RICHARD HAYS AND THE ART OF HEARING

THE SCRIPTURES OF PAUL

A Paper

Submitted to Dr. Robert Stewart and Dr. Charles Ray

of the

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Course

Philosophical Hermeneutics: PHIL 9402

in the Research Doctoral Program

Jesse B. Coyne

BS, University of Georgia, 2003

MA, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2009

ThM, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012

March 21, 2013

ii

CONTENTS

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Sections

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Narrative Substructure of Hays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Echoes of the Scriptures of Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Hays’ Moral Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Summary and Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Critiques and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

APPENDIX 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

APPENDIX 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

iii

iv

PREFACE

The title of this study embodies my own modest attempt at having my imagination converted by

one of my personal heroes in the faith, not Paul but Richard Hays.1 If one’s ear is properly

attuned, then echoes of many of Hays’ major works can be heard reverberating off the narrative

substructure upon which the title is built. This attempt at creativity is not merely an homage to

Hays’ deft pen – though it is that – but rather a reflection of the larger coherent narrative that

forms the essence of Hays’ work. Each of the elements within the title will be explicated in the

subsequent discussion, but immediate attention needs to be drawn to the latter portion of the title,

as it sets the course for the following portrayal of Hays’ work. While not a particularly “loud”

echo, “the Scriptures of Paul” is a rather “satisfying” reference – if I do say so myself – to Hays’

published dissertation, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-

4:11.2 In this work, which will not be a particular focal point in the present study, Hays engages

the question of whether to render the Greek phrase πιστις Ιησου Χριστου as an objective

(someone’s faith in Jesus) or subjective (Jesus’ own faithfulness) genitive (he opts for the latter),

by appealing to what he refers to as the narrative substructure underlying Paul’s thought. Hays

1 I should presume to think that Hays’ imagination and proclamation have been thoroughly reformulated in

lengthy conversation with the great apostle so that my own interaction with Hays has brought me into dialogue with

Paul as well. I have attempted to get inside the mind of Hays – to whatever degree that may be possible – and the

view through his eyes is decidedly more interesting and the biblical landscape more vivid and alive. Jim Leonard is

fond of recounting the tale of Hays’ Sunday morning sermon at one of the academic conferences at Oxford that had

all the stuffy Brits amening and praising God like they were at a Luter-led Southern Baptist revival.

2 The second edition of the book is bolstered by the recommendation of Luke Timothy Johnson, who helps

put the success of the book into perspective: “Most Ph.D. dissertations in New Testament studies are read only by

the committee for whom they were written, are bound and shelved in the research library, and are happily forgotten

by everyone except the author. A few dissertations find publication in a monograph or dissertation series, or even a

university press, and can claim readers beyond the boundaries of the writer’s department. This is known as academic

success. But when a dissertation has stayed in print for twenty five years and is then reissued by a major publisher –

without alteration – for a still wider readership, we can speak of real influence and importance.” Richard B. Hays,

The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2002), xi. Hays’ own title is of course an allusion to the foundational work of C. H. Dodd, According to the

Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952).

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suggests that the phrase has taken on a particular metonymic character that incorporates a larger

narrative about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, somewhat like seeing the proverbial tip of the

iceberg.

Likewise, I endeavored to capture this metonymic character in the title, as a way of

inviting the reader to look below the surface to the ongoing story and conversation that

comprises Hays’ hermeneutical program. As in “the faith of Jesus Christ” one should be

prompted to ask whether “the Scriptures of Paul” should be rendered as an objective or

subjective genitive. Are we talking about how Paul uses Scripture, namely the OT, or how we

should use the Scripture that Paul himself produces? At this point, the bridge between the two

titles begins to collapse because, as will be seen clearly later, Hays’ approach to Scripture

incorporates both aspects of this genitival construction. In essence, Paul’s artful way of reading

Scripture and applying it to his communities sets the pattern for the way we also should be

reading Scripture and applying it to our own faith communities, namely by rereading ourselves

within the narrative framework of the text.

1

Introduction

My investigation began with the attempt at isolating a particular strand of Hays’ thought or

approach to Scripture whether in regards to the structuralist background of his dissertation, the

philosophical underpinnings of his intertextual approach, or his broader hermeneutical concerns

manifested in his struggle with NT ethics.3 As I became more entrenched in Hays’ work, I

realized that attempting to pull out one strand would unravel the approach as a whole and

ultimately distort the picture Hays had labored to assemble. Hays’ description of Paul’s use of

Scripture (intertextuality) becomes the paradigm for modern readings and applications of the

biblical text (ethics), which is all built upon an underlining narrative substructure, or, more

appropriately, a metanarrative of “God’s action of creating, judging, and saving the world.”4

Appropriately, the most explicit example of this system can be found in Hays’ most overtly

“intertextual” work, The Conversion of the Imagination, which is an anthology of previous

articles that Hays has expanded, edited, and spliced together into a coherent presentation with

specific goals in mind. Hays identifies three theses in the opening paragraph of the book:

(1) the interpretation of Israel’s Scripture was central to the apostle Paul’s thought; (2) we

can learn from Paul’s example how to read Scripture faithfully; (3) if we do follow his

example, the church’s imagination will be converted to see both Scripture and the world

in a radically new way.5

As much as it is possible to isolate a fragment of Hays’ thought, Hays’ exhortation to “imitate

3 These represent the order of Hays’ three major monographs, which all reside in somewhat different

spheres of NT studies.

4 Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays, eds., The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003),

1. For an excellent description of metanarrative in a postmodern world, see Richard Bauckham, “Reading Scripture

as a Coherent Story” in The Art of Reading Scripture (eds. Ellen Davis and Richard Hays; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2003), 38-53. One of the most salient features of Bauckham’s essay is his use of Gerard Genette’s distinction

between story and narrative. Narratives are performances of the story that can be done in a variety of different ways.

5 Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), viii.

2

the example of Paul’s dialectical engagement with Scripture” will form the coherent center of the

present analysis, while still recognizing that this fragment is contingent upon the narrative

framework that gives it shape and support.

Thus, this paper will attempt to demonstrate how Hays uses Paul’s hermeneutic as a

model for his own. A description of Paul’s use of Scripture as prescriptive for his churches can

and should be extended to encompass modern faith communities. With that in mind, the paper

will: (1) broadly describe Hays’ work and contributions; (2) Give a more detailed analysis of

Hays’ use of intertextuality and its application to biblical studies; (3) Demonstrate the connection

between Hays’ descriptive task (intertextuality) and prescriptive task (ethics); and (4) Evaluate

the usefulness of Hays’ hermeneutical agenda.

The Narrative Substructure of Hays

While the work in Hays’ dissertation will not factor greatly into the present analysis, it does lay

the groundwork for understanding Hays’ emphasis upon story and narrative in both Paul’s

thought and Christian ethics. Hays states his central thesis for the book in the lengthy preface to

the second edition: “A story about Jesus Christ is presupposed by Paul’s argument in Galatians,

and his theological reflection attempts to articulate the meaning of that story.”6 Hays was

concerned with describing Paul’s role as an interpreter of stories and not his role as a storyteller

– a point that has been frequently misunderstood.7 Hays acknowledged, and continues to

6 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ, xxiv.

7 See the collection of essays in Bruce W. Longenecker, ed., Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical

Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). In essence the book is an attempt to evaluate the narrative

approach to Paul’s letters established by Hays, yet inexplicably Hays was not involved in the project. While the

contributors are all established scholars in Pauline studies, they are not all versed in narrative approaches to

Scripture, and several of them (Barclay, Lincoln, and Marshall in particular) fail to make the distinction noted

above. Also, see Hays’ response to the book in Richard Hays, “Is Paul’s Gospel Narratable?” (review of Bruce W.

Longenecker, ed., Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment), JSNT 27.2 (2004): 217-39.

3

acknowledge,8 the influence of theologians like Karl Barth and Hans Frei and their impact upon

his understanding of narrative theology. In his dissertation Hays utilized the structuralist

methodology of Greimas to analyze the “syntax of narratives,” but Hays has not since worked

with structuralism and admitted that he would gladly “consign to the flames” much of the

“methodological overkill” in the work.9

The real heart of Hays’ dissertation was to draw attention to the centrality of narrative

elements in Paul’s thought. For Hays the “framework of Paul’s thought is constituted neither by

a system of doctrines nor by his personal religious experience but by a ‘sacred story,’ a narrative

structure, and he does not “simply retell the story in his letters…he assumes that his readers

know the gospel story and his pervasive concern is to draw out the implications of this story for

shaping the belief and practice of his infant church.”10 Hays makes clear, however, that he is not

attempting to make sweeping generalizations about the narrative character of human

consciousness or that all human existence is best explained within stories. In fact, part of Hays’

8 This is one of the points where Hays diverges from his good friend, Tom Wright, and Hays identifies this

disagreement as one of the factors leading to the “blowup in Boston” where Wright sharply criticized a book co-

edited by Hays, Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, at an annual SBL meeting. Richard Hays, “Knowing

Jesus: Story, History and the Question of Truth,” in Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue

with N. T. Wright (ed. Nicholas Perrin and Richard Hays; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011), 42-44. Hays

attributes the disagreement to Wright’s caricature of the positions of Frei and Barth and what Wright suspects to be

an “escapist denial of critical history.” Both Hays and Wright want to overcome the “pernicious dichotomy between

story and history” and both appeal to a metanarrative to make sense of the Gospels, but Hays grounds his narrative

in the “complex polyphony” of the canonical Gospels, whereas Wright’s narrative is based on the reconstructed

picture of his historical Jesus. I would suggest that the primary difference here is that Wright attempts to go behind

the narratives of the Gospels while Hays attempts to go over or in front of them to draw unity from the diversity. In

fact, Hays has continually moved to embrace both tradition and theological interpretation of Scripture, which has not

been the case for Wright. For example, see Richard B. Hays, “Spirit, Church, Resurrection: The Third Article of the

Creed as Hermeneutical Lens for Reading Romans,” JTI 5.1 (2011): 35-48; idem, “Reading the Bible with Eyes of

Faith: The Practice of Theological Exegesis,” JTI 1 (2007): 5-21; Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Richard B. Hays,

“Seeking the Identity of Jesus,” in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed., Beverly Roberts Gaventa and

Richard B. Hays; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 5-17.

9 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ, xxvii, 274 n.5.

10 Ibid., 6.

4

argument is that Paul’s thinking is shaped by a story in a way unlike most others. Thus, Hays

does not base his thesis on “a phenomenology of consciousness but on the basis of an

examination of the ‘logic’ of Paul’s arguments.”11 Hays then appeals to the work of Northrop

Frye, Paul Ricoeur, and Robert Funk in order to develop a model to understand the theological

portions of Paul’s letters as elements within a story that only derive their meaning from their

placement in the story.

