One forgotten woman’s wisdom still shapes how we read Scripture — we just stopped using her name.

Hello — as frequent readers know, I lead a progressive women’s group at church. We focus on the divine feminine in theory (Asherah, the Wisdom Sophia), text (the Gospel of Mary) and the stories of real women like Deborah (who was a real snore, it turns out). 

This month we’re celebrating Prisca, or Priscilla as she’s occasionally called. She shows up in the New Testament six times, always alongside her husband, Aquila. The couple is mentioned together in Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Timothy. 

And in four of those six references, her name comes first, which in the ancient world is a flashing neon sign: “she’s the important one!” It strongly suggests she held a more significant role in the early church than most modern Christians realize.

Even John Chrysostom comments on her prominence, noting that Paul deliberately lists her name first. In his homily on Romans he writes, 

Paul has placed Priscilla before her husband. For he did not say, “Greet Aquila and Priscilla,” but “Priscilla and Aquila.” He does not do this without a reason, but he seems to me to acknowledge a greater godliness for her than for her husband. — John Chrysostom’s First Homily on the Greeting to Priscilla and Aquila

For a fourth-century bishop to acknowledge a woman’s leadership so openly is striking—and it tells us just how highly Prisca was regarded in the earliest Christian communities.

Prisca in action

In the book of Acts, Prisca and Aquila hear the preaching of Apollos in the synagogue at Ephesus. What they heard was enough to have them take him aside and school him in the “right” way to talk about Jesus: “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” (Acts 18:26)

After Apollos gets his head screwed on straight, he goes on to Achaia where he “For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.” (Acts 18:28) 

We readers aren’t able to sit in on the lesson that sent Apollos down a different path. We may, however, be able to read, more or less, what Prisca told him. Why? Because some scholars suggest the Epistle to the Hebrews was penned by Prisca. 

The theory rests on several intriguing clues: 

• Looking at both language and theme, it’s clearly not Paul.
• The author is clearly an elite, highly educated teacher heavily influenced by Greek rhetoric and midrashic argumentation—exactly the profile early tradition gives Prisca.
• Hebrews includes subtle domestic imagery (weaning babies, feeding children) and unusually warm references to companions that feel consistent with a female pastoral voice. 
• The letter’s anonymity fits a woman writer in an increasingly patriarchal environment. Though the early Jesus movement had many women leaders, the church soon conformed to the mainstream Roman culture. 
• Early church fathers openly admitted they didn’t know who wrote Hebrews.

Taken together, these hints allow us to imagine that the authoritative woman who once mentored Apollos may also have written the most sophisticated theological work in the New Testament.

So I was all for it

I was primed to embrace Prisca — this woman who was evidently so important to Paul and the other 1st century Christians, but is virtually unknown to us.

Having just come off a long exploration of the Gospel of Mary, I was expecting Prisca to be serving up some of the same contemplative nourishment that text offers. After all, both works likely emerged from the vibrant, intellectually rich Christian circles of Egypt. The Gospel of Mary was probably composed there around 120–150 CE, while Hebrews—if she wrote it—comes from a few decades earlier (70–90 CE), originating either in Rome or possibly Alexandria itself.

Another connection: They both suffer outcast status in Christian letters. Hebrews has always been treated as the “stepchild” of the New Testament—kept in the family but never fully trusted. The Gospel of Mary, on the there hand, was pushed out completely. Both drew a side-eye from the early orthodox for one reason or another, but I delight in finding treasure ignored by those early compilers.

That sets up some expectations, right? Anticipated delights all around. 

Well, chuck all those assumptions out the window. Hebrews is nothing like the Gospel of Mary. The gospel reflects a visionary, contemplative strand of early Christianity, while Hebrews offers a complicated Jewish-Christian theology that tries exhaustingly hard to prove Jesus’ exaltation and priesthood.

Hebrews gets some things right

Stop quoting Leviticus 

To give it credit, Hebrews gives progressive Christians a solid biblical basis for tossing Leviticus as a moral rulebook.

The writer is blunt that the old covenant—built on priestly laws, purity codes, and sacrificial regulations—has been “set aside,” declared “obsolete,” and replaced by something better: 

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. —(Hebrews 7:18–19). 

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. — Heb. 8:13

The letter’s argument is basically: “Follow Christ, not the purity code.” That’s a deeply orthodox move—and a very progressive one.

Good on the low Christology 

Reading Hebrews without the later doctrinal overlay, it sounds a lot less like “Jesus was eternally God” and a lot more like “Jesus became the Christ through obedience and suffering.” 

The writer keeps using language of appointment and exaltation—God makes him high priest, God crowns him with glory, God says “today I have begotten you,” as if something new is happening in real time. 

