A Biblical Examination on Who Wrote the Book of Hebrews

The authorship question matters, but it must remain in its proper place. Hebrews is Scripture because God inspired it and preserved it for the church. Its authority does not hang by a thread while we wait to solve every historical question. The book speaks with divine weight and exalts Christ. It treats the Old Testament as God’s living Word and presses its readers toward enduring faith and worship.

That opening tells us what Hebrews wants us to see first. God has spoken, and the Son is not one more prophet within a long line of messengers. He is the heir of all things through whom God made the worlds. He shines with the brightness of God’s glory. After purging our sins, He sat down at the right hand of Majesty. The book begins with Christ rather than with the human author.

That does not make authorship unimportant because God used real men within history to write Scripture. Luke names his sources and refers to eyewitnesses. Paul signs his letters, while Peter identifies Paul’s writings as Scripture. John identifies himself in Revelation. Knowing the author can help us understand the occasion and audience of a book as well as its particular emphasis. Authorship is therefore part of careful reading rather than idle trivia, provided the question remains under the authority of the text.

A good answer cannot rest on one clue pulled out of context. Several passages need to be held together.

Second Peter gives us an important frame. Peter refers to “our beloved brother Paul” and says Paul wrote according to wisdom given to him. He also says that some things in Paul’s letters are hard to understand and that unstable people twist them, as they do “the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16).

That passage does not directly say that Paul wrote Hebrews, so we should not make it carry more than it does. It does show that the churches already knew Paul’s letters as apostolic writings with scriptural weight. Peter’s words also fit the character of Hebrews. The book reasons tightly and moves through the Old Testament with depth and urgency. Its warnings confront drifting and unbelief. Apostasy and dullness of hearing also receive serious attention, so a careless reader can mishandle it badly.

Paul was exactly the kind of apostolic teacher who could write something that required careful handling. He was trained in the Scriptures and deeply zealous before his conversion. The risen Christ personally confronted him and appointed him to preach. God then used Paul to write letters that the churches recognized as Scripture. Since Hebrews bears the marks of deep Old Testament argument and strong apostolic exhortation, Paul belongs in the discussion from the beginning.

The book does not name the author at the beginning, but it reveals important things about him. He knows the Old Testament deeply and writes to people who understand the tabernacle and priesthood. His argument assumes familiarity with the sacrifices and covenant as well as the wilderness generation. He treats the Hebrew Scriptures as the living voice of God. The writer knows his readers personally enough to exhort and warn them, and he asks them to bear with his message. He expects to see them and knows Timothy. His final greeting refers to Italy before he closes with grace.

Those clues do not scatter randomly. They point toward a Jewish Christian apostolic worker with deep Old Testament training. He has a close connection with Timothy and carries a particular concern for Hebrew believers. His habit of ending with grace strengthens the connection. Paul fits this profile better than any other named candidate.

This closing statement is easy to overlook. By calling Hebrews a “word of exhortation,” the writer shows that he is pressing a preached, Scripture-saturated message upon the readers rather than merely sending a private note. At the same time, he says, “I have written to you.” Hebrews therefore functions as both a written sermon and a letter, which helps explain why it does not open exactly like Romans or Galatians.

Near the end of Hebrews, the writer mentions Timothy naturally because both he and the readers already know this trusted coworker.

Timothy is not introduced as a stranger because the writer assumes that his readers will understand the reference. Across the New Testament, Timothy is closely tied to Paul. Paul calls him a beloved son in the faith and sends him as a trusted coworker. Timothy appears with Paul in several letter openings, and Paul writes two inspired letters directly to him. A writer who speaks this naturally about Timothy belongs very near Paul’s ministry.

Another apostolic worker certainly could have known Timothy, who was not hidden in a private corner. Bare possibility, however, does not settle the question. We must ask which explanation best accounts for the full pattern. The reference to Timothy points toward Paul, as does the closing benediction of grace. The deeply Jewish argument carries apostolic authority. The historical association with Paul also points in the same direction.

The grace closing also deserves attention. Paul regularly ends his letters with grace. No single closing formula proves authorship by itself, but this one sits comfortably with Paul’s known pattern. The mention of Italy also fits the world of Paul’s imprisonment and Roman connection, though the wording can mean either that the writer is in Italy or that people from Italy are with him elsewhere.

The strongest objections to Pauline authorship are not silly, and a faithful study should not mock them. Hebrews is anonymous in its surviving wording and lacks Paul’s ordinary opening greeting. Its polished Greek style is also unusual, and the work is structured more like a sermon than a situational letter. At first reading, Hebrews 2:3 may sound as though the author places himself among those who received the message through eyewitnesses rather than directly from Christ.

Those observations must be admitted, but the important question is whether they overturn the case for Paul. I do not believe that they do.

This is often treated as the decisive objection. Paul says in Galatians 1:12 that he did not receive the gospel from a man or learn it through ordinary instruction. He received it through revelation from Jesus Christ. Some therefore argue that Paul could not have written Hebrews 2:3.

But Hebrews 2 is not giving the author’s spiritual autobiography. The writer is warning the community not to neglect the salvation first spoken by the Lord and publicly confirmed by those who heard Him. He speaks inclusively with the readers. Paul could do that without denying his direct call. He often identifies with his audience rhetorically in order to press a shared obligation. The point is not, “I never received revelation from Christ.” The point is, “This salvation was not invented in a corner. It came from the Lord and was confirmed by apostolic witness and divine signs.”

