Hebrews 8:4

Hebrews 8:4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
Does anyone know anymore about this verse? I mean I have gotten many different rationalizations from Christians/Catholics. Some say that it means if he were on earth now, some say that it's a mistranslation. What did this verse originally mean and what does it say in the original greek translation? Does anyone know?
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It does mean if he were on Earth now. Flemming totally misuses that verse in his movie. He leads the viewer to believe that this was a verse written by Paul. In fact, Paul did not write the book of Hebrews. Then he takes the verse out of context to lead the viewer to an incorrect conlcusion. Great intellectual honesty from Brian Flemming!
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
Let's look at this verse in context. The previous chapter established that Jesus was a high priest in the order of Melchizedek (Gen 14:17-24, cf. Ps 110) rather than Aaron. Hebrews 7:11-28 compares Jesus to Melchizedek and establishes the need for a better priesthood than the Aaronic priesthood, a priest after the order of Melchizedek (verses 23-28).
It is now that the writer (Paul?) makes the point that we have a high priest who is better than the earthly priests, seated at the right hand of God (v 1). Verse 3 says that a priest must have something to offer (cf. Heb 7:27). Verse 4 then makes the point that if Jesus were on earth (remember that verse 1 establishes that He is in heaven), He would have nothing better to offer since there are already priests on earth. But verse 5 highlights the absurdity of this: they only serve shadows or copies of heavenly things, while verse 2 says that Jesus is in the very presence of God.
It is clear from verse 1 that the author places Jesus in heaven with God. Therefore, verse 4 cannot be a denial of the historicty of the person of Jesus Christ. The flow of thought, I would say, is pretty easy to follow.
I don't know enough about koine Greek to discuss the translation of this verse. Maybe someone else on here does.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
Additionally, Jesus was of the tribe of Juda. Priests were required to be of the tribe of Levi.
So who was Melchizedek? Hebrews says that he had no father, mother, and that he neither was born nor died.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
The God's Word version, a thought-for-thought translation, renders Hebrews 7:3 as follows:
This, at least, is how the first century Jewish mind would understand the use of "without father, without mother, without geneology" in Hebrews 7:3. Why? Because of the rabinncal argument from silence.
This same argument applies to Melchizedek being without beginning or without end, and continuing in the office of priest.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
Well then, you should tell those pastors that they are wrong. Hebrews was not written by Paul. You can research it for yourself online. I've even heard Richard Carrier say that Paul did not write Hebrews.
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
This is a bold assertion. There is nothing conclusive that anyone other than Paul wrote this letter. I have researched this issue also, and I conclude that Paul may not have put the pen to the paper to write the letter, but he is clearly the mastermind of it (so to speak). Hebrews is infused with Paul's thoughts through and through, though it certainly isn't Paul's typical style.
Majority opinion remains with Paul as the author of this epistle.
But all of this is peripheral to the issue under discussion, which is the misuse of Hebrews 8:4.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
I disagree Cory T. Hebrews 2:3-4 makes the claim that the author recieved the Christian message from others. In Galatians, Paul claims to have recieved a vision from the resurrected Jesus.
Furthermore, the style of Koine Greek is much different in Hebrews then the authentic letters of Paul such as Galatians or Romans.
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
I don't understand why this is such a big deal. When read with the preceding and following verses it suggests that he wouldn't be a priest for a couple reasons. One, the sacrifice has been made, our sins have all ready been forgiven. Two, the sacrifices of priest's, made according to the law, pale in comparison to the entirety of the sacrifice made by Christ.
Also, for Christians it's cannon either way, so it doesn't matter who wrote it. Unless you support the historical perspective to a point that will necessarily vacate the Bible of any presence of the transcendental.
Again, I say: Hebrews has Paul's philosophical and theological fingerprints all over it. It was certainly written by someone who knew the Law inside and out--it even used a rabbinical arguement from silence (as I pointed out earlier). Style choices certainly vary, it is definately written far more eloquently.
But, I don't think it matters who actually wrote it. It fits a niche right where it sits: the testimony that Jesus is the perfect high priest is the perfect finish to Paul's epistles.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei
I'm a Christian pastor. I think that Luke may well have written Hebrews. Although it is pressing the matter too far to say that we know for certain that Paul did not write it, it is not credible to suggest that every Christian pastor is committed to Pauline authorship of Hebrews.
Also, I've got my Greek New Testament open to Hebrews 8:4. This is a second-class conditional sentence out of standard Greek grammar. Such sentences express a contrary-to-face protasis (if-clause), followed by what would be the case if the hypothetical condition were met in the apodosis (then-clause).
The rhetorical importance of the sentence is simply this: The author is asserting Jesus as the great High Priest of all time, and yet Jesus of Nazareth was not any sort of a priest at all (for the genealogical reasons indicated above). That's a serious objection to the line of argumentation in Hebrews, depending as it does so heavily upon the idea of the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and the author is going out of his way here to address it.
So, ironically, at that time opponents of Christianity, rather than denying the historicity of Jesus, were using the facts and details of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth as key elements of their arguments against the idea that Jesus was God incarnate bringing salvation to mankind. It is quite difficult to imagine the need for this sentence apart from the idea that both the author and his anticipated opponents had heard and had received as fact the idea that Jesus of Nazareth lived, was not a priest of any sort, and was the central figure of the Christian faith as advanced by this book.