BOOK REVIEW: OUTSIDE THE CAMP BY RICHARD JOHNSON

The sociological background of the book of Hebrews is greatly essential to the understanding of the people to whom it was written and the purpose for which the epistle was circulated. In Going Outside the Camp, Johnson argues that a lucid understanding of the recipients background in light of the levitical system, expounded by the book’s author in the cultic section of Hebrews, gives warrant to his study. The author, drawing his idea out of William Lane’s book, Hebrews 1-8, asserts that since scholars are not in harmony on the background and purpose of the epistle, an in-depth sociological examination of the letter is a crucial necessity to a better understanding of the epistle to the Hebrews.


Johnson’s work is central to a scholarly understanding of the letter. The lengthy section of the cultic practice is possibly a major key to a better understanding of the letter’s addressees. His guide to a stratified society and its descriptions of the recipients’ cosmology is a much a welcome addition to the limited works done on the levitical critique as an aid to a better understanding of the community addressed in the letter. The author intended to show that even though there is no consensus as to who those people were, this group was actually functioning as a society which he then termed as the “implied society.” This term was cautiously chosen to make amends to the present thought in relation to the identity of the addressees.


This book contributed to a clearer, and better knowledge of how that particular society (although still unspecified), worked as he delineated and explained how it treated the “outsiders” who are not part of the implied community. His description of these outsiders as “the foes of God” (p. 85) is imperative in the overall perception and idea of how the recipients of the letter perceived the outside world. The description he gave was in line with their relationship with God and not because of their separation from the addressees. In addition, His take on the social implications of their understanding of the levitical practice in relation to their society will certainly enlighten those who are skeptical as to the purpose of the book in light of their background. The author’s indubitable and extensive labor in unleashing the distinctiveness of that society should be commended since the cultic activity which he espoused here gives superior insight as to how the recipients looked at the rituals in the Day of Atonement and how this has affected their worldview as a community.


The author’s critique of the levitical cultus led him to conclude that the society, described, yet unnamed, is exhorted and suited for a greater task- that which is to do the mission of the church, to go outside the camp, and bring the gospel to the Gentile world. Thus, the sociological function of the ritual of the addressees did not end in worshipping their God within the community but was a reminder to them that theirs was a taxing assignment to lead the heathens to an understanding of God’s salvation. Johnson, with his critical approach in studying this sociological phenomenon, succeeded in demonstrating the power of the practice to influence the implied society.