Style is one of the oldest objections because Hebrews neither sounds like Galatians nor begins like Romans. It is carefully arranged and elevated in language. Its deeply sermonic character also distinguishes it from Paul’s ordinary letters. Style alone, however, is a fragile foundation for rejecting Paul when several factors can affect a work’s final form.

First, genre affects style. Hebrews calls itself a “word of exhortation.” A synagogue-style message built from the Law would naturally sound different from a letter rebuking Corinthian disorder. Its extensive use of the Psalms and Prophets also suits a formal sermon more than Paul’s urgent answer to Galatian legalism.

Second, audience affects style. Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews who had trained under Gamaliel and become saturated in the Scriptures. Acts repeatedly shows him reasoning with Jewish hearers from the Old Testament. If he wrote to Hebrews under pressure to retreat from Christ, we should expect an approach different from the one he used with Gentile congregations dealing with idolatry or church discipline.

Third, a secretary could affect the finished wording. Romans gives a simple example.

Tertius did not become the author of Romans in the theological sense. Paul is the apostolic author, and Tertius physically wrote the letter. If a skilled helper shaped Paul’s Hebrew-directed exhortation into polished Greek, the style difference would not defeat Pauline authorship. It would explain how Pauline thought could come through a different literary finish.

Fourth, Paul had reason to omit his name. In Jewish settings, Paul’s calling to the Gentiles stirred fierce opposition. Acts 22 records that the crowd listened until Paul spoke of being sent to the Gentiles, and then they erupted against him. If Paul wanted Hebrew readers to hear the argument from Scripture before reacting to his name, the omission would be pastoral strategy, not deceit.

That principle fits Hebrews well. Paul did not change the gospel to avoid offense, but he adjusted his manner of approach so the truth could be heard. An unsigned exhortation could allow Hebrew readers to hear the scriptural case before reacting to Paul’s name. Its focus upon the supremacy of Christ fits that kind of pastoral wisdom.

Historical testimony cannot overrule Scripture, but it can help us understand how the early church received a book. Hebrews was strongly associated with Paul in the Greek-speaking churches of the East. Clement of Alexandria explained the absence of Paul’s name as humility and strategy in writing to Hebrews. Eusebius, a fourth-century church historian, later preserved that explanation. Clement also suggested that the book’s polished Greek could reflect the way the work came into its final Greek form.

Origen is often quoted as though he ended the entire discussion with uncertainty. His famous statement that God knows who wrote the epistle should not be hidden. It also should not be separated from the rest of his judgment. In the same discussion, Origen says that the thoughts belong to the apostle. He commends churches that hold the epistle as Paul’s. His caution concerns the final diction and composition rather than a simple rejection of Pauline substance.

There were also doubts in the Latin-speaking churches of the West. Tertullian associated Hebrews with Barnabas, while others proposed Luke or Clement. Apollos was suggested much later. These alternatives are worth naming because they show that Christians noticed the same questions we still discuss. They recognized the unusual style and wrestled with the intended audience. They also knew that the work is anonymous in its opening. None of these candidates explains the total evidence as well as Paul.

Manuscript evidence is also important. P46 is the modern label for a very early papyrus manuscript containing a collection of Paul’s letters, usually dated around the late second or early third century. A corpus is simply a collected body of writings. P46 includes Hebrews within that Pauline collection and places it after Romans. The order of books in one manuscript cannot establish authorship by itself, and Unforsaken does not build doctrine upon manuscript ordering. It is nevertheless serious historical evidence that early Christian copyists and readers associated Hebrews with Paul’s letters.

The deepest reason Pauline authorship remains compelling is not one historical note by itself. It is the harmony of Hebrews with Paul’s Christ-centered theology. Hebrews magnifies the Son as the final revelation of God. Paul proclaims Christ as the image of the invisible God and the One in whom all the fullness dwells. Hebrews shows that animal sacrifices could never perfect the worshiper and that Christ’s offering is sufficient. Paul teaches that redemption is in Christ’s blood and that sinners are justified by grace through faith, not by the works of the law.

Hebrews reasons from the Old Testament in a way that fits Paul. It does not despise the Law but shows that its priesthood and sacrifices point beyond themselves to Christ. The tabernacle and covenant pattern serve the same purpose, as do the promises. Paul similarly shows that Abraham was justified by faith. He explains how the Law exposed sin and how God’s promise finds its fulfillment in Christ.

Hebrews also sounds pastoral in a way that fits Paul. It warns because drifting is deadly and comforts because Christ is sufficient. Believers are called to draw near because the blood of Jesus has opened access to God. They must hold fast because God is faithful. This is not cold scholarship but apostolic shepherding.

That gospel center must be stated precisely. Jesus is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, virgin-born and completely sinless. Wicked men physically tortured, punished, and killed Jesus. He willingly bore that real punishment for our sins in His innocent body, shed His blood, died, was buried, and rose bodily. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus.

Christ died for the whole world, and people can resist or reject God’s genuine offer. Whoever repents and believes is forgiven, justified, born again, and made new. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals that believer, who is eternally secure. That security never permits lawlessness, and a superficial profession is not proof that someone was genuinely born again. Hebrews’ warnings therefore call hearers to real faith and expose false profession; they do not teach that a genuinely born-again believer repeatedly falls in and out of salvation.

That verse gathers much of Hebrews into one pastoral summons. Because Christ has offered Himself, believers may draw near. Because His blood is sufficient, the conscience can be cleansed. Because He is the great High Priest, His people must not retreat to shadows when the substance has come.