Jeopardy! Makes a “Massive” Bible Error with a Hebrew Authorship Clue
A new Jeopardy! episode! began a social media argument about the authorship of Hebrews and appears to have missed both the hint and the answer.
The incident occurred during the Jeopardy “Tournament of Champions” and involves a Bible-centric hint for players Amy Schneider, Andrew He, and Sam Buttrey during the game’s last round, “Final Jeopardy”:
“Paul’s letter to them has the most Old Testament quotations of any New Testament epistle.”
Buttrey correctly predicted “Romans.” Andrew guessed “Philippiaes,” a likely reference to Philippians, according to CNN.
Both responses were ruled wrong.
Schneider correctly identified “Hebrews.”
What is the issue? Unlike other New Testament books, the authorship of Hebrews is not expressly stated. “In the past, God communicated with our ancestors via the prophets at many times and in diverse ways,” the book of Hebrews opens.
Furthermore, Romans contains more Old Testament quotations than Hebrews. (If Buttrey’s remark had been considered correct, he would have won.)
“Dear Jeopardy: But Paul Didn’t Write Hebrews!”” one Twitter user commented.
“Today’s Tournament of Champions final on @Jeopardy featured a massive gaffe.” According to NT scholars, the author of Hebrews is unknown; “someone else penned
“Now that Jeopardy has settled the matter of Hebrews authorship,” one user sarcastically tweeted, “I hope they will tell us who was the young man who fled from the garden leaving the linen cloth.”
For Hebrews, scholars have proposed a variety of authors, including Paul, Clement, Luke, Timothy, Barnabas, and Apollos.
According to BibleStudyTools.com, “the writer of this letter does not name himself, but he was definitely well known to the original receivers.” Though the letter was popularly referred to as “The Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews” for about 1,200 years (from around A.D. 400 to 1600), there was no agreement on its authorship in the early centuries. Since the Reformation, it has been widely acknowledged that Paul could not have written the book. “There is no conflict between the doctrine of Hebrews and Paul’s letters, but the specific emphases and writing styles are noticeably different.”
Origen, a third-century church father, wrote about the problem of “Who wrote the book of Hebrews?” “In reality, only God knows!”
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