Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul

by Richard B. Hays

Paul’s letters, the earliest writings in the New Testament, are filled with allusions, images, and quotations from the Old Testament, or, as Paul called it, Scripture. In this book, Richard B. Hays investigates Paul’s appropriation of Scripture from a perspective based on recent literary-critical studies of intertextuality. His uncovering of scriptural echoes in Paul’s language enriches our appreciation of the complex literary texture of Paul’s letters and offers new insights into his message. "A major work on hermeneutics. . . . Hays’s study will be a work to use and to reckon with for every Pauline scholar and for every student of Paul’s use of Old Testament traditions. It is sophisticated, in both a literary and theological sense, and written with considerable wit and confidence."―Carol L. Stockenhausen, Journal of Biblical Literature

"Hays has without doubt posed the right question at the right time within the horizon of a particularly important problematic. . . . A new beginning for the question concerning the reception of the Old Testament in the New."―Hans Hübner, Theologische Literaturzeitung

"A powerful reading. . . . [Hays’s] careful and fresh exegesis . . . challenges not a few traditional or highly regarded readings. . . . A major contribution both to Pauline studies and to our understanding of earliest Christian theology as a living dialogue with the scriptures of Israel."―James D. G. Dunn, forthcoming in Literature and Theology

"A fresh interpretation of Paul’s references to the Jewish Scriptures. . . . Written in a lively, semipopular style, this important study succeeds in showing that Paul’s scriptural quotations and allusions are often more ’polyphonic’ and rhetorically meaningful than traditional exegesis has allowed."―David M. Hay, A Journal of Bible and Theology

Genres: Biblical Studies, Theology, New Testament, Christian, Nonfiction, Christianity, Religion

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

About the author

Richard Bevan Hays was an American New Testament scholar and George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He was an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.

Reviews

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may not agree with everything, but this seminal work on Paul’s use of the Old Testament is a masterpiece of scholarship written in a highly engaging—even poetic—style.

[Shane Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

2022 reads: 08

Rating 5 stars

Phenomenal.

[Pedro Lima · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't want to understand the writings of Saint Paul, you can safely ignore this book.

⚠️ The author is Protestant, which shows up sometimes. Though I would appreciate more dialog with Catholic authors, it's a very respectful book.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome! Very rich and thought provoking. Not only does Hays set forth and interpretation of how Paul read Scripture, using literary analysis, but he also asks the "so what?" question. Any thoughtful reader of Paul should give some time to pondering the questions posed by Hays in this volume. Besides the intellectually stimulating concepts posed, Hays also has a masterful use of the language, making academia enjoyable as well as insightful.

[Charlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this book in my Ph. D. quest to discover whether Hays' method would work with Matthew's use of Zechariah. My thesis from the University of Durham (UK)in 2002, somewhat revised, became a book published by De Gruyter in 2008.

For anyone with an interest in how the NT uses the OT, Hays' book is required reading, imho!

[Daniel Supimpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very skilful book on Paul's interpretive model. Hays' take is strongly informed by his area of training (English literature), and creates a powerful argument for the phenomenon of intertextuality between Paul and what he called the Scriptures (what Christians name as the Old Testament [OT]). By a close reading of a few representative passages in Romans, 1-2 Corinthians and Galatians, Hays will explore a possible synthesis of Paul's hermeneutics, and the proper stance for contemporary readers.

In the Preface, Hays begins by questioning a somehow common interpretation that Paul misreads the Scriptures and abandons the tradition of the OT, an attitude that becomes the insistent seed of anti-Semitism in Christianity. For Hays, such affirmations are—ironically enough—a misinterpretation of Paul! The proposed response in this work, thus, is to get a close look on how Paul is reading the OT, in order "to probe the complex significations created by a representative sampling of Paul's intertextual reflections." (xii)

Moving to chapter 1, the author sets out a "map" of previous attempts to categorize Paul's approach to Scripture, in order to situate Hays' own work in the field (the works of Bultmann, Longenecker, Ellis and others are briefly summarized here). So Hays opts for a working hypothesis that "certain approaches to intertextuality that have developed within literary criticism prove illuminating when applied to Paul's letters." (15) Drawing from John Hollander's terminology, Hays explores how we could see in Paul that Scripture is being taken to echo within a different acoustical environment (the Christian framework of reference). An essential element for Hays—not only here, but in is posterior work—is introduced, metalepsis (the idea that the echoes of certain texts invites the reader to reconsider the context of the echoed element). At the end of this chapter, Hays proposes seven helpful criteria for identifying an echo in Paul (29-32):
1. Availability (the proposed source of echo is available to author and/or audience)
2. Volume (the degree of explicit repetition or reference)
3. Recurrence (how often the scriptural passage is alluded to)
4. Thematic Coherence (how well does the echo fit in the argument?)
5. Historical plausibility (how likely is to find this approach in a 1st-century Jew who converted to Christianity and is writing to churches of mixed audiences [Jews and Gentiles]?)
6. History of interpretation (Have other interpreters both critical and pre-critical heard similar echoes?)
7. Satisfaction (Does the reading overall illuminates the intertextual context for the contemporary reader?)

