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Hebrews

About this book
Chapter 8

1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,⁠ 2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. So this one, too, had to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 The place where they serve is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary,⁠ just as Moses was warned by God as he was about to complete the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the design shown to you on the mountain.”⁠ 6 But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one. 8 But showing its fault, God says to them, “Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.⁠ 10 For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds, and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their evil deeds, and their sins I will remember no longer.” 13 When he speaks of a new covenant, he makes the first obsolete. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 14:15 and Hebrews 8:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

Hebrews 8 says the earthly tabernacle and temple are copies of a greater heavenly temple, following Jewish traditions such as 1 Enoch 14 that describes worship in heaven becoming a pattern for earthly practices.

Passages

1 Enoch 14:15

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
13 I entered that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice. There were no delights of life in it; fear covered me, and trembling seized me. 14 As I shook and trembled, I fell on my face. 15 I saw in a vision, and there was a second house, greater than the first, and the whole doorway stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire. 16 In every way it so surpassed the other in splendor and magnificence and size that I cannot describe its splendor and its size to you. 17 Its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Hebrews 8:1

New Testament
1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. So this one, too, had to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.
80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Hebrews

References

"... Ancient interpreters found this a remarkable idea—one that sounded even more remarkable in the Septuagint, where the (somewhat ambiguous) word translated above as 'pattern' came out rather less ambiguously as 'model' or 'prototype.' It seemed, in other words, as if God had shown Moses some actual thing after which the tabernacle was to be shaped ... But what could that thing have been? It was unlikely that God had brought down to Mt. Sinai a miniature scale-model of the future tabernacle. However, long-established tradition held that somewhere in heaven—to which, according to one understanding, Moses had ascended on Mt. Sinai—was a great, celestial sanctuary. This idea, as already mentioned, had ancient roots. The prophet Isaiah had seen in a vision God 'sitting upon a throne high and lifted up' (Isaiah 6:1), and this may indeed refer to God's throne in the heavenly sanctuary. The very stars in the sky, according to this same ancient conceit, are actually part of an angelic choir or cadre of heavenly priests who serve God in the celestial sanctuary. Later writers sometimes bear witness to these same ideas ... ..."
James L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 418.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Enoch 14:15 and Hebrews 8:1

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