If you line up Hebrews next to John, you can practically watch two different versions of early Christianity looking at each other across the room. John (likely written around 90–100 CE) gives you the fully cosmic treatment—Jesus as the eternal Logos, present with God before creation, divine from the jump. Hebrews (probably 70–90 CE, and likely earlier than John) plays a different tune: Jesus “learned obedience… having been made perfect, he became the source of salvation,” (Heb. 5:8–10). He is appointed high priest, and is told by God, “today I have begotten you,” (Heb. 1:4–5) as if his status is granted rather than baked into the universe. One text gives you a descending divine Word, the other an ascending human who becomes the Christ through faithfulness and suffering. 

If someone wants a biblical basis for a non-Trinitarian or progressive reading, Hebrews gives you plenty of room to argue that Jesus’ divine status is granted, not assumed.

Jesus, messenger

Then there’s the equating of Moses with Jesus — or rather, the “good news” of Moses with that of Jesus? 

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? … For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. (Heb. 3:16, 4:1-2)

This basically makes Jesus a prophet, or messenger, which is okay with me. It’s pretty much what Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Biblical Unitarians, and about Two Billion Muslims also believe as well. 

For my own understanding, it’s far more meaningful to view Jesus as a person who became perfected, united with God. After all, he wouldn’t have spend so much time telling us to follow him, do as he does, and exhorts us to do “even greater things than these,” if he didn’t think we were just as capable as he had been. 

Where’s this leading?

At this point, a reasonable person might pause and ask, “Wait— isn’t this whole Jesus-equals-God, Trinitarian superstructure exactly the kind of ‘talk about the Christ’ that Hebrews itself suggests we should move past?”

What do I mean by that? Hebrews spells it out:

6 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, ² instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³ And God permitting, we will do so. — Heb. 6:1-3

I admit, I got excited here for a moment. 

It seems writer is saying, “drop all that mythology around substitutionary atonement, and let’s get on to what Jesus, the man, was trying to teach us.” I’m all about getting rid of all that “what will happen to me when I die?” Christianity-lite fluff and start trying to follow Jesus’ message here on Earth.

So, I was thinking, “Man, we’ve got a voice here that needs to be heard!” Saturday women’s group was going to be a blast!

But that’s when it got weird. 

Enter the priest-king

After those beautiful early chapters where Jesus looks like a human being perfected and exalted by God, the writer veers hard into a theological world most modern Christians don’t visit very often. Suddenly we’re in the realm of Melchizedek, a mysterious priest-king who appears for three verses in Genesis (Gen. 14:18–20) and then gets a mention in Psalm 110. 

Hebrews grabs that tiny thread and spins it into an entire cosmic priesthood: Jesus isn’t just exalted—he becomes the eternal high priest “according to the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 5:6; 7:17) — quoting that one line from the Psalms twice. The author argues that Jesus’ role doesn’t depend on the tribe of Levi, and therefore a whole new priesthood—and a whole new law—has begun (Heb. 7:12). If it sounds odd to Christians, it’s because it’s deeply midrashic: taking old texts, reinterpreting them, and building a new understanding.

And then comes the blood

And lots of it. For a letter that starts out sounding almost contemplative and reasonable, it suddenly becomes obsessed—truly obsessed—with blood. Not metaphorical blood. Literal blood. Sprinkled, poured, offered, cleansing-everything-that-moves blood. 

According to Hebrews, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22), which is a pretty jarring pivot after Jesus has just spent three whole Gospels forgiving people with… you know… words. 

But no: in Hebrews, everything—books, people, tents, sacred vessels—gets sprinkled with blood to make them pure (Heb. 9:19–21). It’s Leviticus, but cosmic. A heavenly butcher shop masquerading as theology.

It’s not penal substitution, not yet—but it is a worldview where sacrifice, blood, and purification are the architecture of how humans approach God. 

And it doesn’t stop there. Hebrews claims that Jesus enters a heavenly temple—a perfect, invisible version of the old Tabernacle—carrying his own blood as the ultimate offering (Heb. 9:11–12; 9:24–26). He’s both the priest and the sacrifice. Both the one doing the sprinkling and the thing being sprinkled. 

It’s all very mystical and imaginative and… honestly, a little unhinged. 

The letter is drenched in midrash, apocalyptic symbolism, and temple nostalgia. One moment Jesus is a human being growing into divine alignment; the next he’s walking through a heavenly sanctuary with celestial blood-buckets, purifying the cosmos.