In the dissertation, Hays was concerned specifically with Paul’s role as an interpreter of

the story of Jesus. Only later when Hays returned to reflect on the subject did he then attempt to

situate the story of Jesus within the larger story of Israel and God’s election and promise in the

OT. Hays’ next monograph, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, was partially written to

address this question. But, writing after Echoes, Hays admitted that he would reformulate his

characterization of Paul’s hermeneutic as being “relentlessly ecclesiocentric” in favor of saying

that “Paul finds in Scripture the story of Israel as a prefiguration of the story of Jesus the Messiah

and of the church that he brings into being, ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16).”12 In this transition

one can already see Hays moving toward an all-encompassing metanarrative that not only

bridges the gap from the OT to the NT but also to the modern church as well.

Echoes of the Scriptures of Paul

In Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, Hays unfolds his most comprehensive program for

understanding intertextuality in Paul’s letters. Yet, while Hays continues to use the tools of

literary critics as “hearing aids” for understanding Paul, he does not always employ these tools

11 Ibid., 11.

12 Ibid., xxxviii.

5

exactly in the way they were designed to be used.13 While space does not permit a detailed

methodological overview, a few words should be said about the history and use of the concept of

intertextuality. Ever since Kristeva’s theory was first applied to the study of the Bible, it has been

exploited for various reasons and in various ways, so that “almost everybody who

uses it understands it somewhat differently.”14 Those who apply (or misapply) her theory within

the field of biblical studies can be divided into two camps. Those who embrace the postmodern

context and the instability of meaning out of which Kristeva’s theories were born approach the

text from a purely reader-oriented perspective that amplifies the synchronic meaning of the text.

A synchronic approach will ignore the original context of a writing because a text is merely a

collection of dead words until it is inscribed with meaning by a reader. Most “traditional” (i.e.

historical-critical) scholars follow a more diachronic method of analysis, which amounts more-

or-less to a “study of sources.”15 In this sense, the focus remains on the original intent of the

author and how the author has appropriated his sources, so discussions of date and availability of

a text remain relevant.16 A diachronic intertextual approach, however, should not be confused

13 Hays, Echoes, xii.

14 Julia Kristeva, “The Bounded Text,” in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art

(ed. Leon S. Roudiez; trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon Roudiez; New York: Columbia University

Press, 1980), 36; repr. from σημειωτική (Paris: Seuil, 1969). Heinrich F. Plett, “Intertextualities,” in Intertextuality

(ed. Heinrich Plett; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991), 3.

15 Kristeva, who coined the term “intertextuality,” actually came to prefer the term “transposition” due to

the way some had misappropriated her work. “The term inter-textuality denotes this transposition of one (or several)

sign system(s) into another; but since this term has often been understood in the banal sense of “study of sources,”

we prefer the term transposition because it specifies that the passage from one signifying system to another demands

a new articulation of the thetic – of enunciative and denotative positionality.” Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic

Language (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 59-60. Ironically, most scholars within the guild do not

really care what the term meant to the original author but only how they can appropriate it for their own concerns

today.

16 For an excellent summary of the differences between the synchronic and diachronic approaches, see

Geoffrey D. Miller, “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research,” CBR 9.3 (2010): 283-309. In reality most scholars

would fall somewhere between the extremes of the two positions, and there are some who (mistakenly) think that the

two approaches can be harmonized. Stefan Alkier has identified a three-part division of intertextual approaches:

6

with earlier approaches of source hunting where the goal was simply to identify the passage and

text utilized by the author. Questions concerning the identification of quotations and allusions

have expanded to incorporate broader themes and motifs.17 So, questions about what texts an

production-oriented, reception-oriented, and experimental. The production-oriented perspective is concerned with

how identifiable texts are used in the new texts in which they occur. Reception-oriented critics examine two

interwoven texts in historically verifiable readings. The experimental perspective is focused on the production of

meaning between two or more texts that have no necessary historical relationship. Alkier’s production-oriented

category roughly corresponds to the diachronic pole and his experimental category to the synchronic. The reception-

oriented perspective would fall somewhere in the middle, but it could probably be seen as a sub-category of the

production-oriented class. Stefan Alkier, “Intertextuality and the Semiotics of Biblical Texts,” in Reading the Bible

Intertextually (ed., Stefan Alkier, Richard Hays, and Leroy Huizenga; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009), 10.

Alkier’s short definition of intertextuality as a method is still one of the best available: “Intertextual investigation

concerns itself with the effects of meaning that emerge from the references of a given text to other texts. One should

only speak of intertextuality when one is interested in exploring the effects of meaning that emerge from relating at

least two texts together and, indeed, that neither of the texts considered alone can produce. One must also remember

that within the paradigm of intertextuality, that intertextual generation of meaning proceeds in both directions: The

meaning potential of both texts is altered through the intertextual reference itself. Since a text can be brought into

relationship not only with one but also with many other texts, intertextuality involves the exploration of the

decentralization of meaning through references to other texts.” Ibid., 9. One could likewise divide the categories into

historical (production and reception; diachronic) and ahistorical (experimental; synchronic) approaches, which sets

the line for where the real battles in the discipline are fought.

17 A note of clarification should be made about the terminology of “quotation,” “allusion,” and “echo.”

Hays does not clearly distinguish between allusions and echoes because the distinction usually is determined by the

original audience, which modern readers only know through Paul’s letters. Hays admits that he uses the categories

flexibly, but he generally uses “allusion” to refer to more obvious intertextual references and “echo” to more subtle

ones. Hays, Echoes 29. Hays’ broad distinction has been common in subsequent literature. Stanley Porter has

attempted to bring some measure of clarity and consistency to the often loosely-defined and haphazardly-used terms.

In his first article Porter attempted to clarify Hays’ usage of the term “echo.” See Stanley Porter, “The Use of the

Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method and Terminology,” in Early Christian

Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (eds. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders;

JSNTSS 14; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 79-96. Acknowledging that the first article had limited

success, Porter once again attempted to correct the abuses, which he perceived to have expanded. See Stanley Porter,

“Further Comments on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,” in The Intertextuality of the Epistles:

Explorations of Theory and Practice (eds. Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter;

Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006), 98-110. Literary allusions are particularly difficult to define, and the line

between allusion and echo is often indeterminate; some even use the terminology of allusive echo, which just blurs

the lines even further. Porter’s best distinction is found in his most recent work, where he identifies allusions as

referring to specific people, places, or works and echoes as invoking more broadly thematic language of general

concepts, but he admits that the latter category may simply be too diffuse to offer any real way forward. See Stanley

Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (eds. Stanley E. Porter and

Christopher D. Stanley; SBLSymS 50; ed. Victor H. Matthews; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 29-40.

Sylvia Keesmaat distinguishes between allusions (intentional) and echoes (unintentional) based on the intentionality

of the author. The distinctions appear helpful, but they ultimately remain subjective to the reader as Hays

recognized. Sylvia Keesmaat, “Exodus and the Intertextual Transformation of Tradition in Romans 8.14-30,” JSNT

54 (1994): 32.

7

author has appropriated have shifted to include how an author has used them and how much he

has used.

In large part, this shift began with the pioneering work of Dodd, who demonstrated how

the NT authors made use of the larger context when quoting or alluding to OT material. Much of

Hays’ work could really be seen as an extension of Dodd as he attempted to incorporate the

theories of literary critics to expound upon Dodd’s initial observation. Hays’ use of the term

“metalepsis” provides a concise way of dressing up Dodd’s work up in fancy, new, literary

garb.18 Of course, that is not to suggest that Hays has only relabeled an existing model with the

terminology of a new method. As will be made clear in the following discussion, Hays has

furthered the discussion in a number of diverse ways.

Hays does not develop his intertextual method based on the work of theorists like

Kristeva or Barthes but on the observations of literary critics like John Hollander and Thomas

Greene.19 Hays acknowledges the contributions of Kristeva and Barthes, but he is quick to insist

18 Beale accused Hays of this very thing, but Beale has failed to recognize how Hays has moved the

discussion forward. G. K. Beale, review of Richard Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination, JETS 50.1 (2007):

191.

19 Concerning Hays’ use of the concept of intertextuality as it relates to the broader field of literary

criticism, see William Scott Green, “Doing the Text’s Work for It: Richard Hays on Paul’s Use of Scripture,” in

Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed., Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSS 83; ed. Stanley E. Porter;

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 58-63. Green critiques Hays for not using the term ‘intertextuality’ as

most literary critics use it to question the stability of meaning in a text. Green suggests that Hays “employs a

minimalist notion of intertextuality, using it to mean simply the presence of an older text in a newer one.” Green, 59.

Hays’ response is blunt and dismissive: “If Green should insist on denying me permission to use the term

‘intertextuality’ (since my work does not properly reverence its ‘larger purpose’), I will surrender it with a shrug.

Nothing is at stake for me in the use of the term.” Richard Hays, “On the Rebound: A Response to Critiques of

Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul,” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed., Craig A. Evans and James A.

Sanders. JSNTSS 83; ed., Stanley E. Porter; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 81. A similar critique about

methodological purity was lobbed by Barry Matlock against Hays’ dissertation. R. Barry Matlock, “The Arrow and

the Web: Critical Reflections on a Narrative Approach to Paul,” in Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical

Assessment (ed. Bruce W. Longenecker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 47-50. Hays is quite

comfortable dropping Greimas’ model as he later admitted, but Matlock’s critique fails to recognize how often

methods are adapted to fit the needs of the interpreter. Moreover, no doubt Matlock does not adhere to the entire

theoretical basis for the intertextual approach that he proposes in favor of the narrative one. Perhaps, Matlock

8

that his approach is not ahistorical; Hays is firmly in line with the diachronic approach that

focuses on actual citations and allusions from some identifiable “pre-text.”20 From John

Hollander, Hays appropriates the concept of “metalepsis”21 which is in no way systematic

enough to be “a methodology or even a theory of literary allusion.”22 Hays suggests that he was

already beginning to describe the concept of metalepsis in his early work before Hollander ever

released the book that introduced Hays to the technical terminology.23 Hays provides a more

concise definition of the term in his later anthology:

Metalepsis is a rhetorical and poetic device in which one text alludes to an earlier text in

a way that evokes resonances of the earlier text beyond those explicitly cited. The result

is that the interpretation of a metalepsis requires the reader to recover unstated or

suppressed correspondences between the two texts.24

focuses his critique on the method because he has very little to say about the actual essay he was supposed to be

critiquing (Adams’) other than that he finds it “congenial” (51).

