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Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness
In Reading Backwards Richard B. Hays maps the shocking ways the four Gospel writers interpreted Israel's Scripture to craft their literary witnesses to the Church's one Christ. The Gospels' scriptural imagination discovered inside the long tradition of a resilient Jewish monotheism a novel and revolutionary Christology. Modernity's incredulity toward the Christian faith partly rests upon the characterization of early Christian preaching as a tendentious misreading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Christianity, modernity claims, twisted the Bible they inherited to fit its message about a mythological divine Savior. The Gospels, for many modern critics, are thus more about Christian doctrine in the second and third century than they are about Jesus in the first. Such Christian "misreadings" are not late or politically motivated developments within Christian thought. As Hays demonstrates, the claim that the events of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection took place "according to the Scriptures" stands at the very heart of the New Testament's earliest message. All four canonical Gospels declare that the Torah and the Prophets and the Psalms mysteriously prefigure Jesus. The author of the Fourth Gospel puts the claim "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me" (John 5:46). Hays thus traces the reading strategies the Gospel writers employ to "read backwards" and to discover how the Old Testament figuratively discloses the astonishing paradoxical truth about Jesus' identity. Attention to Jewish and Old Testament roots of the Gospel narratives reveals that each of the four Evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identify Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel. Hays also explores the hermeneutical challenges posed by attempting to follow the Evangelists as readers of Israel's Scripture―can the Evangelists teach us to read backwards along with them and to discern the same mystery they discovered in Israel's story? In Reading Backwards Hays demonstrates that it was Israel's Scripture itself that taught the Gospel writers how to understand Jesus as the embodied presence of God, that this conversion of imagination occurred early in the development of Christian theology, and that the Gospel writers' revisionary figural readings of their Bible stand at the very center of Christianity.
177 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2014
104 people are currently reading
793 people want to read
About the author
Richard B. Hays
50 books102 followersRichard Bevan Hays was an American New Testament scholar and George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He was an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
March 29, 2022
An exceptional read.
This is my second time through. The first time was my senior year in which I appreciated but did not fully grasp how important this book is.
A dear friend of mine inspired me to re-read this book. It's easy to take for granted the biblical foundation already set, but this small book is an incredible reminder of how complex the Bible is.
I do not agree with some of Hay's conclusions (i.e. discussing the weaknesses of the gospels makes me uncomfortable) but I truly appreciated his underlying themes:
-reading Scripture as a whole
-intertextual conversation
-reading backwards and forwards to better understand both OT and NT
"Figural Christology and the fourfold gospel witness" is an excellent subheading to the title. I encourage this book to be read by everyone, besides, it's really short :)
This is my second time through. The first time was my senior year in which I appreciated but did not fully grasp how important this book is.
A dear friend of mine inspired me to re-read this book. It's easy to take for granted the biblical foundation already set, but this small book is an incredible reminder of how complex the Bible is.
I do not agree with some of Hay's conclusions (i.e. discussing the weaknesses of the gospels makes me uncomfortable) but I truly appreciated his underlying themes:
-reading Scripture as a whole
-intertextual conversation
-reading backwards and forwards to better understand both OT and NT
"Figural Christology and the fourfold gospel witness" is an excellent subheading to the title. I encourage this book to be read by everyone, besides, it's really short :)
April 16, 2025
Hays argues that Christians are to learn from the Old Testament how to read the New Testament and to learn from the Gospel writers how to read the Old Testament. A Jesus-centered retrospective reading of Israelite Scripture. Each chapter was great.
5 stars doesn't mean I agree with everything he said or all of the OT echoes he posited. What it means is that his approach to the Gospels makes me pause to read them freshly, asking more questions. His chapter on Mark was the best.
Paraphrasing one of Hays's conclusions: the Gospels invite us and teach us how to be more interested and interesting readers of all the Scriptures, including the often overlooked, large majority of the Christian Scriptures: the Old Testament.
R.I.P. Richard B. Hays
5 stars doesn't mean I agree with everything he said or all of the OT echoes he posited. What it means is that his approach to the Gospels makes me pause to read them freshly, asking more questions. His chapter on Mark was the best.
Paraphrasing one of Hays's conclusions: the Gospels invite us and teach us how to be more interested and interesting readers of all the Scriptures, including the often overlooked, large majority of the Christian Scriptures: the Old Testament.
R.I.P. Richard B. Hays
April 5, 2023
Game Changer! Tim Mackie calls the Biblical writers “literary ninjas”, and this book is a solid testament to that. The OT teaches us how to read the Gospels, and at the same time, the Gospels teach us how to read the OT. There are hundreds of hyperlinks to OT scriptures in the gospels, easily bypassed, that give us new ways to interpret the texts. These almost always aren’t directly referenced by the author, but woven into the narrative in a way that links this NT text to the OT.
This changed how I’ll read the gospels and probably the whole Bible. Not super easy to read, but short and well worth the labor…
This changed how I’ll read the gospels and probably the whole Bible. Not super easy to read, but short and well worth the labor…
September 27, 2023
A mixed bag, but over all good.
Reading Backwards by Richard Hays was pretty good overall. At its strongest, it provided a persuasive challenge, particularly directly at modern critical scholarship, to take seriously the way the New Testament speaks of the Old Testament (and not to be embarrassed by it, or to shrug it off as bad exegesis). Modern textual scholarship, as both his audience and his milieu, are precisely why the book also fell short, for Hays, in trying to win academia, swallows too many of their bad assumptions and their unbelieving-textual-critical-ideas.
The first chapter introduces the book by laying out the problem, namely, that the modern church takes a “naively Marcionite” stance towards the OT. Modern Christians, like Marcion before, draw a false contrast between the God of the OT and the God of the NT. Hays says that this has had a “disastrous effect on the theological imagination of many Protestant churches.” With their distorted imagination they fail to see the many OT allusions throughout the NT. This neglect has also led to a half-realized picture of the complete biblical story, for the OT should help inform our reading of the NT. This half-realized picture cuts the other way as well, for the OT has been brought into perfectly clarity by the resurrection of Jesus, and the NT authors see “the resurrection of Jesus […] as the hermeneutical clue that decisively integrates Israel’s entire ‘system of meaning formation.’” For the rest of the book, Hays makes his way through the four canonical gospels, in the order he takes them as written, and shows how they help to integrate Israel’s entire system of meaning. He ends the book with an evaluation and comparison to determine which gospel best accomplishes the integration.
Hays was a delight to read, his prose is excellent. More than that he is a careful and close reader of the OT, as well as the gospels. He quite adeptly pulls out some very subtle OT allusions in the gospels, which once you see, you cannot possibly unsee. You find yourself often asking yourself, “How did I miss this??” Hays’ keen eye is illustrated well by his excellent treatment of Jesus walking on water in Chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel. He remarks on the “baffling” language in this section about Jesus “intend[ing] to pass them by in Mark 6:48. He points out that this peculiar phrasing has “consistently baffled interpreters (beginning with the evangelist Matthew, who deletes the clause [Matt 14:25]).” This peculiar language matches well with the wording found in Exodus 33:17-23 and 34:6 where the LXX similarly says God is to “‘pass by’ Moses in order to reveal his glory indirectly, for ‘no one shall see me and live.’” Hays goes on to point out that because the LXX’s repeatedly “uses παρελθεῖν in this passage” and therefore it becomes “‘almost a technical term for a divine epiphany.’” Thus, Mark’s “mysterious statement in Mark 6:48 […] suggests simultaneously that Jesus’ walking on the water is a manifestation of divine glory and that it remains indirect and beyond full comprehension—as the disciples’ uncomprehending response amply demonstrates.” When talking about the Gospel of Luke, he points out that many modern critical scholars miss crucial allusions because of their prejudice. For example, for Luke’s Gospel they assume that Luke has a “low Christology,” but Hays says, "[This] is an artificial construction that can be achieved only by ignoring—or suppressing—the hermeneutical relevance of the powerful Old Testament allusions in Luke’s story. It is therefore precisely by attending more fully to the Old Testament intertexts in Luke’s Gospel that we gain a deeper and firmer grasp of the theological coherence between Luke’s narrative testimony and what the church’s dogmatic tradition has classically affirmed about the identity of Jesus." With these examples and more, Hays shows the supreme value of the NT’s extensive use of the OT, especially for the careful reader.
