Cosmic Eschatology in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Abstract

Scholars differ on what the Epistle of Hebrews expects to happen to the material world at the eschaton. A popular view is that Hebrews combines Jewish apocalyptic eschatology with Platonic cosmology and thus depicts the eschatological annihilation of the material world. I counter that Platonic cosmology offers a poor background for cosmic annihilation and argue that Hebrews actually describes the world’s transformation into an unshakable condition. I create a taxonomy of views on the end of the world in the Mediterranean from the fourth century BC to the first century AD, showing that the expectation of a future for the material world is virtually universal. I then demonstrate that presuppositions about the creator’s goodness, the world’s goodness, and providence led Platonists to affirm the perpetuity of the world, and those who thought the world would be annihilated (in 2nd–4th century AD texts) intentionally subverted these Platonic presuppositions. Turning to Hebrews, I argue it broadly shares the presuppositions which led Platonists to affirm the world’s perpetuity, leaving the cosmic annihilation reading of Hebrews largely without a historical background. I then argue that key passages—Hebrews 1:10–12 and 12:26– 27—describe a limited level of cosmic destruction followed by the world’s transformation into a lasting, stable condition. In Hebrews 1:10–12, the sartorial imagery implies that a new earth and heaven replaces the old. Against the majority view that μετάθεσις in Hebrews 12:27 means “removal” with the sense of “elimination,” I offer a lexical analysis that demonstrates that μετάθεσις is better understood as “relocation” or “alteration.” I argue that in Hebrews 12:26–27 μετάθεσις refers to the “alteration” of the shaken world so that it will never be shaken again. Thus, the “unshakable kingdom” promised to Hebrews’s audience (12:28) is the material world in a stable and lasting condition.