Reading with the Grain of Scripture

by Richard B. Hays

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2020

Overview

Richard Hays has been a giant in the field of New Testament studies since the 1989 publication of his Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Now, his most significant essays of the past twenty-five years are collected here, representing the full fruition of major themes from his body of work:

• the importance of narrative as the “glue” that holds the Bible together
• the figural coherence between the Old and New Testaments
• the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus
• the hope for New Creation and God’s eschatological transformation of the world
• the importance of standing in trusting humility before the text
• the significance of reading Scripture within and for the community of faith

Readers will find themselves guided toward Hays’s “hermeneutic of trust” rather than the “hermeneutic of suspicion” that has loomed large in recent biblical studies.

Key Features

• Examines the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus
• Focuses on the significance of reading Scripture within and for the community of faith
• Explores the figural coherence between the Old and New Testaments

Contents

Part 1: Interpretation

• Narrative Interpretation and the Quest for Theological Unity
• Reading Scripture with Eyes of Faith
• Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection
• Figural Interpretation of Israel’s Story

Part 2: Historical Jesus

• Re-branding Jesus and the Pitfalls of Entrepreneurial Criticism
• Story, History, and the Quest for Jesus
• Catholic Tradition and the Quest for Jesus
• A Modest Sketch of Jesus of Nazareth

Part 3: Paul

• Christology: Paul’s Story of God’s Son
• Soteriology: Christ Died for the Ungodly
• Apocalyptic: New Creation Poetics in Galatians
• Pneumatology: The Spirit in Romans 8
• Gospel: For Gentiles Only?
• Israel: Hope for What We Do Not Yet See
• Paul, Acts, and Early Christian Proclamation

Part 4: New Testament Theology

• Christology: Jesus in the Apocalypse of John
• Covenant: New Covenantalism in Hebrews
• Humanity: Bultmann’s Misreading of Pauline Anthropology
• Law: Whose World Is It, Anyway?
• Confession: Romans and the Nicene Creed
• Eschatology: “Why Do You Stand Looking Up into Heaven?”
• Conclusion: A Hermeneutic of Trust

Top Highlights

“Here is my point: figural reading neither presupposes nor asserts that the author of the earlier text predicted or consciously anticipated its figural fulfillment in the later. In fact, the retrospective recognition of a pattern of correspondence usually comes as a surprise.” (Page 74)

“At the heart of Minear’s work lies one luminous insight: what we ordinarily take to be ‘real’ is in fact a distorted picture of the world, and it is only the revelatory power of God’s word that casts a true light on the landscape of human experience and, at the same time, heals our capacity to see.” (Page 29)

“Did the author of 1 Kings believe that he was writing a hidden prophecy about Jesus or about any future messiah? Surely not.” (Page 73)

“4) Theological exegesis attends to the literary wholeness of the individual scriptural witnesses” (Page 37)

“(1) Theological exegesis is a practice of and for the church” (Page 36)

Product Details

• Title: Reading with the Grain of Scripture
• Author: Richard B. Hays
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 448
• Resource Type: Collected Essays
• Topic: Biblical Studies

About Richard B. Hays

Richard B. Hays (born May 4, 1948) is Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. His service as dean is for an intentional interim period while a national search is conducted. Hays received his B. A in English literature from Yale College and Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph. D from Emory University.