The major issue I had with this book was the extent that Hays trusts modern critical textual scholarship. He thankfully does question them at times, for example, he does not agree with the Q hypothesis, which I found surprising and refreshing. However, on the other hand, in comparing Mark and Matthew, he takes Mark as the first Gospel to be written (going against the long-standing tradition that Matthew was written first), and then running with that assumption he makes bold claims about Matthew outright taking and changing elements of a story in Mark to suit his purposes. Hays presupposes that Matthew himself had a low view of the inspiration and reliability of Mark (in psychology, they call this projection!). However, from the example above, when speaking of Jesus walking on the water, Hayes does something here he does elsewhere, namely, writing is though Mark was just re-writing a different ending intentionally, blatantly just changing the story (as if Matthew had a low view of truth!). Furthermore, sitting upon his throne of modern scholarship, he deigns to compare God’s inspired gospels, saying that Mark’s account contains “weaknesses or drawbacks.” He criticizes Mark’s “subtle indirection” that it may “allow many readers to miss the message of Jesus’ divine identity—as indeed many NT critics in the modern era have done.” It is just too bad the Holy Spirit did such a bad job inspiring Mark. He doesn’t just do this with Mark, in Chapter 6 he also goes through and speaks of the relative strengths and weaknesses for each gospel. He discusses which ones are less “successful,” and which more (and he thinks Luke does the best job). I found this abhorrent. In another place he criticizes John because his Gospel’s “approach to OT interpretation lends itself […] all too readily to anti-Jewish and/or high-handedly supersessionist theologies.” This is pure chronological snobbery, for indeed, enlightened moderns would never do something so gouache as the Apostle John does in his Gospel.
Reading Backwards by Richard Hays was pretty good overall. At its strongest, it provided a persuasive challenge, particularly directly at modern critical scholarship, to take seriously the way the New Testament speaks of the Old Testament (and not to be embarrassed by it, or to shrug it off as bad exegesis). Modern textual scholarship, as both his audience and his milieu, are precisely why the book also fell short, for Hays, in trying to win academia, swallows too many of their bad assumptions and their unbelieving-textual-critical-ideas.
The first chapter introduces the book by laying out the problem, namely, that the modern church takes a “naively Marcionite” stance towards the OT. Modern Christians, like Marcion before, draw a false contrast between the God of the OT and the God of the NT. Hays says that this has had a “disastrous effect on the theological imagination of many Protestant churches.” With their distorted imagination they fail to see the many OT allusions throughout the NT. This neglect has also led to a half-realized picture of the complete biblical story, for the OT should help inform our reading of the NT. This half-realized picture cuts the other way as well, for the OT has been brought into perfectly clarity by the resurrection of Jesus, and the NT authors see “the resurrection of Jesus […] as the hermeneutical clue that decisively integrates Israel’s entire ‘system of meaning formation.’” For the rest of the book, Hays makes his way through the four canonical gospels, in the order he takes them as written, and shows how they help to integrate Israel’s entire system of meaning. He ends the book with an evaluation and comparison to determine which gospel best accomplishes the integration.
Hays was a delight to read, his prose is excellent. More than that he is a careful and close reader of the OT, as well as the gospels. He quite adeptly pulls out some very subtle OT allusions in the gospels, which once you see, you cannot possibly unsee. You find yourself often asking yourself, “How did I miss this??” Hays’ keen eye is illustrated well by his excellent treatment of Jesus walking on water in Chapter 6 of Mark’s Gospel. He remarks on the “baffling” language in this section about Jesus “intend[ing] to pass them by in Mark 6:48. He points out that this peculiar phrasing has “consistently baffled interpreters (beginning with the evangelist Matthew, who deletes the clause [Matt 14:25]).” This peculiar language matches well with the wording found in Exodus 33:17-23 and 34:6 where the LXX similarly says God is to “‘pass by’ Moses in order to reveal his glory indirectly, for ‘no one shall see me and live.’” Hays goes on to point out that because the LXX’s repeatedly “uses παρελθεῖν in this passage” and therefore it becomes “‘almost a technical term for a divine epiphany.’” Thus, Mark’s “mysterious statement in Mark 6:48 […] suggests simultaneously that Jesus’ walking on the water is a manifestation of divine glory and that it remains indirect and beyond full comprehension—as the disciples’ uncomprehending response amply demonstrates.” When talking about the Gospel of Luke, he points out that many modern critical scholars miss crucial allusions because of their prejudice. For example, for Luke’s Gospel they assume that Luke has a “low Christology,” but Hays says, "[This] is an artificial construction that can be achieved only by ignoring—or suppressing—the hermeneutical relevance of the powerful Old Testament allusions in Luke’s story. It is therefore precisely by attending more fully to the Old Testament intertexts in Luke’s Gospel that we gain a deeper and firmer grasp of the theological coherence between Luke’s narrative testimony and what the church’s dogmatic tradition has classically affirmed about the identity of Jesus." With these examples and more, Hays shows the supreme value of the NT’s extensive use of the OT, especially for the careful reader.
The major issue I had with this book was the extent that Hays trusts modern critical textual scholarship. He thankfully does question them at times, for example, he does not agree with the Q hypothesis, which I found surprising and refreshing. However, on the other hand, in comparing Mark and Matthew, he takes Mark as the first Gospel to be written (going against the long-standing tradition that Matthew was written first), and then running with that assumption he makes bold claims about Matthew outright taking and changing elements of a story in Mark to suit his purposes. Hays presupposes that Matthew himself had a low view of the inspiration and reliability of Mark (in psychology, they call this projection!). However, from the example above, when speaking of Jesus walking on the water, Hayes does something here he does elsewhere, namely, writing is though Mark was just re-writing a different ending intentionally, blatantly just changing the story (as if Matthew had a low view of truth!). Furthermore, sitting upon his throne of modern scholarship, he deigns to compare God’s inspired gospels, saying that Mark’s account contains “weaknesses or drawbacks.” He criticizes Mark’s “subtle indirection” that it may “allow many readers to miss the message of Jesus’ divine identity—as indeed many NT critics in the modern era have done.” It is just too bad the Holy Spirit did such a bad job inspiring Mark. He doesn’t just do this with Mark, in Chapter 6 he also goes through and speaks of the relative strengths and weaknesses for each gospel. He discusses which ones are less “successful,” and which more (and he thinks Luke does the best job). I found this abhorrent. In another place he criticizes John because his Gospel’s “approach to OT interpretation lends itself […] all too readily to anti-Jewish and/or high-handedly supersessionist theologies.” This is pure chronological snobbery, for indeed, enlightened moderns would never do something so gouache as the Apostle John does in his Gospel.
September 14, 2017
In understanding the cohesiveness of the biblical narrative—spanning from Genesis to Revelation—few matters are of greater importance than grasping the way in which the New Testament authors cite, allude to, and echo Israel’s Scriptures. And yet, the multitude of references on which the two testaments hinge serve to divide interpreters from all theological backgrounds. Recent biblical scholarship has stressed the sole application of the grammatical-historical method in an earnest effort to safeguard against haphazard interpretation. Yet is this the same method that the gospel writers practiced themselves? In "Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness," Richard B. Hays takes a careful look at each of the four gospel narratives, in an attempt to discover the underlying hermeneutical approach that informs and shapes these texts.
Originally delivered as the Hulsean lectures at Cambridge in 2013/14, the six chapters that make up Reading Backwards serve as a teaser to his recently released larger work entitled "Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels." What one finds in Reading Backwards is a distillation of Hays’s key insights pertaining to early high Christology in the Gospels. Of the six chapters in this shorter work, Hays begins with a chapter on his methodology, devoting the next four chapters to the application of his methodology to each Gospel writer. In the final chapter, Hays offers some closing remarks directed towards the reader for further application of his method.
Key to Hays’s methodology is Erich Auerbach’s classic definition of figural interpretation. Following Auerbach, Hays argues that a proper interpretation of each Gospel requires an awareness towards figural interpretation, in which a correspondence is noted between earlier and later persons or events. In contrast to allegorizing, which overlooks the historical in favour of a deeper, spiritual interpretation, figural readings take both poles of the figural correspondence seriously, yet, according to Hays, also serve to produce a deeper significance beyond the grasp of the original author or audience. Due to their temporal nature, figural readings can only be detected retrospectively—looking back from the later figure to the former.
To consider the possibility of figural readings in Scripture, one must hold to a belief in Yahweh’s lordship over history, as well as his role as the ultimate author standing behind these texts. Hays shares both of these convictions, and in his analysis of the figural readings employed by the four evangelists, insights abound. Pulling from the freshest NT scholarship, Hays demonstrates clearly how the four unique Gospel portraits reveal a unifying message: Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel.