20 Plett, 8. See Hays, Echoes, xii for Hays’ comments about the historical sensitivity of his readings. But,

while Hays is concerned with diachronic issues, he does not “make them the center of attention.” Ibid., 198 n. 52,

30. His primary method of study is a literary analysis, but “historical knowledge both informs and constrains” his

readings. Ibid., 28. Likewise, Hays, like any good biblical scholar, is concerned to avoid anachronism. Ibid., 21, 200

n. 75.

21 “I propose that we apply the name of the classical rhetoricians’ trope of transumption (or metalepsis, in

its Greek form) to these diachronic, allusive figures. Quintilian identified transumption as a movement from one

trope to another, which operates through one or more middle terms of figuration…there is a general sense that it is a

kind of meta-trope, or figure of linkage between figures, and that there will be on e or more unstated middle terms

which are leapt over, or alluded to, by the figure…[it] is generally understood as a form which likens A to B in that

X is palpably true of them both, but with no mention of W, Y, Z, which are also true of them both. As a heuristic

fiction, the simile will eventually call on the reader to consider the unmentioned W, Y, Z, or whatever. It will also

ask why these, frequently more significant or pressing, should seem less immediately apparent than Z; and what this

implies about the relations among the predicates (W, X, Y, Z), and the distance between the A and B that are likened

with respect to them.” John Hollander, The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Illusion in Milton and After (Berkley:

University of California Press, 1981), 114-15. For a lengthier description of how Hollander uses the terms

“transumption” and “metalepsis,” see the appendix at the end of the volume (133-50).

22 Hays, Echoes, 19. Likewise, Hays refers to intertextuality not as a specific method but as a “phenomenon

to be explored” that “characterizes some texts more than others” where the “intertextual weavings are in some cases

denser, more complex, more semantically fraught than in others.” Richard B. Hays, “Intertextuality: A Catchall

Category or a Specific Methodology?” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the SBL, San Antonio, Tex., 21

November, 2004), 2.

23 Hays, Conversion, xi.

24 Ibid., 2.

9

Hays applies this concept not only to faint echoes but to explicit quotations and allusions as well

because Paul uses Scripture “not as proofs but as tropes” that generate new meaning by linking

the two texts together to produce surprising correspondences that “suggest more than they

assume.”25 Thus, the correspondences require an act of interpretation to uncover the suppressed

connections. In other words, by bringing together two texts an author is making an explicit

connection between them, but other connections may exist as well where the “transumptive

silence cries out for the reader to complete the trope.”26 Moreover, part of the efficacy of these

figurative modes of speech derives from their initial obscurity.27 As Hays puts it, “the trope

invites the reader to participate in an imaginative act necessary to comprehend the portrayal.”28

By requiring the reader to fill in the gaps, so to speak, “we must always wonder what our

own contribution was – how much we are always being writers as well as readers of what we are

seeing.”29 This observation leads Hays into a discussion of textuality and how one determines the

testability of the meaning effects. He identifies five possible locations for the hermeneutical

event to occur: (1) the mind of the author (Paul); (2) the original audience; (3) the text; (4) the

modern reader; and (5) the modern reading community. Hays sees obvious deficiencies in any of

the positions in isolation and instead proposes to hold all five loci of meaning together in

“creative tension.”30 Hays’ attempt to justify his position needs to be stated in full:

25 Hays, Echoes, 24.

26 Ibid., 63.

27 Hays, Conversion, 33. For the logicians of the group, I find the description of an enthymeme to be a

rough analogy to the type of metalepsis described by Hollander and Hays. The unstated premise is still a part of the

argument, and the rhetorical force can be amplified by letting the audience complete the connection themselves.

28 Hays, Echoes, 23.

29 Hollander, 99.

10

Stated positively, my design is to produce late twentieth-century readings of Paul

informed by intelligent historical understandings: to undertake a fresh imaginative

encounter with the text, disciplined and stimulated by historical exegesis. The legitimacy

of such a project rests on a single key hermeneutical axiom: that there is an authentic

analogy – though not a simple identity – between what the text meant and what it means.

One might call this a proposal for ‘common sense’ hermeneutics: common sense not only

because it is the way that sympathetic critics and faith communities have ordinarily read

Scripture but also because it rests upon an assumption that readers ancient and modern

can share a common sense of the text’s meaning…The hermeneutical event occurs in my

reading of the text, but my reading always proceeds within a community of interpretation,

whose hermeneutical conventions inform my reading. Prominent among these

conventions are the convictions that a proposed interpretation must be justified with

reference to evidence provided both by the text’s rhetorical structure and by what can be

known through critical investigation about the author and original readers. Any

interpretation must respect these constraints in order to be persuasive within my reading

community. Claims about intertextual meaning effects are strongest where it can credibly

be demonstrated that they occur within the literary structure of the text and that they can

plausibly be ascribed to the intention of the author and the competence of the original

readers.31

30 Hays, Echoes, 27. Whether maintaining such a tension is possible is open for debate. Stanley Porter

denies that Hays can hold the five positions together unless “the rules of contradiction and exclusion are suspended.”

Stanley E. Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (ed., Stanley E.

Porter and Christopher D. Stanley; SBLSS 50; ed., Victor H. Matthews; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,

2008), 37. Similarly, William Scott Green applauded Hays’ efforts at historical sensitivity, but he maintains that

Hays inevitably slipped into a focus on the reader as an intertextual method rightly requires. Green, 61. On the other

hand, James Sanders affirms that Hays has succeeded remarkably well in holding all five in tension because it

“allows him to admit from time to time that the answer to the question may lie in the third or fourth option given

above, rather than the first or second.” James A. Sanders, “Paul and Theological History,” in Paul and the Scriptures

of Israel (ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSS 83; ed. Stanley E. Porter; Sheffield: Sheffield

Academic Press, 1993), 53. Moreover, in support of Hays, a very similar hermeneutical model is suggested by

Wright: “what we need, then, is a theory of reading which, at the reader/text stage, will do justice both to the fact

that the reader is a particular human being and to the fact that the text is an entity on its own, not a plastic substance

to be moulded to the reader’s whim. It must also do justice, at the text/author stage both to the fact that the author

intended certain things, and that the text may well contain in addition other things – echoes, evocations, structures,

and the like – which were not present to the author’s mind, and of course may well not be present to the reader’s

mind. We need a both-and theory of reading, not an either-or one. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People

of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 62. Wright’s “hermeneutic of love” also comes quite close to Hays’ proposed

“hermeneutic of trust.” Cf. Ibid., 64 and Hays, Conversion, 190-201. Both Hays and Wright in their own ways

attempt to overcome what they see as a false dichotomy between story and history. But, as demonstrated by the

“blowup in Boston” (see above) some fault lines still exist between their two positions. One of the primary

differences between the two is how they view the role of tradition. For Wright (within a certain strand of his thought

at least), tradition is a barrier to be overcome, while Hays views tradition as a source for insight and a critique of the

readings of present reading communities.

31 Ibid., 27-28. By commonsense hermeneutic, Hays refers to the ability to hear the same “echoes” that Paul

or his audience would have heard based on common familiarity with the texts involved. Hays’ perception of what

Paul’s audience would have heard has been critiqued frequently by Christopher Stanley, “‘Pearls Before Swine’:

Did Paul’s Audiences Understand His Biblical Quotations?” NovT 41.2 (1999): 124-44; idem, Arguing with

Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 38-61; idem, “Paul’s

‘Use’ of Scripture: Why the Audience Matters,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (eds. Stanley

E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley; SBLSymS 50; ed. Victor H. Matthews; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,

11

Thus, while Hays draws on historical considerations, allows them to constrain his

arguments, and provides data for later historical investigation, his study primarily relies on

literary observations.32 How then is one able to test or evaluate Hays’ observations? How can

one “know” when Paul was alluding to or echoing Scripture or whether his audiences would

have been able to hear the references? Hays developed seven tests in Echoes that he later refined

and clarified in Conversion.33 Hays acknowledges that identifying allusions and echoes is not a

“strictly scientific matter” where one can have conclusive “proof;” the identifications are more of

2008), 125-56. One of the key points of disagreement between Hays and Stanley is the assumed reader of the text.

Hays approaches the matter from the perspective of a modern reader, while Stanley attempts to envision Paul’s

actual audience made up of various levels of competency and abilities to hear and recognize Paul’s quotations,

allusions, and echoes. Stanley also sees most of Paul’s citations as a rhetorical strategy to defend his own apostolic

authority. Stanley argues for a much more minimalist approach to Paul’s use of Scripture. He is far more concerned

with highlighting that which Paul has explicitly used rather than that which may (or may not) be lurking beneath the

surface. See Watson’s critique of Stanley’s position and in agreement with Hays: Francis Watson, “Scripture in

Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?” JTI 2.2 (2008): 181-92. “It now appears that the epistles’

indebtedness to the Old Testament goes far beyond the immediate scope of some explicit quotations, often marked

with quotation formulas. The Old Testament is not merely confirming or corroborating what the epistle-writer wants

to say. Rather, it is constitutive; it is essential to the text; in some sense it actually forms the text. The quotations of

the Old Testament within the New thus emerge as the tip of a vast iceberg of literary connection and inter-

connection.” Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter, “Introduction: Tracing the

Development of the Epistles – The Potential and the Problem,” in The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of

Theory and Practice (eds. Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter; Sheffield: Sheffield

Phoenix Press, 2006), 5. The most poignant critiques made by Stanley will be evaluated further below. Suffice it to

say at the moment that Stanley and Hays are really not doing the same thing.

32 In a rare moment of scholarly humility, Hays forthrightly acknowledges his hypocrisy for conducting the

same type of literary analysis without deriving specific historical conclusions, which Hays criticized Norman

Petersen for a few years prior. Richard B. Hays, review of Norman Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the

Sociology of Paul’s Narrative World, JAAR 55.1 (1987): 174-75. Hays also distinguishes between the two goals for

historical and literary readings. Whereas a historical reading may attempt to prove a direct influence of Isaiah upon

Paul’s interpretation of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, a literary and/or theological reading may seek to “understand the

way in which an author (Paul) creates meaning effects in a text through artful reminiscences of another text.” Hays,

Conversion, 30.

33 Hays, Echoes, 29-32; idem, Conversion, 34-45. Hays’ seven tests have frequently been used by

subsequent interpreters, and one could argue that his strict attention to methodology is what has caused his work to

continue to be perpetuated. Stanley insinuates this very possibility. Stanley, “Paul’s ‘Use’ of Scripture,” 127. Of

course Stanley first acknowledged Hays’ influence and accomplishments before attempting to thoroughly repudiate

them. Christopher Stanley, “Paul and Scripture: Charting the Course,” in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of

Scripture (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley; SBLSymS 50; ed. Victor H. Matthews; Atlanta: Society

of Biblical Literature, 2008), 6; idem, “Paul’s ‘Use’ of Scripture,” 125-56.

