Hays Studies Paul’s Cites

Richard B. Hays. 1989. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra

The writings of the Apostle Paul make up about half of the entire New Testament and most of the other books in the New Testament are written by friends of Paul. Paul’s influence on the early church is undisputed. Sharp and insightful as he is, Paul is also inscrutable. His use of Old Testament scripture lies at the heart of this inscrutability.

This inscrutability made Richard B. Hays Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul a magnet for my attention late in my seminary career, when I started, but did not finish the book.

Introduction

The focus of Hays’ work is on hermeneutics, the study of interpretation. Hermeneutics is often controversial, perhaps now more than when Hays wrote, because how one reads the Bible often defines denominations, the translations that they favor, and the words they include and exclude.

In this book, he starts by asking: “How did Paul interpret Israel’s scripture?” (x) He answers:

“I approach the task of interpretation not by reconstructing the historical situation in the churches to which Paul wrote, not by framing hypothetical accounts of the opponents against whom Paul was arguing, but by reading the letters as literary texts shaped by complex intertextual relations with scripture.” (xi)

For Hays, intertextuality refers to: “The imbedding of fragments of an earlier text within a later one.” (14). His goal: “Is to undertake a reading of selected passages in Paul’s letters, attending carefully to the scriptural echoes that sound there.” (xii)

An hermeneutical key that Hays (1, 3) returns to several times is: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” (Rom 10:8 paraphrases Deut 30:14 ESV) Hays observes that there is a: “striking verbal divergence of many New Testament quotations from their putative Old Testament sources.” (6) He notes that most critical studies avoid asking why? (9)

Background and Organization

Richard B. Hays (1948 +) has Bachelor in Arts in English literature from Yale College, a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, and a Doctor in Philosophy from Emory University. He is a professor emeritus of Duke Divinity School.

Hays writes in five chapters:

The Puzzle of Pauline Hermeneutics
Intertextual Echo in Romans
Children of Promise
A Letter from Christ
“The Word is Near You”: Hermeneutics in the Eschatological Community (vii)

These chapters are proceeded by a preface and followed by notes and indices.

Hearing Echoes

Hays describes the task of looking at echoes as: “(1) to call attention to them so that others might be enables to hear; and (2) to give an account of the distortion and new figuration that they generate.” (19) This task is most curious because we all paraphrase and cite one another casually without even being aware of it. To design purpose in this activity is to attribute to the Apostle Paul a level of understanding and self-awareness that many do not possess.

Hays (29-31) proposes seven criteria for selecting echoes in Paul’s writing:

Was the proposed source of the echo available to the author and/or original readers…
The volume of an echo is determined primarily by the degree of explicit repetition of words or syntactical patterns…
How often does Paul elsewhere cite or allude to the same scriptural passage?…
Thematic Coherence. How well does the alleged echo fit into the line of argument that Paul is developing?…
Historical Plausibility. Could Paul have intended the alleged meaning effect?…
History of Interpretation. Have other readers both critical and precritical, heard the same echoes?…
With or without clear confirmation from other criteria listed here, does the proposed reading make sense?…

This is the map to explaining the puzzle of Pauline hermeneutics. His first example is taken from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Why the Echoes?

The curiosity of echoes arises in Paul’s writing as a tension between theme and counter-theme. Hays writes:

“In Romans 1:18-3:20, even where Paul uses scriptural allusions to underscore the message of God’s judgment, the texts themselves whisper the countertheme of God’s mercy.” (46)

This statement jumps out at me because this particular passage is much reviled by postmoderns and hammered like a bible-over-the-head by some commentators. Hays refers to this as the ”judgment/grace paradigm that undergirds the whole witness of Scripture.” (47)

The same problem comes up in the law-Gospel dichotomy that stands in contrast to Paul’s statement: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” (Rom 3:31) For Hays, the entire narrative of scripture, Old and New Testaments, is about “God’s gracious election of a people.” (53). Paul’s frequent use of scripture echoes the continuity of grace between Israel and the church, even when the citations themselves suggest otherwise.

Paul’s Hermeneutical Freedom

Hays sees Paul employing an ecclesiocentric hermeneutic in interpreting Old Testament scripture rather than a strict hermeneutic method (86). How does the experience of Israel as an eschatological community inform the church? In employing this hermeneutic, Hays him straying from any particular method.

One example of a liberal interpretation is Paul’s “Pesher-style commentary” (text with commentary; 65) cite of Deuteronomy 30:14 in Romans 10:8-9:

“But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” (Deut 30:14)

“that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord andbelieve in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:8-9)

This passage then leads to the infamous verse: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Rom 10:10) Who would have imaged that this verse began as a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 30:14?

Hays cites many instances of passages that Paul uses outside the original intent and context of the Old Testament authors, adding and subtracting as he goes. Rather than adhering in any particular methods, Paul reads scripture directs his efforts “towards forming the church into a text that glories God.” (192) This is what Hays describes as hermeneutical freedom (186).

Assessment

Richard B. Hays Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul is a fascinating read that should interest pastors and scholars interested in interpreting the Apostle Paul and able to read Greek, Hebrew, and German. Whether or not you accept Hays’ conclusions hermeneutical freedom and the theological implications that go with it, this is a book worthy of study.

Footnotes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard....

Hays Studies Paul’s Cites
Also see:
Books, Films, and Ministry
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com

Newsletter at: https://bit.ly/Back_Sep23, Signup
 

 

The post Hays Studies Paul’s Cites appeared first on T2Pneuma.net.