The book of Hebrews is formally anonymous. That much is obvious. However, some have taken that fact and run with it in a direction I'm not comfortable with. They argue, "Since God did not inspire the author to identify himself, we do not need him identified for exegesis." Instead, as one author puts it, "we must embrace the mystery." But what if the "mystery" is not all that mysterious? Moreover, typically we want to identify the author because normally such an identification is necessary for a proper understanding of a New Testament book. Thus, for example, it's not irrelevant that we call the first book in our New Testament "Matthew." By that term we mean an actual eye and ear witness of all that he testifying to in his gospel. Likewise, the books we now call "Mark," "Luke," and "John" are all formally anonymous. Yet surely when we study these documents we will want to know something about these authors. The same is true, of course, for the epistle we call "First John."
In short, I repeat: Just because a book is formally anonymous doesn't mean that the author is unknown. So we must ask why the author chose not to include his name. This is true whether you espouse Paul, Apollos, or Luke as author of Hebrews.