12

an art requiring “aesthetic judgment.” 34 One can no more prove the existence of an echo or

allusion than one can prove the existence of quarks or black holes. The evidence for a particular

allusion or echo, no less an allusive framework, is based on the explanatory power of the system.

Does the connection of certain texts unlock new potential pathways of meaning that allow the

reader to see the text on a new plain? Inevitably, certain texts will resonate louder for some than

others. The goal is to properly attune one’s ear so as to stand within the same “cave of resonant

signification” as Paul, namely Scripture.35 Thus, having sufficiently qualified the validity of

Hays’ tests, each one will be briefly described in turn.36

1. Availability – Was the proposed text available to the author and/or original audience?37

2. Volume – How loud is the echo, and how insistently does it “press itself upon the reader?”38

The primary factor is the degree of verbatim repetition of words and syntactical patterns;

however, one also has to factor in the distinctiveness and general popularity of the text in

question (e.g. one or two words from the Shema or the Lord’s Prayer would be easily identified

in the appropriate reading community).39 Hays also suggests that one should take note of the

rhetorical stress of the passage both within the old and new text (e.g. Gen 1:3-5 in 2 Cor 4:6).

3. Recurrence, Clustering, or Multiple Attestation – How often does the author allude to the same

passage?

4. Thematic Coherence – How does the echo fit within Paul’s argument? Does the author

demonstrate a coherent and sustained reading of a particular text?

34 Hays, Conversion, 29.

35 Hollander, 65. Hollander suggests that while such resonances may be lost to many modern audiences,

they can be recovered by scholars who attend to the context in which the work was originally written.

36 Several of the tests have come under question at various times, but on the whole those involved in the

study of Paul’s use of Scripture have affirmed Hays’ approach. Christopher Stanley acknowledges this to be the case

for those involved in the Paul and Scripture seminar at SBL (2005-2010). Christopher Stanley, “What We

Learned—And What We Didn’t,” in Paul and Scripture: Extending the Conversation (ed., Christopher Stanley;

Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature), 323-24. Stanley Porter has perhaps been the most vocal opponent to Hays’

criteria. Porter attempts to find problems in all of Hays’ criteria, but none of his critiques are particularly persuasive.

Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” 36-40.

37 This test has been the source of much of Stanley’s ire.

38 Hays, Conversion, 35. Hays admits that this has been the most misunderstood of his criteria probably

because he failed to explain it sufficiently. He spends a good deal more time unpacking his thinking in Conversion

than he did in Echoes.

39 In the later volume Hays recognizes the difficulty of identify the exact text (LXX) that Paul may have

used, but that does not mean that one need lapse into complete agnosticism of the subject either.

13

5. Historical Plausibility – Does the allusion make sense within Paul’s context and the context of

his audience? Can one find analogies or parallels of similar usage within the writings of Paul’s

contemporaries?

6. History of Interpretation – Have other readers (pre-modern, modern, or post-modern) heard

the same echoes?

7. Satisfaction – Does the proposed echo make sense and does it illuminate the author’s

argument? Hays distinguishes this criterion from thematic coherence by shifting the emphasis

from the pre-text to the subsequent text. Is Paul’s discussion in the later text enhanced or given

new weight by appeal to the intertext?

Having applied these seven tests to a variety of texts (though not always explicitly), and

having rejected the categories of midrash, typology, and allegory as insufficient for illuminating

the distinctive properties of Paul’s interpretations, Hays turns to the work of Thomas Greene for

aid in clarification. Hays weighs the four options of literary imitation supplied by Greene, and he

concludes that Paul’s method of interpretation most closely resembles a “dialectical imitation.”40

Greene describes this category of imitation as a “conflict between two mundi significantes”

where “the text is the locus of a struggle between two rhetorical or semiotic systems that are

vulnerable to one another and whose conflict cannot be easily resolved.”41 Greene contrasts this

with his previous category of heuristic imitation where the relationship between the two texts is

made clear by the deliberately competitive stance of the later text, so that one is forced to

recognize the separation and distance themselves from the pre-text. In effect, in heuristic

imitation “the new is not a pale imitation of the old but its true successor.”42 So, whereas in

heuristic imitation the pre-text is consumed in the later text, in dialectical imitation neither text is

overwhelmed by the other and both are able to engage in mutual criticism. By way of illustration,

40 Hays, Echoes, 174.

41 Thomas M. Greene, The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1982), 46.

42 Steve Moyise, “Intertextuality and the Study of the OT in the NT,” in The Old Testament in the New

Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (ed., Steve Moyise; JSNTSS 189; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,

2000), 119.

14

Hays suggests that the Epistle to the Hebrews is characteristic of heuristic imitation and Romans

of dialectical imitation.

Thus, in Paul’s dialectical imitation: “the word of Scripture is not played off as a foil for

the gospel, not patronized as a primitive stage of religious development, not regarded merely as a

shadow of good things to come. Paul’s urgent hermeneutical project, rather, is to bring Scripture

and gospel into a mutually interpretive relation, in which the righteousness of God is truly

disclosed.”43 Paul does not seek to fully explain his allusive way of using Scripture for the

reader; Paul leaves space for Scripture to answer back and challenge his interpretations where

necessary. Readers are invited to take part in this dialogue between Paul and Scripture through

their recognition of the tension between the two positions. For Hays, this dialectical imitation is

clearly witnessed in Paul’s thoroughly ecclesiocentric hermeneutic, whereby Paul saw Scripture

directly addressing the new eschatological communities of God’s people, who being empowered

by God’s Spirit were freed to generate new meaning through their own interaction with the

biblical texts. The scriptural texts maintain their original voices even as Paul attempts to apply

them to new situations and audiences. “The ‘original’ meaning of 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.”44

Of course the immediate hermeneutical question that arises from such a statement is “do

modern believers have the same freedom of interpretation exhibited in Paul’s letters?”45 Hays

43 Hays, Echoes, 176.

44 Ibid., 178. This falls in line with Hollander’s description of an echo as something that is not merely a

repetition of a previous sound but that is to some extent an original sound. Hollander, 20.

45 Hays acknowledges that some will dismiss such a question based on Hays’ introduction of the concept of

intertextuality into the equation, which would seem to prohibit questions of truth and falsehood. Hays does not fully

address the question, but he offers two provisional responses in a lengthy footnote. He insists that literary-critical

operation of tracing the meaning effects of Paul’s intertextual compositions is “in principal neutral with regard to

15

divides this question into three parts dealing with Paul’s: (1) specific interpretations; (2)

methods; and (3) constraints. Theoretically one could answer “yes” or “no” to the three questions

in any combination. Perhaps the most common position (at least among many Evangelicals) is

that represented by Richard Longenecker who would answer “yes” to question 1 and “no” to

question 2, with modern historical methods serving as the constraints. Thus, in the places where

Paul’s seems to be appropriately applying modern historical-critical methods, then we can affirm

both his process of interpretation and his conclusions. As Longenecker sees it:

our commitment as Christians is to the reproduction of the apostolic faith and doctrine,

and not necessarily to the specific apostolic exegetical practices…we may appreciate the

manner in which the interpretations of our Lord and the New Testament writers were

derived and may reproduce their conclusions by means of historico-grammatical

exegesis, but we cannot assume that the explication of their methods is necessarily the

norm for our exegesis today.”46

In effect, Longenecker places Paul on a “theological pedestal,” so that we can affirm the ends but

not necessarily the means (unless they are commensurate with modern exegetical practices) of

Paul’s interaction with Scripture.47 Hays likens this approach to “intellectual schizophrenia” that

arbitrarily privileges past interpretations while at the same time condemning their faulty

exegetical practices.48 Hays questions the logic of forcing Paul to submit to a critical method that

would have been entirely foreign to him. Hays’ main objection, however, is that he believes

Longenecker to be far too optimistic about the possibility of neatly extracting apostolic faith and

metatheories about language and truth.” Hays, Echoes, 227 n. 60. Overall, Hays does not feel the need to justify his

position in the main text, since he presumes to be writing from a community where such questions are relevant to

individuals in similar communities.

46 Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

1999), 198.

47 Hays, Echoes, 181.

48 Ibid. Hays muses that under this approach, Paul would certainly fail our introductory exegesis courses.

16

doctrine from apostolic exegesis. Dodd had already convincingly demonstrated that Christian

interpretation of the OT was the substructure of NT theology. “Scripture interpretation is the

theological matrix within which the kerygma took shape; removed from that theological matrix,

it will die. Longenecker would like to pluck and preserve the flower of apostolic doctrine, but

severed from its generative hermeneutical roots that flower will surely wither.”49

Hays maintains that the only appropriate response is to answer “yes” to both of the first

two questions. “Paul’s readings are materially normative (in a sense to be specified carefully) for

Christian theology and his interpretive methods are paradigmatic for Christian hermeneutics. His

letters help us to understand both what the Old Testament means and how it should be read.”50

For Hays, of course, this means that modern interpreters need to learn how to develop the same

type of dialectical imitation exemplified by Paul, which means “bringing Scripture’s witness to

God’s action in the past to bear as a critical principle on the present, and allowing God’s present

action among us to illumine our understanding of his action in the past.”51 Paul’s frequent

exhortations to become imitators of him almost certainly should include his approach to reading

and applying Scripture. Thus, to read Scripture as Paul did is to read it as a narrative of God’s

promise and election that is focused on God’s dealings with his people (ecclesiocentric) as part

of the eschatological drama that is designed for the service of proclamation. Ultimately,

however, to read Scripture as Paul did is to read it with freedom.

49 Ibid., 182.

50 Hays clarifies his use of “paradigmatic” in a footnote. He does not mean to suggest that Paul’s example

should exactly determine how modern believers should read and apply Scripture but merely that they should be

informed by Paul’s method. Hays recognizes that there are other voices in the NT who interpret and apply the OT in

different ways. Ibid., 228 n. 70.

51 Ibid., 183.

17

But, if one answers “yes” to the first two questions (as does Hays), then one is

immediately confronted with prospect of the third: what are the constraints? If modern believers

are free to interpret the text with the same imaginative freedom as did Paul, then how does one

know if they are being faithful either to the text or to the paradigm established by Paul? Hays

tackles this question by first emphasizing the metaphorical character of the text and of Paul’s

subsequent construal of the text. To be faithful to Paul’s model of reading is not to absolutize it;

indeed, “Paul’s own example would lead us to expect that the community, under the guidance of

the Spirit, will remain open to fresh readings of the same text, through which God will continue

to speak.”52 Moreover, modern interpreters should regard Paul’s own letters with the same

degree of hermeneutical freedom as with the rest of the biblical text. Paul’s letters now form part

of the same scriptural network; so, to hear echoes of Galatians in Romans, even if Paul did not

intend such a thing, is perfectly legitimate as a form of literary observation now that the texts

have been brought together within the confines of the canon. Therefore, do we nullify the canon

by the interpretation? μὴ γένοιτο! We establish the canon!