Building upon this method, Hays will deal in the next chapters with intertextual echoes in three significant blocks of three Pauline books:
- Romans (ch. 2), particularly interested in the topic of God’s righteousness to his promises and the prefigured inclusion of Gentiles as part of Israel in light of texts such as Psalm 97 and Isaiah 51-52;
- 1-2 Corinthians and Galatians (ch. 3) in which Hays argues that Paul has an ecclesiocentrical hermeneutics of the OT—that is, that his reading is informed by the idea that the formation of the church composed of both Jews and Gentiles at the arrival of the eschaton is prefigured all over the OT. Here, Hays dives deep into the typology of the church in Israel in the wilderness, and of Abraham’s depiction of faith in the promise in Galatians.
- 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:6, with a close look into the contrast between the “letter” and the “spirit.” For Hays, Paul does not mean a radical departure from the literal sense of a text to reach a deeper ‘hidden’ sense (such as the Alexandrian school was already doing by then). It is far from the Platonic contrast of body and soul, outward and inward, but the exact opposite! In Hays’ view, Paul is affirming that “the Spirit is—scandalously—identified precisely with the outward and palpable, the particular human community of the new covenant, putatively transformed by God’s power so as to make Christ’s message visible to all. The scrip [the letter], however, remains abstract and dead because it is not embodied.” (131) The point overall is that Scripture is more properly interpreted by a community that enacts the text and, thus, is enabled to find in Scripture nuggets of its transforming power that have already been somehow experienced in practice. From this dialectical relationship between practice and interpretation, the community grows deeper into the knowledge of the text, as the text is more deeply engaged.

Finally, Hays concludes with chapter 5, in which he presents a descriptive summary of Paul’s hermeneutics vis-à-vis what was explored up to this point. He groups his findings under five headings: hermeneutical freedom (how ; revision and continuity; hermeneutical methods and constraints; the immediacy of the word (personally, one of my favourite parts of the book, in terms of explaining how to read Scripture as a living voice for the church in all ages); and eschatological hermeneutics (in which Paul’s sense of time is compared to other ancient Jewish writers such as the Midrash, Philo, and Qumran). After that, Hays—based on Thomas Greene’s framework for typologies—defends that Paul operates primarily in a model of dialectical imitation, i. e., a deep typological interconnection between two reference texts, in which each text revises and is empowered by the other’s universe of significations. That allowed Paul to have some freedom concerning the primary intention of the OT texts, though still operating with the same theological framework than the original authors—although Paul is writing from within the period of eschatological fulfilment of what the OT authors were looking forward to.
The last part of chapter 5—or one could call it a conclusion to the whole book—deals with the most important questions at the end of the day: should we accept Paul’s specific interpretations of Scripture as normative? should we interpret Scripture with the same freedom that Paul did? And what are the constraints for this freedom? Putting himself over against other scholars in the field—Gardner, Longenecker and Marks—Hays answers “Yes” to the two former questions, and gives a beautiful and well-written threefold response to the third question? Scripture should be read (1) guided by the trust in God’s righteousness to his covenant promises; (2) as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the apex of God’s righteousness; and (3) in the context of and in order to form a cruciform community, one that embodies Scripture’s message. In Hays’ words, “No reading of Scripture can be legitimate, then if it fails to shape the readers into a community that embodies the love of God as shown forth in Christ. This criterion slashes away all frivolous or self-serving readings, all readings that aggrandize the interpreter, all merely clever readings.” (191)

Overall, Hays’ book is very technical, with some exegetical sections that could feel a little bit too long for someone “from outside the camp” of biblical studies. I had a hard time with Hays insistence that Paul’s interpretation of Scripture is primarily ecclesiolocentric, not Christological (e.g.98)—two areas I can hardly see in distance from each other. Hays himself struggles to move back in order to affirm that actually, proper Christology is the foundation for Paul’s interpretation (160-1), and that the partial arrival of the eschaton with Christ gives Paul the privileged standpoint to review his own reading of the OT (168-9). This makes chapter 3 and 5 look like written by Hays in two very distinct periods of his life, at the fringe of contradicting each other, as far as I could understand him. I would also have to think further in terms of his affirmations about divine revelation being in the life of the community, rather than in the text itself. (e.g. 144).

