The fact that Hebrews was originally written in Greek does not provide any substantial or definitive help in the search for author or audience. During the time period in which Hebrews had to be composed, Christians in Rome spoke Greece. In fact, Hellenism had much of Western Europe and the modern-day Middle East familiar with Greek. This familiarity would have been even more likely among educated groups, and is highly unlikely that uneducated people would have had the ability to read or write. While there was some early suggestion that Hebrews was originally written in a language other than Greek, it seems highly unlikely that that was the case:
That the Letter to the Hebrews was originally written in Greek is suggested by the fact that the vast majority of Old Testament quotations in the work are taken from the Septuagint (LXX) even when the LXX differs from the Hebrew text...Of the thirty-eight quotations from twenty-two Old Testament passages, only six do not agree with LXXA or LXXB...To argue that the translator of the alleged original Hebrew or Aramaic text simply used the LXX version of Old Testament when translating the letter into Greek, however, does not seem possible, because, in some cases, the author's argument depends upon the LXX reading, on "peculiarities of the LXX."
It is very important for a reader to understand that the fact that Hebrews was originally written in Greek does not make it a Hellenistic text. Such an assumption was common until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. However:
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has necessitated a fundamental shift in the approach to the interpretation of the Letter to the Hebrews. Religious terminology in the letter once thought to express concepts adapted from Hellenistic Judaism were discovered to exist in these Palestinian Jewish texts from the second-Temple period; thus in many cases it was no longer necessary and indeed actually misleading to interpret the author's assertions exclusively against a Hellenistic religious-historical background, and especially Jewish adaptations of Platonism. The strong eschatological thread that runs through is thoroughly consistent with Palestinian Jewish thought, as represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such an interest in salvation-history militates against an interpretation of the Letter to the Hebrews in exclusively Platonic terms. This is not so say that the author never made use of Hellenistic Jewish ideas, but only that his basic orientation is not Hellenistic, in spite of writing in Greek... It seems more probable that the Letter to the Hebrews should be interpreted against the conceptual world of Palestinian Judaism, especially as it finds expression in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This means that the intended readers, whose erroneous views on various matters the author attempts to correct, should be understood as Greek-speaking Jewish Christians who were largely non-Hellenistic in their theological outlook.
Furthermore, the fact that Hebrews was most likely originally written in Greece does lend some reliability to modern-day translations. Unlike many Old-Testament books, whose originals are in dead languages, Hebrews was originally written in a language that continues to thrive today. Therefore, it is possible for a modern person to read Hebrews in the original language in which it was written. Furthermore, the fact that the original was written in a living language seems to have minimized the problems with incorrect and inaccurate translations. Of course, as in any translation, there are times in Hebrews were a translator has been forced to choice between multiple possible translations for a word. It does not appear that any of these translations have compromised the integrity or meaning of the original text. As a result, one can come to the conclusion that one's understanding of Hebrews would not be dramatically impacted by reading a translation instead of the original text. Such a statement could not be made if the original language of Hebrews was something other than Greek:
The argument about the necessary connection between the ratification of a covenant and death in Heb 9:16-17 depends upon the dual meaning of the Greek diath k: "covenant" and "last will." The fact that the author's argument only works in Greek, insofar as he depends on the dual meaning of diath k (covenant and last will), which is not possible if he were writing in Hebrew or Aramaic, confirms that the original language of composition was Greek.
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