Abstract:
This study interacts with the work of Pieter Botha by presenting four scenarios
from my own research on the use of Septuagint quotations by Philo of Alexandria
and by the unknown author of Hebrews. The first scenario draws attention to the
fusion of oral and written traditions from the Septuagint Pentateuch as perceived
in Philo’s Vita Mosis. The second scenario refers to Philo’s Therapeutae which is
used as an example of an ascetic Jewish group who studied and contemplated on
the ‘Scriptures’. The third scenario tables an example of a first century C.E. catenatemplate
for catechetical studies in an oral world – as found in 4 Maccabees. The
fourth scenario shifts the emphasis to my research on the Septuagint Vorlage of the
explicit quotations in Hebrews. It attempts to indicate, on the one hand, how the
compilation of this document is based on a well-planned and well-thought through
list of Scriptural passages, detectable in an underlying thread of ‘promises’. On the
other hand, it hopes to illustrate the complexity of an integrated process that fused
oral and written traditions. The study concludes that the author lives in both an oral
and a written world and draws from both during the compilation of his document.
Hebrews represents a document at an advanced stage in the history of first century
early Christianity and fuses oral and written traditions. But this is not just a random
design. It is a well-planned and well-thought through document.
