Friday, May 1, 2009

New Orleans Here I Come

Back in February I posted a blog about a paper proposal I submitted to the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). I received an email this evening from Eugene H. Merrill, Program Chair of ETS, with the 2009 annual meeting schedule. I opened the schedule and found out that my paper proposal was accepted. I am very excited and nervous about this. I am excited about the great opportunity that God has give me, while at the same time I am nervous because I know the view I will be arguing for in my paper is in the minority, very small minority (as in three other guys and myself). I would like to thank my good friend Andrew Pitts who first gave me the idea for this paper. Thanks Andrew, you have always been a good friend. Well, now I need to stop blogging and start to work on this paper. I have less than 6 months to get it done and ready to present. Here is the papers abstract.

In this paper I will argue that the Epistle to the Hebrews was originally a sermon (or sermons) that was preached by the Apostle Paul and that Luke subsequently transcribed or collated. Since, as Acts informs us, Paul traveled with Luke for many years, there was ample time and opportunity for Luke to hear and transcribe or collate Paul’s preaching. This hypothesis would best explain such early manuscript evidence as P46, which includes Hebrews within the Pauline corpus and such early church fathers as Clement, who holds to Pauline authorship of Hebrews. In addition, this hypothesis would explain the Epistle’s difference in style and vocabulary from the rest of the Pauline corpus. Since Luke’s Greek style is sophisticated, he is a prime candidate for the person who penned Hebrews, whose Greek style is also sophisticated. Further, the fact that Hebrews was originally a sermon would explain the notable absence of any salutation, which is customary for Paul’s other letters. The method for proving this position will be to examine the sermonic material recorded by Luke in Acts and comparing it to Hebrews. Further, the unique Greek style and vocabulary that is found in Hebrews will be compared with Luke’s other material, Luke/Acts.

13 comments:

  1. This sounds very plausible and as someone who holds to a Pauline authorship I am willing to be convinced. As for now I am slated to work ETS so Lord willing I will be there and I am sure I can slip away to here your paper. Study hard and may the Lord grant you wisdom.

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  2. Rob,

    Thanks for the prays and encouragement. I would love for you to come. It will be great to know that someone in the audience "has my back." Hope to see you there.

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  3. I am very interested in your paper. This has been my hypothesis for quite some time. I too, shall be in much prayer and hope to see some good come from this.

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  4. Congratulations Josh! Where is ETS this year? You may have one more supporter. :)

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  5. Josh,

    I could be a jerk and tell you to read the title of this post, but I want. I will just tell you. It is in New Orleans. The dates are November 17th (my birthday) to 20th.

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  6. Thanks for not being an explicit jerk. I suppose you want a present as well, since you made reference to your birthday. I'm sure I will go by the Apple store before then!

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  7. Glorious SkyWalker! Congratulations on your acceptance. Must be hard to remain so humble when your career path is like a shooting star? And to think that we knew you before you became rich and famous (and could still drink beer). All the best from Casa Grande!

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  8. Just so you know..Craig left the comment. I have the blogger account. :)

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  9. Sometimes your posts use different words, so I'm not even sure if you've written this post or not. But anyways send a congratz to the real Josh wherever he may be.

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  10. Faris,

    Thanks for the congrats. Your joke (which took me about 5 minutes to get, I had to read the post like 9 times before I got it) was brilliant. I loved it.

    I hope you can make it to ETS this year to support me. It will be great to have some guys in the room who think Paul had something to do with Hebrews.

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  11. Dude, AWESOME. I can't wait to read it! Good Luck!

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