Hebrews 7:3 describes Melchizedek as “without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever.” Citing Peter O’Brien’s commentary (Pillar series), two major interpretive approaches are surveyed:
The position favored (consistent with earlier episodes covering Melchizedek at length) resolves this by focusing narrowly on “without genealogy”: the point is not that Melchizedek was illegitimate or divine, but that his priesthood did not depend on a specific tribal/genealogical qualification — unlike the Levitical priesthood, which strictly required descent from Levi. Since Genesis records nothing of his birth or death, his priestly office is narratively “open-ended” — never described as beginning or ending — which becomes theologically significant because the Messiah was to be the son of David (tribe of Judah), not the son of Levi. Melchizedek’s genealogy-independent priesthood therefore supplies the necessary precedent: a priesthood approved by God that does not require Levitical descent, making room for a Davidic, non-Levitical Messiah to also hold legitimate priestly office.
A precise grammatical point is stressed: the text says Melchizedek resembles the Son of God — not the reverse. The point is not that Jesus is modeled on Melchizedek, but that Melchizedek (a man whose priesthood was genealogy-independent and narratively open-ended) prefigures/foreshadows the pattern that is fully and properly true of Christ. This is offered as the corrective to Second Temple Jewish traditions (discussed in earlier episodes) that speculated Melchizedek himself was a divine or quasi-divine figure: such traditions correctly intuited a connection between Melchizedek and a divine Messiah, but misapplied the divinity to the wrong figure — it is Christ, not Melchizedek, who is actually divine.
A recurring question addressed in Q&A sessions is taken up directly: the targumic tradition (Aramaic translations/paraphrases of the Old Testament) identifies Melchizedek with Shem, Noah’s son. This identification appears explicitly in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (on Genesis 14:18) and Targum Neofiti, both of which, rather than transliterating “Melchizedek,” render the figure as “the righteous king” and then explicitly gloss this as “Shem, the son of Noah, king of Jerusalem.”
Dating of these targums is addressed at length, citing the Aramaic Bible series (Targum Neofiti volume, translated by Martin McNamara, with Kevin Cathcart and Michael Maher as series editors): Targum Neofiti and the broader “Palestinian targums” are attested in rabbinic sources from at least the late third/early fourth century AD, with some material possibly older. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, however, is argued by several scholars to have reached its final form after the Arab conquest of the Middle East (i.e., 7th century AD or later) — evidenced by internal references (e.g., to Muhammad’s wife Khadija and daughter Fatima in its comments on Genesis 21:21, and apparent anti-Muslim polemic in its handling of Genesis 25:11 and 35:22). The targums, in short, post-date the Old Testament period by many centuries and are known to add substantial extrabiblical material not present in the Hebrew text (illustrated by a colorful example: Pseudo-Jonathan’s account of Genesis 14 inserts an anachronistic reference to “the smiting of the firstborn in Egypt” — an event centuries in Israel’s future at the narrative’s setting).
Citing Martin McNamara’s article (“Melchizedek: Genesis 14:17–20… in the Targums, in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature”), the origin of the Shem-Melchizedek identification is traced to a biblical chronology calculation: using the ages given in Genesis (Abraham at Isaac’s birth, Isaac’s age at marriage and at Esau/Jacob’s birth, Isaac’s lifespan, etc.), Shem’s recorded lifespan is shown to overlap with the lifetimes of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and from this bare chronological overlap, the inference was drawn that Shem must therefore have been the Melchizedek Abraham encountered. The logical gap in this argument (mere lifespan overlap does not establish identity) is noted explicitly.
The Shem-Melchizedek tradition also appears in 2 Enoch (also called Slavonic Enoch, a Jewish apocalyptic work surviving in Old Church Slavonic) and in several early Christian (patristic) writers, including Ephrem (Ephraim). Two scholarly articles are referenced as further reading: one by André Orlov (on 2 Enoch) and McNamara’s article cited above.
McNamara’s article is cited at length regarding Rabbi Ishmael’s teaching that God took away Melchizedek’s (i.e., Shem’s) priesthood and transferred it to Abraham, reinterpreting Psalm 110 as addressed to Abraham rather than to a perpetual Melchizedekian figure — with the stated rationale (per the rabbinic tradition) being Melchizedek’s impropriety in blessing Abraham before blessing God. Several scholars (Ginzberg is named) suggest this rabbinic “demotion” of Melchizedek’s priesthood was specifically a polemical response to Christian use of Hebrews 7 and Psalm 110:4 to identify Jesus with an eternal Melchizedekian priesthood (Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho is cited as an example of the kind of Christian argument being targeted). An alternative scholarly view is also presented for fairness: the polemic may instead target Hasmonean dynastic claims to combined kingship/priesthood (citing 1 Maccabees 14:35, 41, regarding Simon Maccabeus), which were themselves controversial within Second Temple Judaism. The conclusion offered: regardless of which polemical target is correct, anyone adopting the Shem-Melchizedek identification today should be aware that the tradition carries this contested history and was historically deployed, at least in part, against the Hebrews 7 argument for Christ’s priesthood — and that there is, in any case, no actual biblical evidence for the Shem identification itself.
Hebrews 7:9–10 states that Levi himself, in effect, paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham, “for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.” The mainstream scholarly position (illustrated via William Lane’s commentary) holds that Levi was not literally, actually present — the language is read as expressing corporate/ancestral solidarity: Abraham’s action is treated as legally or representationally binding on his not-yet-existing descendants. This reading draws support from the Greek perfect passive verb form in verse 9 (“tithes were paid” — by an outside actor, Abraham, on Levi’s behalf), which is read as compatible with Levi’s actual non-existence at the time.