Another deeper question in Hays’ general method of intertextuality. It is unquestionable that the fruits are amazingly interesting and helpful for the life of the church. But there seems to be a weakness in Hays' own first criteria of historical plausibility (in chapter 1). In a period when only a small minority could read (some scholars estimate about 10-20%), how could the proposed method of intertextuality ring so many bells for 1st-century Christians in Rome or Corinth? Could Hays be assuming that ancient audiences—remember, formed in good part by illiterate Gentiles who were not raised hearing the Torah—were so much more immersed in Scripture than us, that they would be able to perceive all this echoes in a first hearing? (let’s remember that the letters were primarily read out loud on Christian meetings, not individually inside the comfort of a living room with a copy of the OT together on the table) I believe it is plausible to believe that Paul could be thinking of—or at least naturally drawing from—these echoes of Scripture. Some Jews of certain status converted to Christianity, probably would get them too. But what about Roman slaves or illiterate women? Again, if Hays defends the church as the focal point of revelation and interpretation, we would have to affirm a more central core in an elite that was highly accustomed to the OT.

Still, he is sharp in several points, his writing is very natural, well-reflected and cogent—a freedom with language that reveals his own training in English literature. Since I wasn’t studying anything particular in Romans, 1-2 Corinthians and Galatians, chapters 4 and 5 were the most interesting and challenging, especially Hays’ takes on the relevance of the church as the proper community of faith—ironically an ‘echo’ of modern proposals of theological readings of Scripture seen in Barth, Childs and others. His arguments are well-construed and it is quite hard to question his exegetical moves. A highly recommended reading for anyone interested in Pauline studies!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dense, but a refreshing take on Paul that helped me make sense of Romans and other passages in his epistles. Most notably, this helped me wrestle through Romans in light of my newer understanding of the OT Law and how it informs the rest of the biblical narrative.

[Jeremy]

Mentioned positively here.

[Ben De Bono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul's usage of the Old Testament is one of the most controversial and complex issues in New Testament studies. While this isn't a comprehensive take on the subject (it doesn't claim or try to be) Hays' book is an extraordinary achievement that makes serious headway in a long stalled out debate.

Richard Hays is an extraordinary scholar and a much underrated voice in the New Perspective on Paul. If you've never read him, this is a great place to start

[Joshua Bremerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Hays seeks to answer the following question: “How did Paul interpret Israel’s Scriptures?” (x). Hays groups his results into five thematic headings: hermeneutical freedom; revision and continuity; hermeneutical methods and constraints; the immediacy of the word; and eschatological hermeneutics (154). When Hays mentions (1) freedom, he refers to reading, and living, as if Scripture is “a witness to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ” (154). In other words, “the reader who turns to the Lord and finds the veil taken away will return to the reading of Moses to discover that all of the Scripture is a vast metaphorical witness” (151). In terms of (2) revision and continuity, Hays argues for a bidirectional approach to Scripture, “Gospel interprets Scripture; Scripture interprets gospel. The product of this fusion of readings—in the text of the Pauline letter—is a new figuration of grace” (160). For Hays, the (3) hermeneutical methods and constraints for Paul do not relate to methodology but rather theology (161). The (4) immediacy of the word means that “the word of Scripture is read as the word of God to us,” which involves meaning arriving “with full clarity only in the church” (167). Finally, (5) eschatological hermeneutics draws from the insights of the Apocalyptic Paul to argue that “because God has acted in Jesus Christ to initiate the turn of the ages, everything past must be read with new eyes” (168).

I found Hays’s approach refreshing in his eagerness to see metalepsis and transfigured readings in the Old Testament through Paul encouraging. Language such as “fully intelligible,” “transformed echo,” and “the echo effect would still not be audible” help to describe how the original audience, and subsequent audiences, can miss echoes that we are only discovering today (94). I also think his three hermeneutical constraints (cannot deny the faithfulness of God to his promises; cannot fail to acknowledge the death and resurrection of Jesus as the climactic manifestation of God’s righteousness; cannot fail to shape readers into a community of Christian love as seen in Christ) move the conversation forward without over-relying on scientific allusion analysis (191).