Hays recognizes the dangerous nature of such a reading strategy. Different communities

could produce readings so divergent that they are virtually unrecognizable as orthodox Christian

faith. The safer option would appear to be to follow the path of Longenecker and others and

consign the period of the writing of the NT to a different dispensation altogether so as to

preserve their exegetical practices and conclusions in shrink wrap. Their practices may be

observed but never touched or handled. Hays identifies two problems with this position: (1) the

ideal of a perspicuous authoritative text that contains an unchangeable meaning is untenable

because it denies the necessary contribution of the reader and the reader’s community in the act

52 Ibid., 186-87.

18

of interpretation; and (2) separating Paul’s hermeneutical freedom from ours cuts off the word at

its roots.53 Thus, for Hays, to adopt the position of preservation is to deny the role of the reader

and reading community in the process of interpretation, which would be in contradiction to

Hays’ position of “creative tension.”

Thus one must return to the question of constraints so as to avoid the ever-present

dangers of “self-deception and radical discontinuity.”54 Unsurprisingly, Hays answers the

question by returning to the constraints that were operative for Paul. One side effect of this

position is that it would rule historical criticism out of bounds as a constraint for Christian

theological reflection and proclamation (as it functioned for Longenecker and others). Hays

offers three criteria for identifying constraints that were functional for Paul and thus for modern

believers. First, God is faithful to his promises, so Paul’s interpretive freedom must be seen in

continuity with the story of Israel. Second, Scripture should be read as a witness to the gospel of

Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection are the “climactic manifestation of God’s

righteousness.”55 Finally, the most powerful constraint is that “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.”56 The formation of communities shaped by the gospel of Christ crucified

and poured out unto God’s service offers the greatest constraint against false readings.

Hays’ approach to Paul’s use of Scripture has been laid out rather exhaustively because it

sets the paradigm for Hays’ fuller approach to NT interpretation and ethics. Hays acknowledged

in a footnote that all of the NT writers did not have the same approach to Scripture as did Paul,

53 Ibid., 189.

54 Ibid., 190.

55 Ibid., 191.

56 Ibid.

19

so Hays will have to wrestle with this implication when he brings the other voices into the

conversation. How does one reconcile the dialectical imitation of Paul with the heuristic

imitation of the author of Hebrews? This adds one further aspect to the problem of unity and

diversity in the NT with which Hays must contend as he attempts to work out the ethical

implications of his approach to interpretation.

Hays’ Moral Vision

In Moral Vision Hays brings the conclusions from his descriptive work on Paul’s use of

Scripture and the role of story to bear upon the prescriptive task of determining normative

beliefs and practices. Hays identifies the problems to be addressed concerning the church’s use

of Scripture as the rule for faith and practice in the opening paragraph: “the Bible itself contains

diverse points of view, and diverse interpretive methods can yield diverse readings of any given

text.”57 So, when one attempts to address questions scriptural normativity, one is forced to

reckon with questions of unity and diversity and interpretive pluralism. How does one deal with

the interpretive diversity both within the text and that is derived from the text? The common

assertion that “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” is not an adequate response because

merely attending to careful exegesis exacerbates the problem rather than solves it because it

“heightens our awareness of the ideological diversity within Scripture and of our historical

distance from the original communities.”58

Hays begins by establishing the four steps involved in the task of New Testament ethics:

descriptive (exegesis); synthetic (canonical context); hermeneutical (bridging the gap); pragmatic

57 Hays, Moral Vision, 1.

58 Ibid., 3.

20

(application).59 Before launching into the actual study, Hays addresses several possible

objections to his project. First, Hays makes clear that his focus will be on the canonical

documents and not the sources behind them, the trajectories they produce, or their impact in the

early Christian communities. Hays’ primary focus is not on the descriptive task of situating the

documents within their historical contexts but on how these documents should serve as ethical

norms for the present.60 At first glance Hays’ neglect of the OT seems contrary to the rest of his

agenda, but he admits that the decision was partially a practical one (size of the book) but also

partially motivated by the fact that the NT is only intelligible as a continuation of the story of

Israel as presented in the OT.61

Perhaps the most serious of the possible objections that Hays tackles comes from those

“influenced by the postmodernist turn in hermeneutics, who would insist that there is no ‘text’

external to the interpretive traditions and practices of particular reading communities” to which

Hays cites Stanley Hauerwas and Michael Cartwright.62 Hays buttresses his argument by

appealing to the “general human conviction that texts have determinate ranges of meaning” and

59 The divisions are merely for heuristic purposes, as the interpretive task is generally a much more organic

process where the categories overlap.

60 As the survey of Hays’ previous work should make clear, he is not oblivious to the observations of

historical-critical work. One of Hays’ primary critiques of Stanley Hauerwas is that he does not sufficiently ground

his work in exegesis of the texts in question. Ibid., 258-60. For Hauerwas’ response to Hays’ criticisms, see Stanley

Hauerwas, “Why ‘The Way the Words Run’ Matters: Reflections on Becoming a ‘Major Biblical Scholar,’” in The

Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (ed., J. Ross Wagner, C.

Kavin Rowe, and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 1-19. On a personal note, Hauerwas’

response is one of the most frustrating things I have ever read. In the process of criticizing Hays for assuming that

any text or even any word has “a meaning,” Hauerwas adds a footnote about how Wittgenstein has helped us

transcend such a possibility only to go on and criticize others who do not have the correct understanding of

Wittgenstein. Ibid., 9-10.

61 Hays also includes a section later in the book dealing with the role of the OT in NT ethics. Hays, Moral

Vision, 306-309.

62 Ibid., 8. As becomes clear later, Hays assumes Stanley Fish to be the real culprit behind Hauerwas’

postmodern turn, but Hauerwas later corrected him on this position. Ibid., 254, 286 n. 178.

21

the “commonsense acknowledgement that texts do have determinate ranges of semantic

possibility and that a text’s world of signification can be meaningfully distinguished from the

tradition’s construal of it.”63 Although not the most persuasive of Hays’ arguments, he supports

his contentions by footnoting the ‘general human conviction’ that “apart from the assumption

that texts have limited ranges of meaning, ordered social discourse would be impossible. For

example, the signifier STOP on a traffic sign is not susceptible of infinitely various construals.”64

Finally, in regard to the authority of Scripture, Hays does not see it as his task to offer an

apologetic argument. Hays envisions his audience to be other Christians in faith communities

who acknowledge the Bible to be normative for faith and practice as part of their confession.

Thus, Hays summarizes his working assumption as such:

the canonical Scriptures constitute the norma normans for the church’s life, whereas

every other source or moral guidance (whether church tradition, philosophical reasoning,

scientific investigation, or claims about contemporary religious experience) must be

understood as norma normata. Thus, normative Christian ethics is fundamentally a

hermeneutical enterprise: it must begin and end in the interpretation and application of

Scripture for the life of the community of faith.65

Hays devotes about one-third of the book to the descriptive task of exegesis for a range of NT

books and authors, so questions about his attention to historical matters should be properly

formulated within that framework. Obviously, due to limitations of space, Hays is not able to

produce a full biblical NT theology that covers every book and interpretive difficulty, so he

selects a few representative examples (Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, Gospels and letter of

John, and Revelation).66

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid. 8 n. 24.

65 Ibid., 10. 66 The Catholic Epistles are notably absent from the book, particularly Jude and 2 Peter which both only

receive a single reference.

22

By comparison, Hays devotes the smallest amount of space to the synthetic task (15

pages). The primary task here is to attend to the unity and diversity of the biblical texts. Hays

positions himself clearly at the outset by denying the possibility of complete harmonization. One

cannot force univocality from the polyphony, but one does not need to surrender to a cacophony

either. The individual witnesses must be allowed to speak with their own voices, and only from

there is one allowed to proceed through a process of trial and error to come to some sort of

synthesis of the material. To aid in the process, Hays offers three guidelines for the task: (1) The

entire canonical witness should be consulted; (2) the tensions must be allowed to stand; and (3)

genre must be respected.

Hays proposes three focal images for uncovering the unity within the diversity:

community, cross, and new creation.67 These images are not a new way of deriving a systematic

theology but of calling attention to the fact that all the NT documents “retell and comment upon

a single fundamental story,” although they emphasize different aspects of it.68 Hays then derives

his focal images from the aspects of the story that all the various documents share.69 For anyone

67 Obviously, the three focal images Hays derives from the texts are a matter of debate, but they do help

bring coherence to the distinct emphases and concerns of the NT writers. I am sympathetic to the suggestion made

by Judith Gundry-Volf to include “creation” as an additional focal image. Although one could argue that “creation”

is effectively captured in Hays’ “new creation, the addition would bring a nice balance to the images and incorporate

a characteristic of God that is fundamental to understanding the biblical text. Judith M. Gundry-Volf, review of

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary

Introduction to New Testament Ethics, BBR 9 (1999): 271-6. For Hays’ response, see Richard B. Hays, “The Gospel,

Narrative, and Culture: A Response to Douglas J. Moo and Judith Gundry-Volf. BBR 9 (1999): 289-96. The addition

of “creation” would also be welcome in light of Hays’ emphasis on the order of the images as points within the

larger story of God’s saving action of the world. Hays, Moral Vision, 199.

68 Ibid., 193. Hays acknowledges that his appeal to a metanarrative will not be accepted by all. He does not

attempt to defend the position, but he references the work of a few other scholars for justification. Ibid., 204 n. 1.