The critique offered is that this reading, while grammatically defensible for verse 9 alone, does not actually engage verse 10’s specific claim — that Levi was “still in the loins of his ancestor.” Citing B. F. Westcott’s commentary as a representative example, commentators who carefully handle the perfect passive in verse 9 are shown pivoting to vague, abstract language (“the real unity of Abraham’s race,” “a mystery… into which we can see but a little way”) when they reach verse 10, without ever directly addressing whether the text is making an ontological claim about Levi’s actual prior existence. A similarly evasive (if more eloquent) treatment is quoted from Guthrie’s commentary, which is judged to “say a lot of stuff elegantly” without resolving the actual interpretive problem.
The proposed alternative approach begins by questioning an unexamined modern assumption: that the author of Hebrews and his contemporaries could not have believed a person could genuinely exist, in some sense, prior to embodiment/birth. It is argued that commentators “nearly universally” do not even raise this question, defaulting instead to treating verse 10 as a non-literal flourish on verse 9’s representational point — without offering positive evidence that ancient readers would have rejected the idea of pre-birth personal existence.
Drawing on material developed elsewhere (“biblical anthropology,” referenced as covered extensively on the podcast’s website), several points are made about the Old Testament’s conception of personhood:
The proposal advanced: if scripture allows for personal existence/identity without embodiment after death, the same conceptual category could, in principle, apply before birth as well — meaning Levi could have genuinely, personally “existed” in some non-embodied sense “in the loins of his ancestor” without requiring any biological/genetic mechanism, and therefore without conflicting with modern biological science (which would otherwise make the passage’s plain claim “quaint” and “unscientific” if read as describing literal pre-formed biological existence).
Jeremiah 1:4–5 (“before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”) is offered as a comparable biblical text that could be read as describing genuine personal pre-existence prior to embodiment, though it is acknowledged that the verse could alternatively be read merely as a generic statement about divine foreknowledge (without requiring the prophet’s actual prior personal existence). A specific further resource is flagged for those wanting to pursue Second Temple Jewish background on this topic: a 1966 dissertation by Robert Gerald Hammerton-Kelly, “The Idea of Pre-Existence in Early Judaism: A Study in the Background of New Testament Theology” (referenced as available via the podcast’s newsletter archive), which discusses categories of pre-existence applied in Second Temple Jewish thought not only to persons but also to objects/concepts such as the Torah itself, conceived of as pre-existing in some sense before creation.
The discussion closes by explaining why mainstream Christian theology has historically avoided affirming pre-mortal personal existence, tracing the reluctance to traditional readings of Romans 5:12 (“sin came into the world through one man… so death spread to all men, because all sinned”). It is argued that Romans 5:12 itself states only that death (not sin or guilt per se) is what spreads from Adam to humanity, but that most Christian traditions have nonetheless read the verse as teaching inherited guilt — which then generates a downstream theological problem specifically regarding any doctrine of soul pre-existence: if souls/persons pre-exist their bodily birth, how could they have incurred Adam’s guilt, given that they were not “in Adam” biologically at the time of his sin? This concern, more than any direct exegetical argument against pre-existence itself, is identified as the primary historical driver behind the doctrine’s rejection.
Citing Terryl Givens’ book When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought, it is noted that the early church did not have unanimous agreement on the soul’s origin, and that Augustine himself did not flatly declare pre-existence heretical — he surveyed multiple competing theories (including a form of pre-existence associated with Origen, who was later anathematized on other grounds) and ultimately favored traducianism (the view that the soul is generated by/transmitted through the human parents, alongside the body) specifically because that view best supported his commitments to inherited guilt and predestination against the rival Pelagian emphasis on free will — not because he considered the rejected alternatives (including pre-existence) demonstrably unbiblical or absurd. Both traducianism and creationism (the view that God creates each individual soul directly, “on the spot,” at conception or birth) are noted as carrying their own unresolved philosophical problems: traducianism struggles to explain how a purely material biological process could generate something immaterial; creationism struggles to explain how a freshly created, individual soul could justly inherit guilt for an act (Adam’s sin) it had no part in.
The chapter’s concluding principle, applied to this entire excursus: the controlling question for any of these positions should be “what can the text sustain?” — not what any particular historical theologian (Augustine, Calvin, Luther) happened to conclude. Applied specifically to Hebrews 7:9–10: if Levi’s real, personal (though non-embodied) presence “in the loins of his ancestor” is textually plausible and not excluded by other clear biblical teaching, then Hebrews 7:10’s language could be read as making a genuine metaphysical claim — Levi’s priesthood being inferior to Christ’s/Melchizedek’s not merely as a legal fiction of corporate representation, but grounded in an actual (if non-embodied) personal reality. The two live options left on the table, by this reckoning, are: (1) the standard “representational” reading, which treats Hebrews 7:10’s specific wording as non-literal/figurative and historically/metaphysically empty; or (2) the proposed alternative, which takes the wording at face value by allowing for genuine, non-embodied personal pre-existence — a position that, while unconventional, is argued to be at least as textually defensible as the alternative, and arguably more faithful to what the passage actually says.
This portion of the chapter — covering the necessity of a change in priesthood (since “the law made nothing perfect,” v. 19), Christ’s priesthood established by divine oath rather than mere legal succession (vv. 20–22, quoting Psalm 110:4 again), Christ’s permanent, undying priesthood (“he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever,” v. 24), and his consequent ability “to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him” (v. 25) — is read in full but flagged as substantially reinforcing conclusions already established in the chapter’s opening verses and in earlier episodes on Christ’s high priesthood (Hebrews 4:14–5:10) and on Melchizedek specifically, rather than introducing significant new interpretive material warranting separate, detailed treatment here.