These categories, however, do not move the conversation forward in a guarded-enough way. I think the data and analysis actually point toward methods like DeRouchie’s light and lens as the ideal balance of science and art in reading the OT in the NT. I struggle with Hays’s assertion that “for Paul, original intention is not a primary hermeneutical concern” (156). While he does back down on this slightly by arguing that Paul’s “typological reading strategy extends a typological trajectory begun already in the texts themselves,” he does not exegete with a fairness to Paul’s treatment of the original context of each text. His ultimate statement on the matter, in my view, appears to be that “The “original” meaning of the scriptural text, then, by no means dictates Paul’s interpretation, but it hovers in the background to provide a cantus firmus against which a cantus figuratus can be sung” (178). Paul does not build something new, but instead draws out, with clear eyes, the true and complete intention of the original text. I also find his ecclesiocentric hermeneutical approach, while illuminating and helpful when guarding against overly simplistic Christocentric interpretations, slightly myopic. If the Spirit of the Lord indwells both individual believers and the community of the Saints, then ecclesiocentric hermeneutics ultimately find their telos in the Spirit of Christ.

[Caleb Burkhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy reading Richard B. Hays. He has a theological sensitivity to his interpretation of Scripture that is refreshing and engaging, even if you disagree with his conclusions. Essentially, Hays is trying to answer the question, "How did Paul interpret Israel's Scriptures" (x). His method is not so much what you might find in typical historical-grammatical methods of interpretation. Rather, it pulls insights from literary criticism to find echoes of the OT in Paul's writing.

He has an extended section that establishes his method for determining echoes (29–32) which, even though this book was written 35 years ago, still remains relevant and helpful. Furthermore, it's not often that you find biblical scholars using insights from poetry to help you interpret Scripture better, but Hays somehow does it in a way does not seem arbitrary or ridiculous.

One overarching claim for Hays is that Paul's "hermeneutic is functionally ecclesiocentric rather than christocentric" (xiii). This framework controls much of his exegesis of keys passages in Paul (i.e. Rom. 9–11, 2 Cor. 3). While not entirely problematic, I think Hays dichotomizes an ecclesiocentric and christocentric reading. Though he realizes that Paul is certainly interested in christology, the way he reads Paul has understanding the OT finds its center of gravity in God's covenant faithfulness through the gathering of the church, which comprises of both Jew and Gentile. Hays wrote this book during a time when the New Perspective on Paul was certainly all the rage, and the idea that Paul was in any way interested in "individual salvation" was not considered as a serious interpretive framework. Also, because this book is trying to have one foot in the church and the other in the critical guild, Hays does not analyze texts from Ephesians or the Pastoral Epistles, since the critical guild denies Pauline authorship for those books. Some of Hays' claims, which certainly have merit and are worth considering, could be softened by analyzing passages in said books.

Another critique I have is the way he understands the OT passages that are echoed in Paul to have meaning. He argues that these texts bring about there meaning through the dialectic process of the redeemed reading community (the church) engaging with the overarching narrative of God's faithfulness to Israel, which is now being fulfilled in the church. On one level, that's fine, but Hays is not comfortable with the idea that texts contain meaning in themselves (189). I think that a robust understanding of inspiration and providence gives meaning to texts as they are composed because God is ultimately the primary author of Scripture.

Overall, this is a well written and argued work that will cause any reader to read Paul anew, with special attention to how the OT functions in the thought and interpretation of Paul. Chapter 4 in particular, where Hays deals with 2 Cor. 3, was the most compelling part of the book where Hays' method really shines. This book will surely challenge and invigorate the way you read Paul, and hopefully, Scripture overall!

[Laura S · Rating 3 out of 5]

An update: People more educated and experienced than me recommended this book, so if I oversimplified my summary, that is on me. I will say, that no matter how direct and straightforward Paul’s intentions may have been (writing letters to loved ones and using scripture to help them understand the opportunity they have to come together to form the Church), it does not mean that the Holy Spirit wasn’t using Paul to put forth much more complex ideas! I think that is most definitely what was happening! So, for those who do like to study Paul more in depth…carry forth! I plan to. However, I will with the mindset that it was more Spirit and less Paul responsible for the layers and depth we discover. Isn’t that the truth for all of us? God works through our spiritual gifts to enable us to make a far greater impact than we ever could, ourselves!Overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with this book, though. :)

I believe Hays is writing primarily to people who love to study the New Testament and tend to come up with complicated theories and analyses of Paul’s letters. He wants to remind the reader that Paul was writing letters to people (& whole churches) he loved. To Paul, “Scripture” was the Old Testament and other inspired writings….it wouldn’t have necessarily crossed his mind that he was writing a chunk of the New Testament. To say Paul knew scripture, is of course, an understatement, and that his writing would be saturated with scriptural references (what Hays calls “echoes”) should not come as a surprise. Paul’s purpose was not to convince his readers that Jesus is Messiah (they were already sure of that). Instead he focused on how Jews and Gentiles come together to form the Church. Two quotes that stood out to me regarding this are:

“This is a ministry that changes people’s lives, not a ministry that labors over written words (referring to the New Covenant).” p 150

“The meaning of Scripture is enacted in the Christian community, and only those who participate in the enactment can understand the text.” P 157

So, in summary, I’d say that Hays wants intellectual folks to know that it is ok to ‘lighten up”. He tries to gently pry fingers off of pursuits to find obscure meanings and motives in Paul’s writings and to more simply enjoy the Life we have! Study is good, but it is the life and community we build that really matters. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this slowly over many months (years?). A mixed bag. When he's good, he's very good. When he's bad, well...