69 Hays attempts to clarify his use these “images” in various ways. By using images one is able to account

for the various genres of literature in the NT, so that contingent letters do not need to be forced into a narrative. He

refers to the roots metaphorically as roots that draw our attention to the common ground they share or as lenses that

help produce clear images from the blurry multiple impressions. Ultimately, he likens the images to the Rule of

Faith that served to summarize the story and provided guide for interpretation. Ibid., 194-95. Hays also offers three

criteria for evaluating the images. First, they need to be found in all the canonical texts. Second, the image cannot be

23

familiar with Hays’ work, the choice of “community” as one of the images should not be

surprising. For his present purposes Hays focuses on the fact that “the church is a countercultural

community of discipleship, and this community is the primary address of God’s imperatives.”70

The choice of the “cross” is a way of drawing attention to the univocal witness of the imitatio

Christi as the way of obedience. Hays uses the image of “new creation” as shorthand for the

“dialectical eschatology” that cuts through the NT as is punctuated by the resurrection of Jesus.71

Hays then situates these three images within a single narrative structure: “The New Testament

calls the covenant community of God’s people into participation in the cross of Christ in such a

way that the death and resurrection of Jesus becomes a paradigm for their common life as

harbingers of God’s new creation.”72

Based on his summary and critique of five other representative hermeneutical strategies

(Niebuhr, Barth, Yoder, Hauerwas, and Fiorenza), Hays identifies four different modes by which

the ethicists appeal to the biblical text: principles, rules, paradigms, and symbolic world. Hays

believes all four modes to be operable in the New Testament itself, and so the church likewise

should operate with these four modes of ethical discourse. Hays derives a normative guideline

from this observation: “New Testament texts must be granted authority (or not) in the mode in

which they speak.”73 Additionally, one should be careful about using one mode to overturn an

ethical appeal in a different mode. That being said, Hays believes the texts themselves grant

in tension with major emphases in other biblical texts. Finally, the image has to highlight concerns that are central

and substantial.

70 Ibid., 196.

71 Ibid., 198.

72 Ibid., 292.

73 Ibid., 294.

24

primacy to the one particular mode because of the overall narrative shape of the Bible. Because

so much of the biblical material is presented in story form, one should most frequently be drawn

to the paradigmatic mode of ethical discourse, so that modern Christians seek to find analogies

between the stories told in the biblical text and their lives.

Thus, for Hays, to truly “understand” any text is to be able to formulate an analogy

between the words on the page and one’s personal experience. To some degree at least, every act

of reading is to participate in this process of analogy-making. For Hays the central point is that

using the NT as an ethical norm “requires an integrative act of the imagination, a discernment

about how our lives, despite their historical dissimilarity to the lives narrated in the New

Testament, might fitly answer to that narration and participate in the truth that it tells.”74 Every

appeal to the authority of the NT necessarily involves one in the process of metaphor-making, by

placing one’s life within the story world of the text.

Such an imaginative process would scarcely be necessary if in fact it were possible to

distill the “timeless truths” from the various “culturally conditioned” pieces. If one could get to

the kernel of timeless truth, then the culturally-conditioned husk could easily be assigned to the

flames. For Hays, this common strategy is “wrongheaded” and “impossible” because “every jot

and tittle of the New Testament is culturally conditioned” and they “bear the marks – as do all

human utterances – of their historical location.”75 Christians should be seeking to honor the texts

in the forms in which they are given, which is primarily narrative and occasional, rather than

attempting to rescue the general principals from the confining particularities in which they are

74 Ibid., 298.

75 Ibid., 299.

25

found. The more promising hermeneutical strategy is to involve oneself in the metaphor-making

process of juxtaposing the world of the text with one’s own world.

Metaphors are produced by the juxtaposition of two incongruous images that upon closer

inspection demonstrate some type of connection not previously seen. Metaphors prompt new

analogies that previously remained hidden, and thus they reshape perception. Likewise, the NT

should be functioning to reshape the perceptions of modern believers as their lives are placed in

juxtaposition of the biblical story. “The hermeneutical task is to relocate our contemporary

experience on the map of the New Testament’s story of Jesus. By telling us a story that overturns

our conventional ways of seeing the world, the New Testament provides the images and

categories in light of which the life of our community (the metaphorical “target domain”) is

reinterpreted.”76 By allowing the story of Jesus, however, to become the paradigm for modern

ethics does not mean that one will be exactly replicating Jesus’ steps in their own situations. One

of the remarkable features about a metaphor is its ability to maintain the tension of dissimilarity

while at the same time opening new connections of similarity. Consider Hollander’s description

of an echo that was noted above as something that is not merely the repetition of a previous

sound but is in some sense an original sound.77

As with his position in Echoes, Hays recognizes the danger in such an approach to NT

ethics. How is one able to test the validity of any given metaphorical appropriation? Hays

assumes that one’s community of faith should offer some of the necessary constraints, but he

also suggests one further way of adjudicating between readings: does the interpretation cohere

with the fundamental story represented by the three focal images? If the reading creates tension

76 Ibid., 302.

77 See note 43 above.

26

with one of the focal images or does not fit within the plotline of the larger biblical story, then

the reading is likely to be invalid.

Finally, the process of metaphor-making culminates in the dialectical relationship

between the church and the biblical story. The church is an embodied metaphor in that as the text

shapes the community into the image of Christ, the community in turn embodies and illuminates

the meaning of the text. If the biblical story is not transforming the community of faith that

stands under it, then the text is not being read rightly. An understanding of the text is not

completed in the exegetical task of analysis and commentary but in the performance of the text.

New Testament hermeneutics is necessarily a self-involving act but also a communal one.

Summary and Synthesis

The work that Hays began in his dissertation and expanded in Echoes, finally culminated in

Moral Vision. That is not to suggest that these three works form three volumes of a single series

like Wright’s Christian Origins and the Question of God. These three works demonstrate a

sustained and progressive struggle to come to grips with the way that Paul interpreted the grand

story of God’s deliverance of his people through the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that they

would be transformed and embody that story. The story of the faith of Jesus Christ was placed in

its proper place as the climax of God’s relationship with his faithful communities awaiting the

denouement of new creation. The focal images function metonymically as plot markers within

the larger story of God’s redemption of his creation, which Paul alludes to in his writings as a

way to convert the imaginations of his audiences to see themselves within this unfolding drama.

As was noted in the introduction, Hays’ most recent anthology, Conversion of the

Imagination, illustrates and encapsulates this trajectory fairly clearly. The essays in this serve as

27

probes into the inner workings of Paul’s “imaginative narrative world.”78 The book narrates the

same story Hays tells in the monographs in a slightly different way by emphasizing and

reordering different portions of the plotline, but the conclusion to this drama (i.e. Conversion)

provides a somewhat more satisfying ending for the tale being told here (i.e. this paper). When

various essays in the collection are viewed together as a whole, Hays notes several themes that

resurface repeatedly. First, Paul’s readings of Scripture are always a “pastoral, community-

forming activity.”79 Second, Paul does not read Scripture as a historian or systematic theologian

but as a poetic preacher who embraces the imaginative analogies between the scriptural stories

and the lives of his congregants. Third, Paul reads Scripture narratively as a drama of God’s

redemption, and his churches are the heirs to the promises made to Israel. Fourth, Paul reads, and

teaches his churches to read, Scripture eschatologically, as the death and resurrection became the

hermeneutical key for seeing the true unity and completion of the story. Finally, Paul reads

Scripture with a hermeneutic of trust that God will be faithful to his promises to finish the task of

setting the world right again. Paul calls his readers to a conversion of the imagination to

understand that their new identity in Christ is only comprehensible within the metanarrative of

God’s dealings with Israel, which should refocus the moral vision of the communities both then

and now.

Critiques and Evaluation

Unsurprisingly, by attempting to maintain a moderate or centrist position, Hays has drawn

criticism from both sides. On one hand Hays is not historically conscious enough, but on the

other he is too historically conscious. Hays’ attempt at “creative tension” is either too focused on

78 Hays, Conversion, x. 79 Ibid., xv.

28

the original author and audience or too focused on the modern reader and reading community.

Hays is either too modern or too postmodern in his thinking depending upon which side is

making the critique. To be fair Hays has intentionally positioned himself between liberal

programs of demythologizing and conservative literalism, for as he notes, “in contrast to the

demythologizing hermeneutic, Paul celebrated Scripture's witness to the real and radical

apocalyptic action of God in the world; in contrast to the literalist hermeneutic, Paul engaged

Scripture with great imaginative freedom, without the characteristic modernist anxiety about

factuality and authorial intention.”80

As was noted above, one of Hays’ most outspoken and prolific critics is Christopher

Stanley. Stanley has attacked Hays’ intertextual method from a variety of angles, but only a few

are relevant to the present purposes. Most of Stanley’s critiques are of relatively minor points

that are not in danger of undermining the entire hermeneutical project and can be left aside. The

fundamental divide between Hays and Stanley derives from their substantially different

understandings of the role of intertextual analysis.81 Stanley himself acknowledges that while

Hays approaches the text from a literary perspective, he is more concerned with a rhetorical

80 Hays, Conversion, ix.

81 Concerning Paul’s use of Scripture, Steve Moyise has helpfully divided contemporary scholarship into

three distinct groups: intertextual, narrative, and rhetorical. Moyise places Hays in the intertextual group and Stanley

in the rhetorical one. Moyise suggests that the intertextual approach focuses on the broader OT context of a

quotation or allusion, the narrative focuses on the narrative framework within which a text is found, and the

rhetorical emphasizes the rhetorical effect produced by Paul’s quotations. Steve Moyise, Paul and Scripture:

Studying New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 111-25. As has been shown, Hays’

work would clearly span the intertextual and narrative categories. Another way of dividing the approaches is to

separate the minimalists from the maximalists. Until Echoes the minimalist approach was the norm, but the work of

Hays and Watson in particular has opened up the conversation for people to see that “the vocabulary and cadences

of Scripture…are imprinted deeply on Paul’s mind.” Hays, Echoes, 16. For a defense of the maximalists position,

see Watson, “Scripture in Pauline Theology,” 181-92. Based on Watson’s description, most of those following

Moyise’s intertextual and narrative approaches would fall into the maximalist position while those attending to the

rhetorical features would mostly be in the minimalist category.

29

analysis of Paul’s use of Scripture.82 Nevertheless, Stanley finds ample opportunity to pit the two

methods against each other.

While Stanley’s primary avenue for criticism concerns questions about the competency

of Paul’s original audiences, he does attempt to attack Hays’ methodology and philosophical

presuppositions in a few places, albeit still in connection with questions of audience. To begin,

Stanley suggests that Hays has pressed the methodological insights of Hollander and Greene

beyond where the authors would likely be comfortable. 83 Stanley contends that Hays’ appeal to a

“common sense hermeneutic” assumes that one can establish a rough analogy between the

ancient and modern audiences. This observation opens the door for Stanley to then criticize

Hays’ understanding of Paul’s original audiences. For Stanley, Hays and many others following

him, simply assume the competency of Paul’s audiences without attending to the actual first-

century data, so that Hays “underestimates the demands that this view of Paul’s rhetoric places

on a first-century audience.”84 Stanley bases his critique on the reconstructed literacy rates in the

first-century and the evidence from Paul’s letters that seems to suggest how Paul crafted his

arguments to suit the biblical capabilities of his audiences.