With the same careful attention that he shows to the particular narrative shape of each Gospel, Hays argues that the crisis of later christological controversies was a tension already held in suspension in Mark’s Gospel (pg. 27). Commenting on Matthew’s narrative, he points out that once Jesus has reinforced worship of Israel’s God alone (through his response to Satan citing Dt 6:13 in the temptation), any following worship of Jesus by characters in the story must be recognized as a recognition of Jesus’s divine identity (pg. 45).
With regards to the famous Emmaus road passage (Lk 24:13—32), Hays effectively demonstrates that Jesus’s comments here are carefully framed by Luke, serving to produce a literary challenge to his audience. Hays argues that Luke’s pithy summary of the Emmaus account serves to produce a desire in the reader to go back and reread both the gospel narrative as well as Israel’s Scriptures in an attempt to find Jesus prefigured there. Interestingly, Hays devotes the least attention to John’s Gospel (a mere seventeen pages), despite its famed status for its high Christology.
Behind Hays’s work stands the simple recognition that while redemptive history gradually builds throughout the biblical story, following the crucifixion, the earliest disciples did not grasp Yahweh’s latest, definitive work in history. Because of this failure to perceive, this community required an admonition to go back to their Scriptures and re-read them in light of the resurrection, a charge both prompted and initially directed by Christ himself. Summarizing the need to ‘read backwards’ for a full apprehension of the biblical story, Hays writes, “the Gospels teach us how to read the OT, and – at the same time – the OT teaches us how to read the Gospels”(pg 4).
In his work, Hays has correctly noted the crucial task of grasping the complex intertextuality contained in each of the four gospels in order to build a fully informed Christology. Through his careful attention to the unique way each Gospel writer engages in the practice of figural interpretation, Hays highlights their common purpose: demonstrating Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel. In sharp contrast to those who believe that the Gospels writers (and the NT authors in general) twist Israel’s Scriptures to fit their own agendas, Hays argues that these authors are reading Israel’s Scripture figuratively, thus teaching contemporary readers to do the same.
The two "figural poles" of which Hays writes sound very similar to the well known concepts of “type” and “antitype” used in typological interpretation. Indeed, at times, Hays seems to use the terms “figural” and “typological” almost interchangeably. He writes, “the figural reading that John practices does not deny the literal sense but completes it by linking it typologically with the narrative of Jesus and disclosing a deeper prefigurative truth within the literal historical sense” (pg. 102). In discussing figural interpretation within the realm of hermeneutics, it appears that Hays is attempting to salvage the somewhat unpopular practice of typological reading, repackaging it for a contemporary audience.
Borrowing the title of his last chapter, what Hays has presented in Reading Backwards can effectively be labelled as “Gospel-shaped hermeneutics.” Incorporating the best of recent early-high-Christology scholarship, Hays has demonstrated the fourfold gospel witness to the divine identity of Jesus. He has accomplished this task masterly, demonstrating a pervasive knowledge of each Gospel, with particular interest given to the shaping role of Israel’s Scripture in each unique narrative. What emerges from Hays’s study is a profound literary and theological awareness on the part of each of the four gospel writers in their respective documents. In his short work, Hays has presented a strong challenge to the rationalist reaction, which argues that the search for “grammatical-historical” meaning is the only viable hermeneutical option. By taking his approach from the NT authors themselves, Hays’s short work will serve to prompt a wide audience to read backwards.
Originally delivered as the Hulsean lectures at Cambridge in 2013/14, the six chapters that make up Reading Backwards serve as a teaser to his recently released larger work entitled "Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels." What one finds in Reading Backwards is a distillation of Hays’s key insights pertaining to early high Christology in the Gospels. Of the six chapters in this shorter work, Hays begins with a chapter on his methodology, devoting the next four chapters to the application of his methodology to each Gospel writer. In the final chapter, Hays offers some closing remarks directed towards the reader for further application of his method.
Key to Hays’s methodology is Erich Auerbach’s classic definition of figural interpretation. Following Auerbach, Hays argues that a proper interpretation of each Gospel requires an awareness towards figural interpretation, in which a correspondence is noted between earlier and later persons or events. In contrast to allegorizing, which overlooks the historical in favour of a deeper, spiritual interpretation, figural readings take both poles of the figural correspondence seriously, yet, according to Hays, also serve to produce a deeper significance beyond the grasp of the original author or audience. Due to their temporal nature, figural readings can only be detected retrospectively—looking back from the later figure to the former.
To consider the possibility of figural readings in Scripture, one must hold to a belief in Yahweh’s lordship over history, as well as his role as the ultimate author standing behind these texts. Hays shares both of these convictions, and in his analysis of the figural readings employed by the four evangelists, insights abound. Pulling from the freshest NT scholarship, Hays demonstrates clearly how the four unique Gospel portraits reveal a unifying message: Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel.
With the same careful attention that he shows to the particular narrative shape of each Gospel, Hays argues that the crisis of later christological controversies was a tension already held in suspension in Mark’s Gospel (pg. 27). Commenting on Matthew’s narrative, he points out that once Jesus has reinforced worship of Israel’s God alone (through his response to Satan citing Dt 6:13 in the temptation), any following worship of Jesus by characters in the story must be recognized as a recognition of Jesus’s divine identity (pg. 45).
With regards to the famous Emmaus road passage (Lk 24:13—32), Hays effectively demonstrates that Jesus’s comments here are carefully framed by Luke, serving to produce a literary challenge to his audience. Hays argues that Luke’s pithy summary of the Emmaus account serves to produce a desire in the reader to go back and reread both the gospel narrative as well as Israel’s Scriptures in an attempt to find Jesus prefigured there. Interestingly, Hays devotes the least attention to John’s Gospel (a mere seventeen pages), despite its famed status for its high Christology.
Behind Hays’s work stands the simple recognition that while redemptive history gradually builds throughout the biblical story, following the crucifixion, the earliest disciples did not grasp Yahweh’s latest, definitive work in history. Because of this failure to perceive, this community required an admonition to go back to their Scriptures and re-read them in light of the resurrection, a charge both prompted and initially directed by Christ himself. Summarizing the need to ‘read backwards’ for a full apprehension of the biblical story, Hays writes, “the Gospels teach us how to read the OT, and – at the same time – the OT teaches us how to read the Gospels”(pg 4).
In his work, Hays has correctly noted the crucial task of grasping the complex intertextuality contained in each of the four gospels in order to build a fully informed Christology. Through his careful attention to the unique way each Gospel writer engages in the practice of figural interpretation, Hays highlights their common purpose: demonstrating Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel. In sharp contrast to those who believe that the Gospels writers (and the NT authors in general) twist Israel’s Scriptures to fit their own agendas, Hays argues that these authors are reading Israel’s Scripture figuratively, thus teaching contemporary readers to do the same.
The two "figural poles" of which Hays writes sound very similar to the well known concepts of “type” and “antitype” used in typological interpretation. Indeed, at times, Hays seems to use the terms “figural” and “typological” almost interchangeably. He writes, “the figural reading that John practices does not deny the literal sense but completes it by linking it typologically with the narrative of Jesus and disclosing a deeper prefigurative truth within the literal historical sense” (pg. 102). In discussing figural interpretation within the realm of hermeneutics, it appears that Hays is attempting to salvage the somewhat unpopular practice of typological reading, repackaging it for a contemporary audience.
Borrowing the title of his last chapter, what Hays has presented in Reading Backwards can effectively be labelled as “Gospel-shaped hermeneutics.” Incorporating the best of recent early-high-Christology scholarship, Hays has demonstrated the fourfold gospel witness to the divine identity of Jesus. He has accomplished this task masterly, demonstrating a pervasive knowledge of each Gospel, with particular interest given to the shaping role of Israel’s Scripture in each unique narrative. What emerges from Hays’s study is a profound literary and theological awareness on the part of each of the four gospel writers in their respective documents. In his short work, Hays has presented a strong challenge to the rationalist reaction, which argues that the search for “grammatical-historical” meaning is the only viable hermeneutical option. By taking his approach from the NT authors themselves, Hays’s short work will serve to prompt a wide audience to read backwards.
April 29, 2021
Did a whole lot of underlining, "hmmm-ing" and "what" with this book. I think that makes it fairly good.
Hays is provocative, but also careful with his language, which makes for an interesting read.
Still think he went a little crazy in the final summary chapter.
His introductions to the gospel writer's "projects" were interesting. Would have liked a bit more literary analysis.
Hays is provocative, but also careful with his language, which makes for an interesting read.
Still think he went a little crazy in the final summary chapter.
His introductions to the gospel writer's "projects" were interesting. Would have liked a bit more literary analysis.
January 8, 2022
Hays is concise and on fire with this truth: the resurrection of Jesus gives us cause to go back to the scriptures and find Him. Figural reading is my daily exercise and I’ve been greatly encouraged by this book.
