Reading with the Grain of Scripture

“All these essays illustrate, in one way or another, how I have sought to carry out scholarly work as an aspect of discipleship—as a process of faith seeking exegetical clarity.” — from the introduction

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.

• Table of Contents
• Introduction: Gathering the Wheat
• Part 1: Interpretation
  • 1. Narrative Interpretation and the Quest for Theological Unity
  • 2. Reading Scripture with Eyes of Faith
  • 3. Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection
  • 4. Figural Interpretation of Israel’s Story
• Part 2: Historical Jesus
  • 5. Re-branding Jesus and the Pitfalls of Entrepreneurial Criticism
  • 6. Story, History, and the Quest for Jesus
  • 7. Catholic Tradition and the Quest for Jesus
  • 8. A Modest Sketch of Jesus of Nazareth
• Part 3: Paul
  • 9. Christology: Paul’s Story of God’s Son
  • 10. Soteriology: Christ Died for the Ungodly
  • 11. Apocalyptic: New Creation Poetics in Galatians
  • 12. Pneumatology: The Spirit in Romans 8
  • 13. Gospel: For Gentiles Only?
  • 14. Israel: Hope for What We Do Not Yet See
  • 15. Paul, Acts, and Early Christian Proclamation
• Part 4: New Testament Theology
  • 16. Christology: Jesus in the Apocalypse of John
  • 17. Covenant: New Covenantalism in Hebrews
  • 18. Humanity: Bultmann’s Misreading of Pauline Anthropology
  • 19. Law: Whose World Is It, Anyway?
  • 20. Confession: Romans and the Nicene Creed
  • 21. Eschatology: “Why Do You Stand Looking Up into Heaven?”
• Conclusion: A Hermeneutic of Trust
• Epilogue: Dark Fruition