Back to Leviticus

None of this comes out of nowhere. Hebrews is basically remixing the bloodiest parts of the Hebrew Bible—especially Leviticus and Numbers. The whole idea of purifying people, objects, and sacred spaces with sprinkled blood comes straight from Leviticus 16, the Yom Kippur chapter, where the high priest splashes blood on the mercy seat, the altar, and even the sanctuary curtain. Hebrews simply takes that ritual imagery and cranks it up. The writer also draws on Exodus 24, where Moses sprinkles blood on the people and the covenant scroll, and on Numbers 19, where the red heifer ashes are mixed with water and sprinkled for purification. Even the line, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22), is basically Leviticus 17:11 in new clothes—life is in the blood, and blood makes atonement.

For a progressive reader, this is disappointing—jarringly so—because it sits in such odd juxtaposition to the other parts of Hebrews that insist the old Law has been set aside and replaced by something radically new (Heb. 7:12; 8:13). On the one hand, the author says the Mosaic system is obsolete; on the other hand, the letter plunges straight back into the very sacrificial logic that made that system what it was. 

It’s as if Hebrews wants to declare freedom from Torah while simultaneously preserving its blood-soaked machinery, just on a cosmic scale. It’s a strange theological whiplash, especially for anyone hoping Hebrews would offer a cleaner break from the ritual worldview of ancient Israel.

Then — the unforgivable sin

We didn’t have to go there

Hebrews also drops one of the darkest, most unsettling ideas in the entire New Testament: 

Once someone has fallen away, they can’t be forgiven again. 

No second chance, no prodigal-son moment, no “God always welcomes you back.” The writer puts it starkly in Hebrews 6:4–6:

“It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened… who have tasted the heavenly gift… and then have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance.”

Impossible. Not difficult. Not unlikely. Impossible.

This theme shows up again in Hebrews 10:26–27:

“If we deliberately keep on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment…”

In other words:

Once you’ve blown it, the sacrifice of Christ no longer applies to you.

Hebrews imagines apostasy as a kind of cosmic betrayal—“crucifying the Son of God all over again” (Heb. 6:6)—and treats it as the one sin beyond the reach of repentance.

So here it is — the same letter that dismantles Leviticus, replaces the Law, and tells us to grow beyond “elementary teachings about Christ” also slams the door on forgiveness for people who stumble after belief. 

Now, I don’t believe in substitutional atonement, so I don’t really care what the writer says at this point. But for those Christians who DO believe, very literally, that Jesus died for their sins, this passage must be a whiplash moment. 

It’s a far cry from Jesus’ seventy-times-seven forgiveness in the Gospels, and it sits uncomfortably alongside modern ideas of grace, trauma-informed faith, and lifelong spiritual growth.

It also demonstrates that the writer is taking all this very literally; allegory and metaphor are NOT in her toolbox.

The writer of Hebrews was brilliant — a serious scholar and theologian—but also blunt, unyielding, and shockingly unforgiving. I hope no one stays up at night worrying if they’ve committed the unforgivable backsliding. I would have, when I was younger, and I apologize to anyone I‘ve just given nightmares. 

Bring it on home

In the end, Hebrews is a weird text—self-juxtaposing, theologically acrobatic, and at times outright contradictory. 

It begins with a Jesus you can actually follow, a human being becoming perfected through obedience, only to veer into cosmic blood rituals, heavenly tabernacles, priesthoods built out of three verses in Genesis, and dire warnings of unforgivable sins. 

It’s a masterpiece of imagination, but also a theological labyrinth, one that constantly shifts between liberation from the Law and deep nostalgia for its blood-soaked machinery.

And if Prisca really was the mind behind it—a theory that’s more plausible than most people realize—then Hebrews becomes not just a strange New Testament letter, but a window into the brilliant, complicated, unsettling theology of a woman who shaped the early church as a co-worker, close friend, and confidant of the Apostle Paul. 

Hebrews shows us a worldview that is at once bold and mythological, grounded and apocalyptic, pastoral and terrifying. It’s not the calm, contemplative spirituality we find in the Gospel of Mary. It’s nothing like Jesus’ ethical humanism. 

What it is, is a glimpse into the intellectual ferment of the first century, where followers of Jesus were still trying to make sense of who he was, what he meant, and how his life fit into the ancient traditions they had inherited.

Hebrews wholly failed at giving me what I wanted, and what I expected. I won’t be presenting Prisca as the new “must follow” woman from the New Testament. She — if this is her — can’t hold a candle to the writer of the Gospel of Mary. But I’m not sorry to have experienced the raw, unfiltered energy of an early Christian trying to knock together a workable worldview. 

So when my women’s group celebrates Prisca this month, we won’t be crowning her our new contemplative queen; however, we will be honoring her fierceness, her intellect, and her leadership. 

Hebrews may be messy, gross, unsettling, and frustratingly contradictory, but it may also be most ambitious book in the New Testament.

It might not be the book we want, but it’s absolutely worth our time. Give it a read.