Stanley’s own proposal for literacy rates in the ancient world and their applicability for

Paul’s audiences is open to critique on a number of points, 85 but the way Stanley uses this

82 Stanley, “Charting the Course,” 6. 83 Stanley, “Paul’s ‘Use’ of Scripture, 129. Stanley also alleges that all of Hays’ conclusions could have

been arrived at through an examination of Paul’s quotation without needing to appeal to the so-called “echoes.”

Thus, for Stanley, Hays hasn’t shown anything beyond that which could be arrived at by traditional methods of

interpretation, which is really what Hays has used to arrive at his conclusions rather than some new theoretical

approach. Ibid., 129-30.

84 Ibid., 132.

85 For one, Stanley does not define what he means by “literacy rate,” which is defined in different ways by

different people. But, to his credit, Stanley does attempt to narrow the focus from the general Hellenistic world (10-

20%) to Paul’s Jewish synagogual context. Unfortunately, Stanley’s consistent appeal to the literacy in the setting is

somewhat baffling, as though each of the congregants were sitting and reading the text on their own. The fact that

most of the congregants in the synagogues and early churches could not “read” would not preclude them from

30

historical reconstruction to critique Hays’ use of Hollander is by far the more suspect. Stanley

contends that

Hays overlooks the vast gulf that separates the cultured readers of Milton’s poetry (the

subject of Hollander’s study) from the ancient audiences to whom Paul addressed his

letters. The materials that Hollander analyzes in his book were written for alliterate

audience that was familiar with many classic works of literature and attuned to the

presence of poetic echoes and allusions. Paul’s letters, by contrast, were written for a

very different type of audience, one that was largely illiterate and possessed only a

limited acquaintance with the text of Scripture (emphasis added).86

One can almost hear the reverberations of Bultmann and the myth of the modern man resounding

in the background. Aside from the unjustified assertion about Milton’s “cultured readers,”

Stanley’s suggestion that Paul’s audiences possessed a “limited acquaintance” with Scripture

strains credulity. Should one expect a cultured reader of Milton to be in a better position to hear

allusions from the wide swath of literature used by Milton than a mixed congregation of Jews

and Gentiles to recognize references to their sacred literature? To view the “massive biblical

illiteracy” of modern churches as more closely analogous to Paul’s churches than the synagogues

of Paul’s day is misguided and anachronistic.87 Thus, Stanley’s pronouncement that Hays’ model

is “historically invalid” warrants little consideration.88

recognizing Paul’s allusions to the scriptural text. Stanley assigns to a footnote the counterevidence concerning the

capacity for even illiterate people to memorize great quantities of material and that in the synagogues even the

illiterate people “were trained to know the content of their Scriptures from childhood.” Ibid., 140 n. 46. Stanley’s

attempt to focus efforts on Paul’s predominantly Gentile audiences does not improve the situation much either. Even

if one discounts the reliability of Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s missionary endeavors beginning in the synagogues and

with success among the God-fearers, one can appeal to Paul’s own letters for support. If Paul did not think that his

audiences would be able to follow his references to the OT texts then why would he appeal to them so often in

places like Rom 9-11 that forms the climax of the letter? Stanley far undervalues the process of enculturation, which

was taking place within these early Christian communities whose identities were being transformed by appeal to the

Scriptures. 86 Ibid., 145

87 Ibid., 140 n. 46.

88 Attacking Hays for his faulty conception of Paul’s historical audiences actually has very little to do with

Hays’ primary purpose in the book, which was a literary investigation. Stanley also acknowledges that focusing on

Paul’s rhetorical use of Scripture does little to help reconstruct the various responses in the churches. This, in turn,

“causes problems for any attempt to determine the ‘meaning’ of a Pauline quotation. We would do better to think of

Paul’s quotations as poetic devices open to multiple interpretations than to argue over whether a given interpretation

31

Concerning historical considerations, a more persuasive critique of Hays’ work has been

made by Craig Evans. Evans chastised Hays for failing to adequately account for the interpretive

tradition that flowed from the OT texts through the Second Temple Period and into the first-

century world of the NT writers. Paul and the other NT writers were not reading the OT in a

vacuum but were drawing on the interpretive tradition that had been reflecting on these texts for

centuries. Evans suggests (rightly) that “it would be more accurate to speak of the echoes of

interpreted Scripture in the letters of Paul.”89 In his response essay in the same volume, Hays

admitted that Evans had a valid critique because he was more adequately equipped to hear from

the interpretive tradition than Hays himself.90 The efficacy of reading Paul alongside other

Jewish interpreters of Second Temple Judaism has been persuasively demonstrated by Francis

Watson.91 Paul may not have been as free and creative in his interpretation as Hays would like to

imagine if he were in the midst of an ongoing discussion about how to properly interpret the text.

Dale Martin has also criticized Hays on a number of points, though from different angles.

In his critique of Moral Vision, Martin does not reserve judgment on Hays’ work for the latter

part of the review. He makes his intention clear in the opening sentence: “Richard Hays’ most

recent book is a disappointment.”92 Martin accuses Hays of bypassing the most challenging

constitutes the ‘meaning’ of a particular reference to the Jewish Scriptures. Richard Hays’s approach is exemplary in

this respect.” Christopher D. Stanley, Arguing With Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul

(London: T&T Clark, 2004), 180 n. 15. Stanley’s concluding footnote sounds suspiciously like what Hays proposed

to be doing in his book.

89 Craig A. Evans, “Listening for Echoes of Interpreted Scripture” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed.

Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSS 83; ed. Stanley E. Porter; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,

1993), 50.

90 Richard Hays, “On the Rebound: A Response to Critiques of Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul,”

in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSS 83; ed. Stanley E. Porter;

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 72.

91 Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004).

32

issues of interpretation and epistemology when Hays assumes that the Bible speaks as an

independent agent that modern interpreters only need to hear independently of the culture or the

interpreter. Martin’s primary critique is that Hays’ insistence on the use of the historical-critical

method is stuck in modernist assumptions that have been recently challenged and are summarily

dismissed by Hays. Martin also accuses Hays of using his norms (scripture, tradition, reason,

experience) inconsistently so that he can emphasize whichever suits his present needs. Martin

insists that Hays’ method is far too malleable to provide any concrete conclusions, and, as usual,

the conclusions are ultimately reached by the interpreter independently of the method. Likewise,

exegesis is always more variable than Hays allows.

Martin’s primary critique of Hays is a valid one. Hays dismisses pressing questions about

the limits of the historical-critical method without defending his own position. Some of Martin’s

criticism could be mitigated by attending to Hays’ prior works, but Hays’ engagements with

questions of meaning in Moral Vision could be further substantiated. His anticipation of

arguments from those “influenced by the postmodernist turn” amounts to little more than special

pleading (c’mon everyone knows it right?) (8). Martin is right to chide Hays for not engaging

philosophical questions about the determination of meaning that have been pressed by those with

a ‘postmodernist turn.’ Likewise, Hays entertains the idea that the different texts may speak with

different voices, but he does not consider whether a single text can also be multivocal. Hays

assumes a singular correct meaning for the texts he explores in the first part of the book, and he

assumes that he has in fact arrived at the correct meaning; he does little to engage different

interpretations of the texts in question. For example, what if some disagree about the explicitly

92 Dale B. Martin, review of Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross,

New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics, JBL 117.2 (1998): 358.

33

sectarian nature of the Johannine community (as some have) which Hays identifies? How do

different readings impact the later synthetic, hermeneutical, and pragmatic tasks?

Perhaps the most pressing question is whether Hays’ attempts to bridge the divide

between the author and the audience (both ancient and modern) have been successful and

whether the use of story, narrative, and intertextuality are helpful tools for accomplishing such a

task. Stanley Porter has clearly responded that such a “creative tension” is inconceivable “unless

the rules of contradiction and exclusion are suspended.”93 Porter clearly seems to think that

adopting any one of the five positions automatically makes the others invalid. Porter believes

that Hays quickly abandoned this position in favor of the singular position of a common sense

hermeneutic because it was clearly nonsensical. Unfortunately, Porter finds little common sense

in the latter position as well, though he does not elaborate his reasons for this skepticism.

Overall, Porter’s critique amounts to nothing more than counter-assertions without any

substantive argument for his rejection of Hays’ position. Of course the complex issues of

textuality cannot be answered here, but Hays has found some worthy allies to support his larger

hermeneutical project.

Hays’ development of Paul’s dialectical hermeneutic and his emphasis upon the self-

involving nature of Paul’s use of Scripture would fit comfortably within Thiselton’s broader

hermeneutical project. Also, Thiselton’s use of Bakhtin’s (the precursor for Kristeva’s theories of

intertextuality) concepts of dialogic discourse and polyphony to formulate his views of canon

would be perfectly at home in Hays’ work.94 While this may be a somewhat loose connection,

Vanhoozer’s relationship to Hays’ work is more explicit. The title of Vanhoozer’s work alone,

93 Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” 37.

94 Anthony Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 134-44.

34

The Drama of Doctrine, intimates the close connection between the two.95 More importantly,

Vanhoozer explicitly counts Hays among his dialogue partners in his discussion of how one

moves from text to context, and he lists several emphases that connect the two projects: “the role

of imaginative judgment (metaphor making), his insistence on the dialogical quality of Scripture

and on the importance of attending to literary genre, and his occasional references to

improvisation.”96 Likewise, Vanhoozer focuses on the paradigmatic mode of ethical discourse

and criticizes the “principlizing” approach of “discarding the culturally specific husk in order to

get at the transcultural kernel.”97 Moreover, Vanhoozer praises Hays’ work as an “excellent

example of the way in which theological themes are communicated in canonically embedded

ways.”98

Conclusion

Having spent some time with Hays and his critics, I am reminded of a quote by David Hay: “It

may be necessary to live with uncertainty as an alternative to living with a closed mind.”99

Richard Hays has much to offer the conservative, historically-oriented, biblical scholar. He

attends closely to the biblical text and its historical context. He is canonically conscious. He uses

Scripture as the foundation for ethical discourse and transformation. But, what Hays does not

offer is certainty. He does not offer black and white positions to complex questions. He does not

95 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology

(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005).

96 Ibid., 315 n. 15.

97 Ibid., 316-17.

98 Ibid., 316 n. 20.

99 David Hay, Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience (London: Penguin Books, 1982),

207.

35

offer propositions but stories. In place of dogma, Hays offers drama. Hays offers a portrait of the

apostle Paul as a creative and imaginative thinker embedded in the story of God’s redemption of

humanity, and he calls his readers to see their position there as well.100

Hays has not answered every question, but he has thoughtfully, creatively, and faithfully

opened the dialogue to reexamine the complex relationship between story and history. Hays has

shown us a Paul whose mind is engraved with the cadences of Scripture and who calls all his

readers to immerse themselves there as well. Hays presents us with a poetic pastor who writes

his readers into the story of God’s reconciliation of the world through Jesus Christ. The

conservative critic may ask “how do you justify your reading and application of the biblical

text?” To which Hays could quite honestly answer “Paul, and a hermeneutic of trust.” “And how

do you justify your reading of the biblical text?” to which the scholar would answer “my

modernist, post-Enlightenment method built on a hermeneutic of suspicion.” The one who has

ears to hear, let him hear.

