Richard B. Hays - Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels

I he unusual circumstances under which this book has been brought to publication obligate me to offer the reader a few words of explanation. And the extraordinary help I have received in completing the manuscript also calls for much more than the conventional expressions of thanks. To explain what I mean, a brief autobiographical narrative is necessary.

For the first twenty years of my academic career, I focused my attention chiefly on the theology of Paul the Apostle. Among the topics I explored was Paul’s subtle and many-faceted engagement with Israel’s Scripture. My studies of this question eventually resulted in two books: Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989) and The Conversion of the Imagination (published in 2005, but incorporating chiefly essays originally written before 2000). Starting during a sabbatical leave in 2001-2002, I began to think about how the hermeneutical observations I had made about Paul might open up fruitful lines of inquiry about the Gospels. Of course, the secondary literature on the Gospels is vast, and in order to move seriously into this field of study, I had a lot of homework to do. And so, during the years from 2001 to 2008, I began to focus my research and teaching on the canonical Gospels, and I turned out a few articles that offered preliminary probes into the question of how the four Evangelists interpreted Scripture.

It was during another sabbatical leave year in 2008-2009 that I began in earnest the work of writing the present book. I spent the first part of that sabbatical in Cambridge, where I was in residence as a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall and enjoyed the use of the Tyndale House library; the latter part of the sabbatical was spent at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton. By the end of that year, I had completed rough drafts of the major chapters on the three Synoptic Gospels and had begun work on John.

Richard B. Hays - Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels

Baylor University Press, 2016. - 579 pp.

ISBN 9781481304917 (hardback : alk. paper)

ISBN 9781481305129 (ePub)

ISBN 9781481305136 (mobi)

ISBN 9781481305143 (web pdf)

Richard B. Hays - Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels - Contents

Preface
Introduction. Figural Interpretation of Israel’s Scripture

THE EVANGELISTS AS READERS OF ISRAEL’S SCRIPTURE

1. The Gospel of Mark. Herald of Mystery

§1. “Take heed what you hear”. Mark as Interpreter of Scripture
§2. Apocalyptic Judgment and Expectancy. Israel’s Story in Mark’s Narrative
§3. Jesus as the Crucified Messiah
§4. Watchful Endurance. The Church’s Suffering in Mark’s Narrative
§5. “Hidden in order to be revealed”. Mark’s Scriptural Hermeneutics

2. The Gospel of Matthew Torah Transfigured

§6. The Law and the Prophets Fulfilled. Matthew as Interpreter of Scripture
§7. The End of Exile. Israel’s Story in Matthew’s Narrative
§8. Jesus as Emmanuel
§9. Making Disciples of All Nations. The Church’s Mission in Matthew’s Narrative
§10. The Transfiguration of Torah. Matthew’s Scriptural Hermeneutics

3. The Gospel of Luke The Liberation of Israel