December 3, 2015
The purpose of this book is a simple one: It shows how Jesus interpreted himself and how the Gospel-writers narrated his life, using the figures of the Old Testament. In doing so, we see that, far from the myth that modern scholarship presents, Christ is portrayed as fully divine.
For instance, Mark 6:45-52 is the narrative of Jesus walking on water. Mark has often been interpreted as having a "low" Christology where Jesus is portrayed as not quite divine. Some have argued that Mark portrays Jesus as the messiah, the Son of Man, and as a powerful wonder-worker and teacher, but not explicitly divine like John does. However, in Mk. 6, a story merely thought to showcase Jesus as a wonder-worker, Jesus is embodying Job 9, where God himself is portrayed as walking on the walker as if dry ground. By paying attention to the subtle typological allusions, a better understanding of these passages is made possible.
Following this paradigm, Hays goes Gospel to Gospel debunking ideas about that book that modern scholarship has proposed out of neglect for typology. The overall thesis is well demonstrated: Jesus, in what he said and did as portrayed in the narrative, is the embodiment of Israel's God.
Hays writes with a simplicity that only a master is capable of. He is able to argue a point with precision and brevity that makes the book a good read for both scholars and lay-people. His conclusion states that he implicitly means his work as a rebuttal to guys like Bart Erhman, who have argued Jesus' divinity is a later mythological reinterpretation. Frankly, the simplicity of Hays argument almost makes such theories, while they appeal to our modern suspicions, a bit silly sounding. Also, Hays recommends the recovery of typological reading of Scripture as the way Jesus and the Apostles interpreted the Bible. In a church setting of fundamentalist selective literalism and liberal obfuscation, reading Scripture through Christ as the way Christ recommend sounds like good advice.
For instance, Mark 6:45-52 is the narrative of Jesus walking on water. Mark has often been interpreted as having a "low" Christology where Jesus is portrayed as not quite divine. Some have argued that Mark portrays Jesus as the messiah, the Son of Man, and as a powerful wonder-worker and teacher, but not explicitly divine like John does. However, in Mk. 6, a story merely thought to showcase Jesus as a wonder-worker, Jesus is embodying Job 9, where God himself is portrayed as walking on the walker as if dry ground. By paying attention to the subtle typological allusions, a better understanding of these passages is made possible.
Following this paradigm, Hays goes Gospel to Gospel debunking ideas about that book that modern scholarship has proposed out of neglect for typology. The overall thesis is well demonstrated: Jesus, in what he said and did as portrayed in the narrative, is the embodiment of Israel's God.
Hays writes with a simplicity that only a master is capable of. He is able to argue a point with precision and brevity that makes the book a good read for both scholars and lay-people. His conclusion states that he implicitly means his work as a rebuttal to guys like Bart Erhman, who have argued Jesus' divinity is a later mythological reinterpretation. Frankly, the simplicity of Hays argument almost makes such theories, while they appeal to our modern suspicions, a bit silly sounding. Also, Hays recommends the recovery of typological reading of Scripture as the way Jesus and the Apostles interpreted the Bible. In a church setting of fundamentalist selective literalism and liberal obfuscation, reading Scripture through Christ as the way Christ recommend sounds like good advice.
February 28, 2016
Essentially an academic, non-Evangelical defense of the Nicene Creed. Jesus is God, and all the Old Testament allusions prove it. A really nice complement to N.T. Wright and in a lot of ways refreshing considering the defensiveness we sometimes exhibit toward the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. No need to be to dour about it. Weaknesses yes; Hays is ready to criticize the gospel writers, but he's definitely an author I want to read more.
October 4, 2016
An excellent study of the Gospel writers literary sensitivities in identifying Jesus as the God of Israel. Besides some odd remarks in the conclusion and some other quibbles, this is great stuff and an encouragement to live inside the world of the Bible in one's reading of Scripture.
January 1, 2024
Amazing, short read.
Hays’ deep understanding of intertextuality between the OT & NT is mind blowing.
Can be dense at times, but worth slowing down to appreciate how the four canonical gospels differ from each other but are still so highly christological.
Hays’ deep understanding of intertextuality between the OT & NT is mind blowing.
Can be dense at times, but worth slowing down to appreciate how the four canonical gospels differ from each other but are still so highly christological.
October 6, 2019
Brilliant.
February 5, 2021
a king talking about the King.
September 28, 2021
good stuff!
Read
April 22, 2022Hard to know how to review this; lots of good insights, lots of good examples of how the gospel writers present Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament but full of implied denials of scriptural infallibility; up to the 90% mark I was fairly confident that the author was some sort of agnostic biblical scholar.
I was genuinely surprised when in the last two pages he argues that the God of the Old Testament is real, genuinely was incarnate in Jesus Christ and is still active today/is the God we can know. AND that the reason that old testament passages could have a christological meaning far beyond the meaning a human author would likely have understood is due to divine inspiration.
I was genuinely surprised when in the last two pages he argues that the God of the Old Testament is real, genuinely was incarnate in Jesus Christ and is still active today/is the God we can know. AND that the reason that old testament passages could have a christological meaning far beyond the meaning a human author would likely have understood is due to divine inspiration.
October 11, 2025
A lively, succinct, and compelling treatment addressing the figural relationship between the OT and Gospels. It’s a good introduction (from the perspective of a NT specialist) to the broader issues of figural interpretation in Christian theology, and it’s a fruitful avenue for making sense of the NT’s use of the OT. A real pleasure to read.
July 11, 2023
Though short it is a book definitely more than worth reading. In clear examples the author shows that the gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John thought of Jesus no other than that he was and is the LORD God of Israël.
January 22, 2020
Half the time I was too stupid to understand what Hays was talking about. The other half of the time, this book was an awesome look into how the NT Gospels use the OT to proclaim the divinity of Christ; each in unique ways.
April 15, 2024
As expected from Hays, this book illuminated some incredibly brilliant insights into the meat of scripture. Hays' attention to detail to paint how the gospel writers crafted their narrative with the backdrop of old testament and its imagery in mind has greatly shaped how I read their accounts. 4 stars because the book felt like it dragged at the end
August 17, 2015
Biblical hermeneutics is of course a difficult topic. For those who view scripture as authoritative, a grammatico-historical method is frequently the method of choice. The problem with grammatico-historical interpretations is it is demonstrably not the way the apostles or the Gospels interpret the Old Testament. Therefore, in an attempt to be "biblical," most conservative interpreters are being unbibiblical.
Hays' "Reading Backwards" is an attempt to discern the biblical hermeneutic of the Gospel writers. He uses the term "figural interpretation" which he borrows from Erich Auerbach. It is unclear how this differs from typology. Perhaps the two are equivalent. In any event, Hays sees the gospel writers viewing the Old Testament as a narrative and performing what he calls a "conversion of the imagination" to read backwards into the Old Testament the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. This preserves the integrity of the Old Testament without disrupting the continuity of the Old Testament with a supersessionist reading. It also means that the interpreter of scripture should take seriously literary devices and read the scripture with a complex poetic sensibility.
There is much that is commendable in this work, which is essentially a reworked series of lectures. My only criticism is that I wish there was more. I would love to see Hays write an in depth commentary about one of the Gospels. Its not a bad problem, but I feel he just started scratching the surface and that there was still so much more I could learn from such a skilled and careful exegete.
Hays' "Reading Backwards" is an attempt to discern the biblical hermeneutic of the Gospel writers. He uses the term "figural interpretation" which he borrows from Erich Auerbach. It is unclear how this differs from typology. Perhaps the two are equivalent. In any event, Hays sees the gospel writers viewing the Old Testament as a narrative and performing what he calls a "conversion of the imagination" to read backwards into the Old Testament the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. This preserves the integrity of the Old Testament without disrupting the continuity of the Old Testament with a supersessionist reading. It also means that the interpreter of scripture should take seriously literary devices and read the scripture with a complex poetic sensibility.
There is much that is commendable in this work, which is essentially a reworked series of lectures. My only criticism is that I wish there was more. I would love to see Hays write an in depth commentary about one of the Gospels. Its not a bad problem, but I feel he just started scratching the surface and that there was still so much more I could learn from such a skilled and careful exegete.
Read
November 28, 2020Richard Hays presents a high view of Jesus’ Messianic self-consciousness using narrative criticism of the four Gospels in Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness. The book contains the published version of the Halsean Lectures delivered at Cambridge University in 2013.