100 The antecedent to “he” is intentionally ambiguous as the description works comfortably with either

figure.

36

APPENDIX 1: NINE THESES FOR THE ART OF READING SCRIPTURE

1. Scripture truthfully tells the story of God’s action of creating, judging, and saving the world.

2. Scripture is rightly understood in light of the church’s rule of faith as a coherent dramatic

narrative.

3. Faithful interpretation of Scripture requires an engagement with the entire narrative: the New

Testament cannot be rightly understood apart from the Old, nor can the Old be rightly

understood apart from the New.

4. Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the intent of the original author. In

accord with Jewish and Christian tradition, we affirm that Scripture has multiple and complex

senses given by God, the author of the whole drama.

5. The four canonical Gospels narrate the truth about Jesus

6. Faithful interpretation of Scripture invites and presupposes participation in the community

brought into being by God’s redemptive action – the church.

7. The saints of the church provide guidance in how to interpret and perform Scripture.

8. Christians need to read the Bible in dialogue with diverse others outside the Church.

9. We live in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet” of the kingdom of God;

consequently, Scripture calls the church to ongoing discernment, to continually fresh rereadings

of the text in light of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing word in the world.

37

APPENDIX 2: HAYS’ PROPOSED GUIDELINES FOR NT ETHICS

1. Serious exegesis is a basic requirement. Texts used in ethical arguments should be understood

as fully as possible in their historical and literary context.

a. New Testament texts must be read with careful attention to their Old Testament

subtexts.

2. We must seek to listen to the full range of canonical witnesses.

3. Substantive tensions within the canon should be openly acknowledged.

4. Our synthetic reading of the New Testament canon must be kept in balance by the sustained

use of three focal images: community, cross, and new creation.

5. New Testament texts must be granted authority (or not) in the mode in which they speak (i.e.,

rule, principle, paradigm, symbolic world).

a. All four modes are valid and necessary.

b. We should not override the witness of the New Testament in one mode by appealing to

another mode.

6. The New Testament is fundamentally the story of God’s redemptive action; thus, the

paradigmatic mode has theological primacy, and narrative texts are fundamental resources for

normative ethics.

7. Extrabiblical sources stand in a hermeneutical relation to the New Testament; they are not

independent, counterbalancing sources of authority.

8. It is impossible to distinguish “timeless truth” from “culturally conditioned elements” in the

New Testament

9. The Use of the New Testament in normative ethics requires an integrative act of the

imagination; thus, whenever we appeal to the authority of the New Testament, we are necessarily

engaged in metaphor-making.

10. Right reading of the New Testament occurs only where the Word is embodied.

38

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Monographs

By Hays

Hays, Richard B. The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

________. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

________. The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11. 2nd ed.

Biblical Resource Series. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

________. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation. San

Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

By Others

Dodd, C. H. According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology.

London: Nisbet, 1952.

Greene, Thomas M. The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

Hay, David. Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience. London: Penguin

Books, 1982.

Hollander, John. The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Illusion in Milton and After. Berkley:

University of California Press, 1981.

Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Longenecker, Bruce W., ed. Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment. Louisville:

Westminster John Knox, 2002.

Longenecker, Richard N. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. 2d ed. Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1999.

39

Moyise, Steve. The Old Testament in the New: An Introduction. London: T & T Clark, 2001.

________. Paul and Scripture: Studying New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand

Rapids, Baker, 2010.

Schenck, Kenneth. Understanding the Book of Hebrews: The Story Behind the Sermon.

Louisville, Ken.: Westminster John Knox, 2003.

Stanley, Christopher D. Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of

Paul. New York: T&T Clark, 2004.

Thiselton, Anthony. The Hermeneutics of Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian

Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005.

Watson, Francis. Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith. London: T&T Clark, 2004.

Articles

By Hays

Hays, Richard B. “The Future of Scripture.” Wesleyan Theological Journal 46 (2011): 24-38.

________. “The Gospel, Narrative, and Culture: A Response to Douglas J. Moo and Judith

Gudry-Volf. Bulletin for Biblical Research 9 (1999): 289-96.

________. “Intertextuality: A Catchall Category or a Specific Methodology?” Paper presented at

the annual meeting of the SBL. San Antonio, Tex., November 21, 2004.

________. “Is Paul’s Gospel Narratable?” (review of Bruce W. Longenecker, ed., Narrative

Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment). Journal for the Study of the New Testament

27.2 (2004): 217-39.

________. “Knowing Jesus: Story, History, and the Question of Truth.” Pages 41-61 in Jesus,

Paul and the People of God. Edited by Nicholas Perrin and Richard B. Hays. Downers

Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011.

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________. “Mapping the Field: Approaches to New Testament Ethics.” Pages 3-19 in Identity,

Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament. Edited by G. van der Watt. BZNW 141. Berlin:

de Gruyter, 2006.

________.“The Palpable Word as Ground of Koinōnia.” Pages 19-36 in Christianity and the

Soul of the University: Faith as a Foundation for Intellectual Community. Edited by D.

V. Henry and M. D. Beaty. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.

________. “Paul’s Hermeneutics and the Question of Truth,” (review of Francis Watson, Paul

and the Hermeneutics of Faith). Pro Ecclesia 16.2 (2007): 126-33.

________. “Reading the Bible with Eyes of Faith: The Practice of Theological Exegesis.”

Journal of Theological Interpretation 1 (2007): 5-21.

________. Review of Norman Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of

Paul’s Narrative World. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55.1 (1987): 173-

75.

________. “Spirit, Church, Resurrection: The Third Article of the Creed as Hermeneutical Lens

for Reading Romans.” Journal of Theological Interpretation 5.1 (2011): 35-48.

By Others

Bauckham, Richard. “Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story.” Pages 38-53 in The Art of

Reading Scripture. Edited by Ellen Davis and Richard Hays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

2003.

Beale, Greg K. Review of Richard Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination. Journal of the

Evangelical Theological Society 50.1 (2007): 190-94.

Evans, Craig A. “Listening for Echoes of Interpreted Scripture.” Pages 48-57 in Paul and the

Scriptures of Israel. Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 1. Edited by

Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders. Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Supplement Series 83. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,

1993.

Green, William Scott “Doing the Text’s Work for It: Richard Hays on Paul’s Use of Scripture.”

Pages 58-63 in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel. Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism

and Christianity 1. Edited by Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders. Journal for the Study

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of the New Testament Supplement Series 83. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Sheffield:

Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

Gundry-Volf, Judith M. Review of Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament:

Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament

Ethics. Bulletin for Biblical Research 9 (1999): 271-6.

Hauerwas, Stanley. “Why ‘The Way the Words Run’ Matters: Reflections on Becoming a

‘Major Biblical Scholar.’” Pages 1-19 in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture

and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays. Edited by J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe,

and A. Katherine Grieb. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.

Keesmaat, Sylvia. “Exodus and the Intertextual Transformation of Tradition in Romans 8.14-

30.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 54 (1994): 29-56.

Kristeva, Julia. “The Bounded Text.” Pages 25-50 in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach

to Literature and Art. Edited by Leon S. Roudiez. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice

Jardine, and Leon Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.

Martin, Dale B. Review of Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament:

Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament

Ethics. Journal of Biblical Literature 117.2 (1998): 358-60.

Matlock, R. Barry. “The Arrow and the Web: Critical Reflections on a Narrative Approach to

Paul.” Pages 44-57 in Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment. Edited by

Bruce W. Longenecker. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002.

Miller, Geoffrey D. “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research,” Currents in Biblical Research

9.3 (2010): 283-309.

Moyise, Steve. “Intertextuality and the Study of the OT in the NT.” Pages 14-41 in The Old

Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North. Edited by Steve

Moyise. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 189. Sheffield:

Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.

Plett, Heinrich F. “Intertextualities.” Pages 3-29 in Intertextuality. Edited by Heinrich Plett.

Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991.

Porter, Stanley E. “Allusions and Echoes.” Pages 29-40 in As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use

of Scripture. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley. Society of Biblical

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Literature Symposium Series 50. Edited by Victor H. Matthews. Atlanta: Society of

Biblical Literature, 2008.

________. “Further Comments on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament.” Pages

98-110 in The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice. Edited

by Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter. Sheffield: Sheffield

Phoenix Press, 2006.

________. “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method

and Terminology.” Pages 79-96 in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of

Israel: Investigations and Proposals. Edited by Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 14. Sheffield: Sheffield

Academic Press, 1997.

Sanders, James A. “Paul and Theological History.” Pages 52-7 in Paul and the Scriptures of

Israel. Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 1. Edited by Craig A. Evans

and James A. Sanders. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

83. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.

Schenck, Kenneth. “Hebrews as the Re-Presentation of a Story: A Narrative Approach to

Hebrews.” Pages 171-88 in Reading the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Resource for Students.

Edited by Eric F. Mason and Kevin B McCruden. Vol. 66 of Resources for Biblical

Study. Edited by Tom Thatcher. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.

Stamps, Dennis L. “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device:

A Methodological Proposal.” Pages 9-37 in Hearing the Old Testament in the New

Testament. Edited by Stanley Porter. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

Stanley, Christopher D. “Paul and Scripture: Charting the Course.” Pages 3-12 in As It Is

Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Christopher

D. Stanley. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 50. Edited by Victor H.

Matthews. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

________ . “Paul’s ‘Use’ of Scripture: Why the Audience Matters.” Pages 125-56 in As It Is

Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Christopher

D. Stanley. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 50. Edited by Victor H.

Matthews. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

________. “‘Pearls Before Swine’: Did Paul’s Audiences Understand His Biblical Quotations?”

Novum Testamentum 41.2 (1999): 124-44.

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________. “What We Learned—And What We Didn’t.” Pages 321-30 in Paul and Scripture:

Extending the Conversation. Edited by Christopher Stanley. Atlanta: Society of Biblical

Literature.

Watson, Francis. “Response to Richard Hays.” Pro Ecclesia 16.2 (2007): 134-40.

________. “Scripture in Pauline Theology: How Far Down Does It Go?” Journal of Theological

Interpretation 2.2 (2008): 181-92.

Webb, Robert L. “The Use of ‘story’ in the Letter of Jude: Rhetorical strategies of Jude’s

Narrative Episodes.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31.5 (2008): 53-87.