No one knows who wrote Hebrews in the Bible. The text is genuinely anonymous — the author never provides a name, a location, or a personal greeting — and every attempt to identify the author over the past nineteen centuries has ended in uncertainty. The 3rd-century scholar Origen of Alexandria reviewed the evidence available to him and concluded: “Who wrote the Epistle, only God knows.”
That conclusion still holds.
For most of Christian history, Hebrews circulated under Paul’s name. The Pauline attribution helped secure the text’s place in the New Testament canon, particularly in the Eastern church, where it was accepted relatively early. But the attribution was always contested, and today virtually no critical scholar considers Paul the author. The evidence against Pauline authorship is extensive, and scholars have identified it since antiquity — long before modern critical methods existed.
What scholars can determine is that the author was a highly educated Greek stylist, deeply trained in Jewish scriptural interpretation and Hellenistic rhetoric, who composed one of the most intellectually ambitious texts in the New Testament. The question of who wrote the Bible takes on a particular edge with Hebrews: this is the one New Testament text where the authorship question genuinely has no answer.
Why Scholars Reject Pauline Authorship
The case against Paul rests on multiple independent lines of evidence. These doubts are not modern inventions — they trace back to the earliest centuries of Christianity.
Start with the Greek. The language of Hebrews is among the most polished in the entire New Testament. Harold Attridge, in his Hermeneia commentary, calls Hebrews “the most sustained and elegant example of early Christian rhetoric that has survived.” The prologue alone (Hebrews 1:1-4) is a single, intricately balanced sentence in Greek, built with rhythmic cadences that scholars compare to the best Hellenistic oratory.
Paul writes differently. His letters move with urgency — interrupting themselves, breaking syntax, piling up clauses that don’t always resolve cleanly. The author of Hebrews composes with architectural precision, alternating between extended theological arguments and pointed practical exhortation in a pattern consistent with ancient sermon structure. Comparing the two styles is like comparing an improvised speech to a prepared lecture. Both are effective. They are not the same hand.
The theological vocabulary diverges just as sharply. Paul’s central categories — justification by faith, life in the Spirit, the tension between the Jewish law and Gentile inclusion — are largely absent from Hebrews. Instead, the author develops an elaborate priestly Christology: Jesus as high priest after the order of Melchizedek, the heavenly tabernacle as the true sanctuary, the once-for-all sacrifice that supersedes the Levitical system. These concepts draw on Psalm 110 and the priestly legislation of Leviticus in ways Paul’s letters never do.
Then there is Hebrews 2:3.
The author writes that the message of salvation “was confirmed to us by those who heard” the Lord — placing himself or herself in the second generation, among those who received the gospel through intermediaries. Paul, by contrast, insists repeatedly that he received his gospel through direct revelation, not from any human source (Galatians 1:11-12). This self-positioning is incompatible with Pauline authorship, and scholars consistently cite it as one of the most decisive pieces of evidence.
The early church itself was divided on the question. The Eastern church (Alexandria, Palestine) accepted Pauline authorship and included Hebrews in the Pauline canon relatively early. The Western church (Rome, North Africa) was far more skeptical. Tertullian attributed the text to Barnabas. The Muratorian Fragment — a late 2nd-century list of recognized texts — appears to omit Hebrews entirely. Only in the 4th century, under the influence of Jerome and Augustine, did the Western church accept Hebrews into the canon, and even then the Pauline attribution carried an asterisk.
The Candidates: Nineteen Centuries of Guesses
If not Paul, then who? The history of proposed candidates is long, creative, and ultimately inconclusive.
Barnabas was the earliest named alternative. Tertullian of Carthage proposed this attribution around 200 CE. Barnabas was a Levite (Acts 4:36), which could explain the author’s sustained interest in priestly themes and the sacrificial system. The connection is plausible on its surface — but Tertullian does not explain his reasoning in detail, and no manuscript tradition supports the attribution.
Apollos entered the conversation much later, suggested by Martin Luther in the 16th century. Acts 18:24 describes Apollos as “an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures,” a native of Alexandria who “spoke with burning enthusiasm.” The profile fits the text well: an Alexandrian education could account for the polished Greek, the familiarity with the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), and the Platonic-influenced worldview visible in chapters 8-10, where the author contrasts earthly copies with heavenly originals. Luther’s suggestion has found supporters among modern scholars, though it remains a hypothesis without direct evidence.
Priscilla was proposed by the church historian Adolf von Harnack in 1900. Harnack argued that Priscilla (also called Prisca), a prominent early church leader who instructed Apollos in Christian theology (Acts 18:26), fit every known criterion for the author. He further suggested that a female author’s name might have been suppressed as the text entered wider circulation — explaining the unusual anonymity. The hypothesis drew early supporters, including J. Rendel Harris. But Charles Cutler Torrey’s 1911 critique pointed to a complication: the author uses a masculine self-referential participle in Hebrews 11:32 (diegoumenon), which, while not absolutely conclusive in Koine Greek, weakened the case.