For figural readings, Hays uses Erich Auerbach’s definition:
Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons are within temporality. They are both contained in the flowing stream which is historical life, and only the comprehension, the intellectus spirituals, of the interdependence is a spiritual act.Figural interpretation is closely allied to typological interpretation, except that figural interpretation seems to work both ways. Figural interpretation aims higher than a simple prophetic-fulfillment scheme, for it is in the comprehension of mutual interactions between two events or persons that spiritual meaning is comprehended.
Hays uses figural interpretation to open new vistas on the four Gospels. Mark’s Gospel is Hays’ favorite because it presents Jesus’ Messianic consciousness in the allusive language of irony. Old Testament references abound in the Gospel without introductory formula specifying a particular prophet, but the reader familiar with prophetic texts catch the hint and understand Jesus consciously saw himself fulfilling these prophecies. Mark’s Gospel contains the most forthright disclosure of divine self-consciousness at the trial of Jesus (Mark 14:61-62), associated with the most abject descriptions of Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-41) and abandonment at Golgotha (Mark 15:34). Mark’s Gospel ends in stunned silence before the empty tomb. The attentive reader is drawn into a new understanding of the redemptive narrative of the Old Testament culminating in Jesus’ disclosure of his hidden identity.
At the other extreme from Mark’s allusive Gospel is John’s Gospel, which discloses in the first verse the pre-existent deity of Jesus Christ before Creation . Between Mark’s Gospel and the Johannine witness lies the common thread of a high view of Jesus’ Messianic self-consciousness. That theme allows Hays to put the Synoptics and John into the same class of Old Testament interpreters. John’s Gospel has significantly fewer specific Scriptural citations, but the narrative captures the broader implications of the story of redemption through symbolic meanings. The test case for Hays is the reference to Moses:
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16)
But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? (John 5:45-47)
These references raise the question for Hays about how John reinterpreted Torah. According to Hays’ enumeration, few references to Moses or Mosaic Law appear in the Gospel. This curious fact is offset by the symbols of Temple and Feast Days incorporated into the story of Jesus’ ministry. To cite just two, the cleansing of the Temple placed early in John’s Gospel transfers the site of God’s presence from the Temple to Jesus’ resurrected body (John 2:13-22). Another incident unique to John is Jesus’ self-identification with God as the one who provides food and drink during the Festival of Tabernacles (John 7:37=Lev 26:36). Also prominent is John’s appropriation of the symbol of the Passover Lamb to Jesus’ sacrificial death through the dating of the crucifixion on the Day of Preparation when the Lamb was slain, and the comparison between the piercing of Jesus’ side to unbroken bones of the Pascal lamb (John 19:31-37). Through the use of symbols like Temple and Feast Days, John’s Gospel places Jesus’ foreordained death and resurrection within the framework of an eternal plan of divine redemption.
Hays reads the Gospels in the context of first-century Jewish Messianic expectations prefigured in the Old Testament rather than the context of later extra-canonical sources like the Gospel of Thomas or the elusive Q source. Some scholars use the non-canonical context to argue that the historical Jesus was a moral teacher or apocalyptic miracle worker, but not a self-conscious divine Messiah. Hays makes the case for a figural reading of the Gospels by showing the varied and enriched depths of the divine character and self-understanding of Jesus required by his earliest followers. Granted, Hays does not claim that the self-understanding of Jesus in the Gospels is identical to the historical Jesus behind the text, but his reading aligns with the early high Christology of Paul and the early church shown by recent scholars like Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham.
Hays enhances both the Old Testament implied Messianic meaning and the effect of Old Testament Law, prophecy and Psalms on the self-understanding of Jesus. Prophetic allusions in the Gospels can sometimes be used to dispense with the Old Testament as a source book for fulfilled prophecies. Hays shows how the Gospels reinterpret the Old Testament with Jesus as the interpretive key that unlocks the Scriptures. Figural readings place greater emphasis on understanding the continuity between Jesus and the Old Testament, as well as highlighting the church’s growing and ongoing faith in Israel’s God who encounters us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The book is short (110 pages), non-technical and highly readable. Readers with a high view of Scripture will appreciate Hays’ assertion that Bible makes sense only on the assumption of God’s self-disclosure through the stories and words of Scripture. Footnotes and Indices guide the reader interested in further interaction with primary and secondary sources.
July 24, 2018
The heart of the NT's message is that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection took place according to scripture. The Gospel writers used OT allusions to show Jesus' identity as God and Messiah. He is the continuance of Israel's narrative and the new Moses.
(Isa 40:3) The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Cf. Mat_3:1-3; Mar_1:2-5; Luk_3:2-6; Joh_1:23)
These allusions to identity with God tend to defeat theories of high and low Christology by historical-critical scholars. The figural method of the Gospel writers may be called metalepsis.
"metalepsis: the practice of citing a fragment that beckons readers to recover more of the original subtext in order to grasp the full force of the intertextual link."
Hays, Richard B.. Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Kindle Locations 1120-1121). Baylor University Press. Kindle Edition.
Hays does a great job of explaining how this all works.
(Isa 40:3) The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Cf. Mat_3:1-3; Mar_1:2-5; Luk_3:2-6; Joh_1:23)
These allusions to identity with God tend to defeat theories of high and low Christology by historical-critical scholars. The figural method of the Gospel writers may be called metalepsis.
"metalepsis: the practice of citing a fragment that beckons readers to recover more of the original subtext in order to grasp the full force of the intertextual link."
Hays, Richard B.. Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Kindle Locations 1120-1121). Baylor University Press. Kindle Edition.
Hays does a great job of explaining how this all works.
October 2, 2022
Summary
In Reading Backwards, Richard Hays sets out to demonstrate that through a figural Christological hermeneutic, the four gospel writers show Jesus to be the embodiment of the God of Israel. There are two main themes in this thesis. First, a figural Christological hermeneutic defined as a connection established between two people or events. The connection can only be seen when the second person or event is established. For Hays, the conclusion is that the gospels present Jesus as the second pole wherein it is now possible to understand and read the OT correctly—hence the title Reading Backwards. Second, the four gospel witnesses each present this figural interpretation in different and distinct ways. Unpacking this second point is the bulk of Hay’s book.
Hays begins by examining Mark’s hermeneutic. He demonstrates that Mark is indirect and allusive, using riddle-like allusions to the OT to show who Jesus is. He does this by examining five texts in Mark that demonstrate Mark’s allusive and indirect use of the OT. Hay’s point is that in the gospel of Mark the reader is meant to look closely at what might be hidden in the text and that the mystery, when revealed, is that Jesus is “the embodiment of the God of Israel” —a mystery that is finally revealed explicitly in Mark in 14:61-62.
Hays then examines the book of Matthew to show that Matthew is more explicit than Mark in showing who Jesus is. Rather than being allusive, Matthew uses the OT to make the connections more explicit. One way he does this is by using a prooftext formula— “this took place to fulfill”—and by reorganizing the tradition to show the stories of Jesus to be fulfillments of OT narratives. Hays also shows that Matthew is bold to identify who Jesus is in two ways. First, Matthew is bold to show that Jesus is Emmanuel which is a clear fulfillment of OT texts. Second, Matthew is bold in showing the worship of Jesus. This is significant because at the outset of the gospel Jesus is clear that “you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10). Hay’s conclusion from Matthew is that “Jesus is the embodied presence of God.”
The third examination is the gospel of Luke. Hays demonstrates that Luke’s strategy is to unpack promise and fulfillment in the mouths of characters (direct quotes of the OT) and the literary devices of allusions and echoes. He does this by unpacking five ways Luke shows divine identity Christology—Jesus identified as the Son of God, Jesus is the Lord of a new Exodus, Jesus as Lord, Jesus’ reception of divine visitation, Jesus as the object of worship, and his desire to gather Jerusalem under his wings. Each one of these is an echo of God in the OT which leads Hay’s to conclude that Luke does not have a low Christology and that Jesus is the embodied presence of the God of Israel.
For John’s gospel, Hays points out that John uses less citation from the OT and instead uses images and figures from the Old Testament to point them to Jesus. Hay’s point is that Jesus assumes and transforms Israel’s festivals and symbols. What is important here is Hays does not understand Jesus to replace or nullify the festivals and symbols, but to assume and transform them. Hays demonstrates this by showing that Jesus embodies the wisdom tradition, Sukkoth and Passover, the Shepherd at the Feast of Dedication, and the manna from heaven. Thus, by using symbols John shows that Jesus is the embodiment of the presence of the God of Israel.
Affirmation
There is much to commend in Reading Backwards. Hays appropriately invites the reader of the gospels to read with imagination, symbolism, and other literary devices such as “story, metaphor, prefiguration, allusion, echo, reversal, and irony.” This in contrast to a reading purely based on literalism and rationalism is a fresh presentation of how to read Scripture in light of its complex artistry.
