Having established the superiority of Christ to the angels and having sustained the point by a lengthy discussion of the significance of the incarnation, the author now turns to the superiority of Jesus to Moses, and by implication the superiority of Jesus to the law. Given the commitments of Jewish readers—for whom Moses and the law are of central importance—the argument is astonishingly bold, and the conclusions to which it eventually leads in chapter 8 are not easy ones, even for Christian Jews. Again the specific background of the readers is in view and especially the strong temptation that they were apparently experiencing to return to the faith of their fathers.

3:1 The author appeals to his readers, placing himself together with them, in the words holy brothers, a common designatio…