Luke and Clement of Rome have also been proposed. Scholars have noted linguistic similarities between Hebrews and Luke-Acts, though most attribute these to a shared Hellenistic Greek educational background rather than common authorship. Clement of Rome quotes or alludes to Hebrews extensively in his own letter (~96 CE), leading some to speculate he composed it — but most scholars read this as evidence that Clement knew the text, not that he wrote it.
Each candidate illuminates a genuine feature of Hebrews — its priestly concerns, its rhetorical sophistication, its Alexandrian intellectual texture. None can be confirmed.
What the Text Reveals About Its Author
The author is anonymous but not invisible. The text itself provides a surprisingly detailed profile.
The author knew the Jewish scriptures intimately — but knew them through the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew original. The scriptural quotations throughout Hebrews follow the Septuagint text, sometimes in ways that diverge significantly from the Hebrew. In Hebrews 10:5, for instance, the author quotes Psalm 40:6 using the Septuagint’s “a body you prepared for me,” where the Hebrew reads “ears you have opened for me.” The theological argument in that passage depends on the Greek wording — a body prepared, offered as sacrifice. This is an author thinking and reasoning in the Greek textual tradition.
The author was trained in Hellenistic rhetoric. The structure of Hebrews alternates between dense theological exposition and urgent practical exhortation — a pattern scholars have identified as consistent with ancient homiletic practice. Most scholars classify the text as a written sermon or homily rather than a letter, despite the letter-like closing in chapter 13.
The author composed for a community under pressure. The exhortations to persevere, the warnings against “falling away” (Hebrews 6:4-6), and the reminder in 10:32-34 of past sufferings the community endured all point to a group facing or anticipating hardship — whether formal persecution, social marginalization, or internal discouragement. The specific nature of the pressure remains debated.
And the author was a second-generation Christian. Hebrews 2:3 places the author at one remove from Jesus’s direct followers — someone who received the faith from those who heard Jesus personally. This aligns with a composition date in the latter decades of the 1st century and rules out any of the original apostles.
When Was Hebrews Composed?
Most scholars date Hebrews between 60 and 90 CE. The central dating question revolves around the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.
Those who argue for a pre-70 date point to the author’s consistent use of the present tense when discussing the sacrificial system: “the priests regularly enter the first room” (Hebrews 9:6). If the Temple had already been destroyed, the reasoning goes, the author would surely have mentioned it. The destruction would have powerfully reinforced the central argument — that the old covenant’s sacrificial system had been superseded.
The argument from silence cuts both ways, though.
Those who favor a later date note that the author’s discussion of sacrifice is based on the wilderness Tabernacle described in Exodus — not the Jerusalem Temple itself. The author never mentions the Temple by name. The present-tense language describes a scriptural institution, not necessarily a functioning building. Many scholars consider the argument from silence (the author would have mentioned the destruction) too speculative to carry much weight.
Clement of Rome’s letter (~96 CE), which draws extensively on Hebrews, provides a firm latest possible date. The text had to exist, and circulate widely enough to reach Rome, before the mid-90s. Most scholars settle on a date somewhere in the 60s-80s CE range, acknowledging that greater precision is not achievable with the available evidence.
Anonymity and the Canon
Hebrews occupies a unique position among New Testament texts. Paul’s undisputed letters name their author. The Gospels are anonymous but carry traditional attributions. The disputed Pauline letters at least claim to be by Paul, even when scholars question those claims.
Hebrews makes no claim at all.
The anonymity shaped the text’s path into the New Testament canon. The Pauline attribution — however uncertain — gave Hebrews the apostolic authority the early church required for inclusion. Without it, the text might have struggled to gain acceptance, particularly in the Western church where doubts about Pauline authorship persisted for centuries. The text’s canonical status rests, in the end, on the theological authority early Christian communities recognized in it rather than on a confirmed author.
The author composed one of the most intellectually ambitious works in the New Testament — a sustained argument of rhetorical craftsmanship, deep scriptural engagement, and theological originality — and then left no name behind. Origen, surveying the same mystery in the 3rd century, decided that was simply a fact to accept. The contrast with Paul’s undisputed letters, which name their author in the opening lines, only sharpens the puzzle.
The evidence is there to examine: the polished Greek, the priestly theology, the Septuagint-based reasoning, and the authorship question that has persisted since antiquity. Uncanon places Hebrews in its composition-date sequence with scholarly context alongside each passage, so you can engage the text and the questions it raises directly.