The book is also a fresh invitation for the reader to appreciate the OT and to see the life of Jesus as a continuing and assuming of the story of Israel and an embodiment of the presence of the God of Israel. This type of invitation is a pushback on a type of reading of the OT that sees it as purely legalistic and negative. Rather, the gospels are meant to encourage its readers to “deeply probe the Jewish and OT roots of the Gospel narrative” and in doing so to identify Jesus accurately.
Hays’ presentation is also refreshing in light of critical Christology that has arisen in the last 50 years since the Jesus seminar. Even though Hays makes it clear that he does not wish to address the historical Jesus, his thesis at least demonstrates that there is a reading of the gospels that correlates with the Jewish history while maintaining a high Christology.
Critique
One concept that is unclear from the book is what Hays means by the reorganization and remolding of Israel’s tradition. In one sense, conceding this point seems to open the door to historical criticism—if the authors are remolding, what theological presuppositions are they molding into the tradition? On the other end, Hays could receive pushback from a more fundamentalist reader of the Scriptures who would say that the OT is inspired and does not need to be molded or that the molding itself would be wrong because God wrote the OT. Hays does not address this directly in the book, and so it leaves the reader wondering more about what he means, or about his view of Scripture’s inspiration and composition.
Another point of critique is that Hays’ thesis that the gospel witnesses show Jesus to be the embodiment of Israel’s God stops one step short by not answering the question, “so what?” The whole point of the gospels is that question. Since Jesus is the embodiment of Israel’s God, he is to be believed, to be our example, to be loved, to satisfy, and to be followed. These themes are key parts of the gospel witnesses and are embodied by the authors of the gospels who were persecuted for following Jesus at all. While Hays may cover some of this it is under-emphasized in the book given its heavy emphasis in the gospels.
In Reading Backwards, Richard Hays sets out to demonstrate that through a figural Christological hermeneutic, the four gospel writers show Jesus to be the embodiment of the God of Israel. There are two main themes in this thesis. First, a figural Christological hermeneutic defined as a connection established between two people or events. The connection can only be seen when the second person or event is established. For Hays, the conclusion is that the gospels present Jesus as the second pole wherein it is now possible to understand and read the OT correctly—hence the title Reading Backwards. Second, the four gospel witnesses each present this figural interpretation in different and distinct ways. Unpacking this second point is the bulk of Hay’s book.
Hays begins by examining Mark’s hermeneutic. He demonstrates that Mark is indirect and allusive, using riddle-like allusions to the OT to show who Jesus is. He does this by examining five texts in Mark that demonstrate Mark’s allusive and indirect use of the OT. Hay’s point is that in the gospel of Mark the reader is meant to look closely at what might be hidden in the text and that the mystery, when revealed, is that Jesus is “the embodiment of the God of Israel” —a mystery that is finally revealed explicitly in Mark in 14:61-62.
Hays then examines the book of Matthew to show that Matthew is more explicit than Mark in showing who Jesus is. Rather than being allusive, Matthew uses the OT to make the connections more explicit. One way he does this is by using a prooftext formula— “this took place to fulfill”—and by reorganizing the tradition to show the stories of Jesus to be fulfillments of OT narratives. Hays also shows that Matthew is bold to identify who Jesus is in two ways. First, Matthew is bold to show that Jesus is Emmanuel which is a clear fulfillment of OT texts. Second, Matthew is bold in showing the worship of Jesus. This is significant because at the outset of the gospel Jesus is clear that “you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matt. 4:10). Hay’s conclusion from Matthew is that “Jesus is the embodied presence of God.”
The third examination is the gospel of Luke. Hays demonstrates that Luke’s strategy is to unpack promise and fulfillment in the mouths of characters (direct quotes of the OT) and the literary devices of allusions and echoes. He does this by unpacking five ways Luke shows divine identity Christology—Jesus identified as the Son of God, Jesus is the Lord of a new Exodus, Jesus as Lord, Jesus’ reception of divine visitation, Jesus as the object of worship, and his desire to gather Jerusalem under his wings. Each one of these is an echo of God in the OT which leads Hay’s to conclude that Luke does not have a low Christology and that Jesus is the embodied presence of the God of Israel.
For John’s gospel, Hays points out that John uses less citation from the OT and instead uses images and figures from the Old Testament to point them to Jesus. Hay’s point is that Jesus assumes and transforms Israel’s festivals and symbols. What is important here is Hays does not understand Jesus to replace or nullify the festivals and symbols, but to assume and transform them. Hays demonstrates this by showing that Jesus embodies the wisdom tradition, Sukkoth and Passover, the Shepherd at the Feast of Dedication, and the manna from heaven. Thus, by using symbols John shows that Jesus is the embodiment of the presence of the God of Israel.
Affirmation
There is much to commend in Reading Backwards. Hays appropriately invites the reader of the gospels to read with imagination, symbolism, and other literary devices such as “story, metaphor, prefiguration, allusion, echo, reversal, and irony.” This in contrast to a reading purely based on literalism and rationalism is a fresh presentation of how to read Scripture in light of its complex artistry.
The book is also a fresh invitation for the reader to appreciate the OT and to see the life of Jesus as a continuing and assuming of the story of Israel and an embodiment of the presence of the God of Israel. This type of invitation is a pushback on a type of reading of the OT that sees it as purely legalistic and negative. Rather, the gospels are meant to encourage its readers to “deeply probe the Jewish and OT roots of the Gospel narrative” and in doing so to identify Jesus accurately.
Hays’ presentation is also refreshing in light of critical Christology that has arisen in the last 50 years since the Jesus seminar. Even though Hays makes it clear that he does not wish to address the historical Jesus, his thesis at least demonstrates that there is a reading of the gospels that correlates with the Jewish history while maintaining a high Christology.
Critique
One concept that is unclear from the book is what Hays means by the reorganization and remolding of Israel’s tradition. In one sense, conceding this point seems to open the door to historical criticism—if the authors are remolding, what theological presuppositions are they molding into the tradition? On the other end, Hays could receive pushback from a more fundamentalist reader of the Scriptures who would say that the OT is inspired and does not need to be molded or that the molding itself would be wrong because God wrote the OT. Hays does not address this directly in the book, and so it leaves the reader wondering more about what he means, or about his view of Scripture’s inspiration and composition.
Another point of critique is that Hays’ thesis that the gospel witnesses show Jesus to be the embodiment of Israel’s God stops one step short by not answering the question, “so what?” The whole point of the gospels is that question. Since Jesus is the embodiment of Israel’s God, he is to be believed, to be our example, to be loved, to satisfy, and to be followed. These themes are key parts of the gospel witnesses and are embodied by the authors of the gospels who were persecuted for following Jesus at all. While Hays may cover some of this it is under-emphasized in the book given its heavy emphasis in the gospels.
December 19, 2014
Short, but exhilarating. Gives the sense that the surface has only just been scratched in studying NT christology. The book has spurred me to tackle a new project that may take two years or more: read the LXX cover to cover, since that is crucial for noticing echoes and imagery in the gospels. The book is full of delightful exegetical easter eggs, as one stray detail after another in the gospels proves to be tied to YHWH imagery in the LXX.
I sympathize with Andrew Perriman's criticism that the "early high Christology" of Hays/Bauckham/Wright/Hurtado is flattening out the NT's actual *narrative* of the kingdom in favor of a divine *identity*. I don't think Perriman has adequately fleshed out that narrative, however, so until he does, I will enjoy the insights of Hays and Bauckham.
I sympathize with Andrew Perriman's criticism that the "early high Christology" of Hays/Bauckham/Wright/Hurtado is flattening out the NT's actual *narrative* of the kingdom in favor of a divine *identity*. I don't think Perriman has adequately fleshed out that narrative, however, so until he does, I will enjoy the insights of Hays and Bauckham.
October 10, 2015
Though the concept is something that every Christian should adhere to, the author clearly questions the divine inspiration of Scripture, and has no problem giving the Gospel of Thomas, I Enoch, and the Apocrypha, equal standing with the Gospels.
December 15, 2016
Great book, wish I was smarter to understand more.
March 13, 2015
I usually hate book jackets. I've never given much time to pondering why I despise them, but I have and still do. Except for the one for Richard B. Hays' book "Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel". The whole book, content and form, is right. The right size, length, typeset, paper, argument and conclusion. I'm a bibliophile, usually for the content. This book falls under that as well as for the form. It's a beautiful burnt red, little hard-back-book. It was a good read.
