it a more forceful impact. The purpose of chapter one is as an a fortiori argument 31 After reviewing a long list of insufficient occasions for the letter Dey ummarize : "In our estimation, we do not have a satisfactory explanation for the carefully rea oned attempts of the author to establish the superiority of Je us over the angel , Mo e , Le iti and Aaronide highpriesthood, an attempt which has no comparable parallel in the re t of th Te tament. A basic issue of interpretation is whether the author i addre ing him lf to di parate problems or whether the e compari on fit together in a common fram of r ligi u thought" Lala K . Dey, The Intermediary World and Patterns of Perfection in Philo and Hebrews, ociety of Biblical Literature Di ertation erie 25 (Mi oula, MT: h lar , 1975), 2. Dey' olution i , "We will attempt to et Hebr in it p rti ular hi t r f eligions cont t , i.e., a parti ular kind of Judai m ithin hi h th £ tur f it ecome plicabl . Thi can done be t , not b amining a parti ular pa g r th m in ti w itin , but by att mpting to de rib th t t 1 fram rk th u ht" p . . p uppo it1on of tht rit i th t h r h lpful hi tori 1 m b , th m t Ii le uide und r t nding th te t ar th lu i n b ithin th t t