While I appreciate the hermeneutical sensitivities and fulsome reading of biblical texts, I remain unconvinced over several points, not least of which is Hays' proposals for what the continued career of the Scriptural text in the life of the church actually looks like (beyond a rather ambiguous gesture toward readings that take seriously "God's promises to Israel," and the work of the Christ).

[Greg Reimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent excellent book (yes, the repetition was intentional and much deserved). Closing the last page, Hays has given me much the think about and chew on. This book has transformed how I view the Old Testament, Paul's letters, and how to interpret both in light of God's faithfulness in Jesus and His Church. It can be a little wordy in parts, but I can heavily recommend this book to all believers and those more curious by how all of the scriptures should be read and incorporated in our life.

[Ben Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour de force. This book was published in 1989, while I was in my third year of a BS in Biblical Languages. When I read a book this old that I find so incredibly helpful and illuminating, and which helps me answer questions that have nagged at me for 30 years, I ask myself “why didn’t I have this book back then?” But upon reflection, I realize that I probably couldn’t have handled it ‘back then’ …. If you decide to tackle it though, be forewarned that Hays writes at a very high level, and some of the things he says are difficult to understand.

[David Youssef · Rating 1 out of 5]

Behold the my Icebreaker of spiritual books. This book really could have taken the wisdom of “why use much word when little word do trick” to heart, over complicating its ideas to unnecessary degrees attempting (and likely succeeding) in adding to the theological discussion but in my eyes losing sight of what made Paul unique and making several jumps it had no right to make. Also Ill say it again, Paul was a very intelligent well read man, sucked at writing his ideas well though, if I go to hell for that, so be it

[Sam Blades · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The vocabulary and cadences of Scripture — particularly the LXX — are imprinted deeply on Paul’s mind, and the great stories of Israel continue to serve for him as a fund of symbols and metaphors that condition his perception of the world, of God’s promised deliverance of his people, and of his own identity and calling.”

[Neil White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard B. Hays is one of the teachers of scripture that I continually go back to and learn from. Echoes of Scripture was written in 1989 and it is a dense piece of writing, but his demonstration of Paul's intertextual ecclesiocentric reading has continued to enrich my reading of Paul's letters for the almost twenty years since I first encountered it.

[Joel Persell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really helped open my eyes to Paul’s constant use of the Old Testament Scriptures in his writings. Even when he is not making direct references or quotations, he is almost always alluding to and building on the concepts and thought-world of the Hebrew Scriptures. If you want to better understand the Pauline Epistles, this book is for you.

[Jamey Yadon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thorough examination of Paul's interpretation of the Old Testament. It's unnecessarily dense in places, but the last chapter brings it all together and includes some wonderful work on how preachers should imitate Paul's methods. That chapter is the best part of the book by far.

[Nathan Ellzey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, simply put, is a paradigm shifter. It simply is a MUST READ for any serious student of the New Testament, especially of Paul. It is difficult to either summarize or explain.... Just read it.

[Tim Donnelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite read of the year. Absolutely stunning!

As others have already shared on Goodreads, this book is a paradigm shifter on Paul. I could not agree more.

I am excited to dig into Hays’ other works.

[Tom Underhill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now if only he had the metaphysics to support his own rich reading of Scripture!

[Brad Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book and anything else by Hays always inspires my love for Scripture. Highly recommend this book.

[Judson Marvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. He carefully reads the echoes of the Scriptures in Paul's letters. One of his arguments is that Paul's focus is less christological and more ecclesiological.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most life changing books I have ever read. You will need to read Hollanders “The Figure of Echo” first. Can really open you to how Paul read scripture.

[Mark L Jensen]

fascinating insights into mind/theology of the apostle Paul

[Adam Marquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will say two things to help convince you to read this book:
My paradigm has been successfully shifted.
I now understand Paul better and in a delightful way.

[Kat Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm probably going to bring this off the shelf every time I prepare a message.

[Jackson Swain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just incredible.