One problem before I enter into brief, big picture ideas in his book. Blurbs for books in theology and biblical studies can be off putting. Joel B. Green says the work is "ground-shifting" and N.T. Wright says "Hays opens new and striking vistas on texts we thought we knew". Well maybe-kind-of-sorta. If you're approaching from the liberal side of biblical studies sure. If you're approaching from the conservative side (read: TEDS, SBTS) no. I've grown up within the conservative side of biblical studies and heard exegetical preaching Sunday-by-Sunday that is reminiscent of Hays' thesis. It is, however, one thing to read and proclaim the Bible those ways and another to make a judicious, justifying account as to why that way is apt. I'm thankful for Hays' book because he provides good arguments for why reading the Bible in those to be explained ways makes good sense.
The Manger in which Christ Lies: Figural Readings of Israel's Scriptures
The title of this chapter is drawn from Martin Luther, who acknowledged that Christians have a hard time figuring out what they call the Old Testament. Marcion eradicated the whole thing and any allusion to it in the New Testament. Others find Jesus in every word. How do Christians make sense of it? Hays focuses in on the four evangelists to see how they made sense of it. Figural interpretation is the hermeneutic all the evangelists utilized to make sense of the Old Testament. What is figural interpretation? Hays cites Erich Auerbach's definition, "Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons, are within temporarily. They are both contained in the flowing stream which is historical life, and only the comprehension, the intellectus spiritualis, of their interdependence is a spiritual act" (1) This type of reading (as different from e.g., philosophical & historical) depicts and interprets the identity of Jesus through creating imaginative links with the swaddling clothes of Christ, namely, the Old Testament. It isn't tendentious to say the Old Testament unfolds the significance of Jesus of Nazareth, what is though is that Jesus of Nazareth unfolds the Old Testament. That is Hays' thesis. Not only does the Old Testament teach us how to read the New Testament, but also the New Testament teaches us to read the Old Testament. Both are enfolded in one another and unfold one another. The evangelists present us with such a procedure of reading. Funny enough, in David Foster Wallace's 'The Pale King' a character in the novel make this quip on procedures: "The point of a procedure is to process and reduce the information in your life to just the information that has value" (section 27). Who is valuable to the evangelists to make sense of the "information" in the Old Testament?
Figuring the Mystery: Reading Scripture with Mark
Hays says you cannot understand Mark without the Old Testament. Bold claim. It's a good thing Christ gave us teachers. The meaning(s) of Mark's narrative appear only within an intertextual matrix which the Old Testament provides the background, Jesus the foreground. Those with ears to hear and eyes to read will catch these indirect and allusive references. I'll choose my favorite Mark 6:45-52. What's up with Jesus passing by the disciples on the lake during the storm? It says something like he intended to pass them by. Clever responses have been given to this (2). Mark is alluding to Job 9, specifically the Septuagint's version. Job 9 includes both the imagery of God walking upon the sea as if dry ground and the cryptic phrase "he intended to pass them by". In Job 9 alone, Job is painting with words about the power of God (walking on water) and mystery of God (Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him). God is strong and beyond human comprehension. Mark brings this background into the account of Jesus passing by the disciples. Like a good joke, once enough background is given and when the punchline comes, people laugh. Once we have Jesus and the Old Testament in relation, Jesus is identified. Mark identifies Jesus with the one spoken of in Job 9. Miss Job 9 and you miss the story. This is the mystery of Mark's gospel: just who is Jesus? And the scandalous content is matched by the presentation, form of Mark. Mark's mystery cannot just be bluntly stated, that's too simple, easy to misunderstanding, unprofitable. Consider this example. Here is one way to argue that murder is wrong. Murder is wrong. If Sally murders Bob, then Sally did something wrong. Sally murdered Bob viciously. Therefore, Sally did something wrong. Consider this example, read Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. Which one has a deeper, richer thrust? Which is more persuasive?(3) Changing things where necessary, the same is being said about Mark. We're so use to easy identification. We're like a parrot that "knows" Greek. The only person who proclaims Jesus' identity correctly is the centurion only after seeing Jesus' horrific death. What is Mark telling us? Many things of course, but here are some. Listen and read more closely, and then re-listen and reread. Embrace and wrestle with the mystery, namely, Jesus is the embodiment of the God of Israel.(4)
Hays does the same type of stuff with Matthew, Luke and John. I chose to write about Mark mainly because it was first and I got the most out of that chapter. Hays does great stuff with the three other evangelists. He concludes his book with the chapter Retrospective Readings: The Challenge of Gospel Shaped Hermeneutics. He highlights that he is not precluding the modern-historical-critical reading of the gospels, but rather that figural interpretation acts as a correction and enhancement in reading the gospels. He provides ten suggestions on how to read scripture from the gospels:
1. Israel's scriptures are understood retrospectively, reading backwards Jesus into their religious life.
2. The cross and resurrection enable this ability to read backwards (think the story on the Emmaus road).
3. The imagination is in need of a conversion. The gospels are a complex poetic genre, full of story, metaphor, prefiguration, allusion, echo, reversal, and irony. We need to become better readers.
4. Pay attention to the large narrative arcs in the Old Testament. There is a story here.
5. The gospels are not a form of supersessionism.
6. The gospels focus on certain books and chunks of Scripture which give us a way to approach others parts.
7. The gospels betray their use of the Septuagint (LXX, Greek translation of Old Testament). What are the implications for us?
8. The gospels use a literary technique called metalepsis. This funny word just means bringing in the fuller context of an allusion to shed light on the portion of a text at hand.
9. Here Hays says, "The more deeply we prove the Jewish and Old Testament roots of the gospel narratives, the more clearly we see that each of the four evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identifies Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel." "The gospels narrate the story of how the God of Israel was embodied in Jesus."
10. Again I quote Hays, "Finally, the evangelists consistently approach Scripture with the presupposition that the God found in the stories of the Old Testament is living and active. It is for that reason- and only for that reason- that the hermeneutic I have been describing can be embraced as truthful. It is not an exercise in literary fantasy lie, say, trying to live inside the imaginative world of the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Star Wars films. Rather, all of the hermeneutical recommendations I have enumerated here make sense only because God is the primary agent at work in and through the biblical story- and, indeed, only because God is in some ultimate sense the author of Israel's story. The one Lord confessed in Israel's Shema is the same God actively at work in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
(1)2
(2) It is absent in Matthew and Augustine makes it about the disciples crying out for help.
(3)The argument against murder comes through the narrative, not singularly in one sentence.
(4) Mark would have scoffed at that sentence. My apologies, Mark.
One problem before I enter into brief, big picture ideas in his book. Blurbs for books in theology and biblical studies can be off putting. Joel B. Green says the work is "ground-shifting" and N.T. Wright says "Hays opens new and striking vistas on texts we thought we knew". Well maybe-kind-of-sorta. If you're approaching from the liberal side of biblical studies sure. If you're approaching from the conservative side (read: TEDS, SBTS) no. I've grown up within the conservative side of biblical studies and heard exegetical preaching Sunday-by-Sunday that is reminiscent of Hays' thesis. It is, however, one thing to read and proclaim the Bible those ways and another to make a judicious, justifying account as to why that way is apt. I'm thankful for Hays' book because he provides good arguments for why reading the Bible in those to be explained ways makes good sense.
The Manger in which Christ Lies: Figural Readings of Israel's Scriptures
The title of this chapter is drawn from Martin Luther, who acknowledged that Christians have a hard time figuring out what they call the Old Testament. Marcion eradicated the whole thing and any allusion to it in the New Testament. Others find Jesus in every word. How do Christians make sense of it? Hays focuses in on the four evangelists to see how they made sense of it. Figural interpretation is the hermeneutic all the evangelists utilized to make sense of the Old Testament. What is figural interpretation? Hays cites Erich Auerbach's definition, "Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons, are within temporarily. They are both contained in the flowing stream which is historical life, and only the comprehension, the intellectus spiritualis, of their interdependence is a spiritual act" (1) This type of reading (as different from e.g., philosophical & historical) depicts and interprets the identity of Jesus through creating imaginative links with the swaddling clothes of Christ, namely, the Old Testament. It isn't tendentious to say the Old Testament unfolds the significance of Jesus of Nazareth, what is though is that Jesus of Nazareth unfolds the Old Testament. That is Hays' thesis. Not only does the Old Testament teach us how to read the New Testament, but also the New Testament teaches us to read the Old Testament. Both are enfolded in one another and unfold one another. The evangelists present us with such a procedure of reading. Funny enough, in David Foster Wallace's 'The Pale King' a character in the novel make this quip on procedures: "The point of a procedure is to process and reduce the information in your life to just the information that has value" (section 27). Who is valuable to the evangelists to make sense of the "information" in the Old Testament?
Figuring the Mystery: Reading Scripture with Mark
Hays says you cannot understand Mark without the Old Testament. Bold claim. It's a good thing Christ gave us teachers. The meaning(s) of Mark's narrative appear only within an intertextual matrix which the Old Testament provides the background, Jesus the foreground. Those with ears to hear and eyes to read will catch these indirect and allusive references. I'll choose my favorite Mark 6:45-52. What's up with Jesus passing by the disciples on the lake during the storm? It says something like he intended to pass them by. Clever responses have been given to this (2). Mark is alluding to Job 9, specifically the Septuagint's version. Job 9 includes both the imagery of God walking upon the sea as if dry ground and the cryptic phrase "he intended to pass them by". In Job 9 alone, Job is painting with words about the power of God (walking on water) and mystery of God (Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him). God is strong and beyond human comprehension. Mark brings this background into the account of Jesus passing by the disciples. Like a good joke, once enough background is given and when the punchline comes, people laugh. Once we have Jesus and the Old Testament in relation, Jesus is identified. Mark identifies Jesus with the one spoken of in Job 9. Miss Job 9 and you miss the story. This is the mystery of Mark's gospel: just who is Jesus? And the scandalous content is matched by the presentation, form of Mark. Mark's mystery cannot just be bluntly stated, that's too simple, easy to misunderstanding, unprofitable. Consider this example. Here is one way to argue that murder is wrong. Murder is wrong. If Sally murders Bob, then Sally did something wrong. Sally murdered Bob viciously. Therefore, Sally did something wrong. Consider this example, read Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'. Which one has a deeper, richer thrust? Which is more persuasive?(3) Changing things where necessary, the same is being said about Mark. We're so use to easy identification. We're like a parrot that "knows" Greek. The only person who proclaims Jesus' identity correctly is the centurion only after seeing Jesus' horrific death. What is Mark telling us? Many things of course, but here are some. Listen and read more closely, and then re-listen and reread. Embrace and wrestle with the mystery, namely, Jesus is the embodiment of the God of Israel.(4)
Hays does the same type of stuff with Matthew, Luke and John. I chose to write about Mark mainly because it was first and I got the most out of that chapter. Hays does great stuff with the three other evangelists. He concludes his book with the chapter Retrospective Readings: The Challenge of Gospel Shaped Hermeneutics. He highlights that he is not precluding the modern-historical-critical reading of the gospels, but rather that figural interpretation acts as a correction and enhancement in reading the gospels. He provides ten suggestions on how to read scripture from the gospels:
1. Israel's scriptures are understood retrospectively, reading backwards Jesus into their religious life.
2. The cross and resurrection enable this ability to read backwards (think the story on the Emmaus road).
3. The imagination is in need of a conversion. The gospels are a complex poetic genre, full of story, metaphor, prefiguration, allusion, echo, reversal, and irony. We need to become better readers.
4. Pay attention to the large narrative arcs in the Old Testament. There is a story here.
5. The gospels are not a form of supersessionism.
6. The gospels focus on certain books and chunks of Scripture which give us a way to approach others parts.
7. The gospels betray their use of the Septuagint (LXX, Greek translation of Old Testament). What are the implications for us?
8. The gospels use a literary technique called metalepsis. This funny word just means bringing in the fuller context of an allusion to shed light on the portion of a text at hand.
9. Here Hays says, "The more deeply we prove the Jewish and Old Testament roots of the gospel narratives, the more clearly we see that each of the four evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identifies Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel." "The gospels narrate the story of how the God of Israel was embodied in Jesus."
10. Again I quote Hays, "Finally, the evangelists consistently approach Scripture with the presupposition that the God found in the stories of the Old Testament is living and active. It is for that reason- and only for that reason- that the hermeneutic I have been describing can be embraced as truthful. It is not an exercise in literary fantasy lie, say, trying to live inside the imaginative world of the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Star Wars films. Rather, all of the hermeneutical recommendations I have enumerated here make sense only because God is the primary agent at work in and through the biblical story- and, indeed, only because God is in some ultimate sense the author of Israel's story. The one Lord confessed in Israel's Shema is the same God actively at work in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
(1)2
(2) It is absent in Matthew and Augustine makes it about the disciples crying out for help.
(3)The argument against murder comes through the narrative, not singularly in one sentence.
(4) Mark would have scoffed at that sentence. My apologies, Mark.
February 16, 2023
It is no secret that the four Gospel writers relied heavily on Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) texts to fill out their understanding of who Jesus is as well as to use them for apologetic purposes for their readers - Jew and Gentile alike. In these written up Hulsean lectures given at the University of Cambridge, Richard Hays goes further and argues not simply that the Evangelists used the Scriptures to back up their story, but that they used them in such a way as to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth was in some sense the embodiment of the God of Israel. Needless to say this runs somewhat counter to a great deal of modern Biblical scholarship - even more conservative scholars such as N.T. Wright focus more on the messianic claims of Jesus rather than his divinity. (It should be pointed out that Hays does not seek to elucidate what Jesus may or may not have thought on the subject, his attention is squarely on the Gospel writers).
Old Testament allusions are easiest when they come packaged as neat quotes (this was to fulfil what was written in the prophet Isaiah...) but Hays relies on metalepsis (a word that I had not encountered before) where by an allusion to a small part naturally leads us to consider the wider context of the quote. If one line of Isaiah 40 is quoted then the reader is expected to understand that Matthew has the whole of the passage in mind. This is plausible but unprovable.
Similarly, how much of a snatch of a saying should we treat as conscious quoting or simply coincidence. We are used to the I AM sayings in John, but what about when we find one in Mark - is he also pointing us to the divine name, or is Jesus simply saying "it's me!"?
Where I found the book most convincing was in the wider consonance of Israel's story with Jesus. I thought the exegesis of Mark's account of Jesus walking on water with Job 9 was very convincing and not one that I had come across before, despite preaching on it numerous times. Similarly the placing of Jesus' temple disruption at the beginning of John's gospel as an illustration of how to read the story (backwards and figuratively) also makes a lot of sense. There was perhaps a little less of Isaiah 53, beloved of some constituencies in the church, than might have been expected.
Old Testament allusions are easiest when they come packaged as neat quotes (this was to fulfil what was written in the prophet Isaiah...) but Hays relies on metalepsis (a word that I had not encountered before) where by an allusion to a small part naturally leads us to consider the wider context of the quote. If one line of Isaiah 40 is quoted then the reader is expected to understand that Matthew has the whole of the passage in mind. This is plausible but unprovable.
Similarly, how much of a snatch of a saying should we treat as conscious quoting or simply coincidence. We are used to the I AM sayings in John, but what about when we find one in Mark - is he also pointing us to the divine name, or is Jesus simply saying "it's me!"?
Where I found the book most convincing was in the wider consonance of Israel's story with Jesus. I thought the exegesis of Mark's account of Jesus walking on water with Job 9 was very convincing and not one that I had come across before, despite preaching on it numerous times. Similarly the placing of Jesus' temple disruption at the beginning of John's gospel as an illustration of how to read the story (backwards and figuratively) also makes a lot of sense. There was perhaps a little less of Isaiah 53, beloved of some constituencies in the church, than might have been expected.
May 30, 2025
St. Augustine once said, "The New is in the Old concealed and the Old is in the New revealed." Richard Hays attempts to demonstrate how this principle works in Reading Backwards.
At the heart of Hays argument is that the Old Testament shows the reader how to understand the New and how the New then guides the Christian reading of the Old. For Hays, the Old Testament is a Christian book, which is a presupposition that not everyone who reads it will share. But for the reader of the New Testament, one can see how Hays' concepts help understand the mission of Jesus.
Hays attacks this by addressing each of the four gospels and highlighting their unique theological stance. Mark hides the identity of Jesus in plain sight by focusing on the divine mystery. Mark's use of the OT then shows how the passages are revealed in Jesus. Matthew represents Jesus as the embodied Torah and the new Moses. By highlighting the way Matthew shapes his story, we can begin to see the callbacks to the OT passages that he cites. Luke presents Jesus as the redeemer of Israel. Indeed, with Luke's social and economic interests, the concept of redeemer plays a central theme. We begin to see how Luke reworks texts like Hannah's song (1 Sam 2) in order to address the broader themes. John presents Jesus as the New Temple, the true Temple.
Hays addresses the gospels as Second Temple products. The NT writers could not escape the world of the Hebrew Bible and this obviously influenced their portrayals of Jesus. As we carefully read the gospels and see the highlights, we can appreciate their deeper theology.
Because these were originally lectures, the writing is clear. Hays does cite the Greek text, but is careful to translate everything.
I highly recommend this book for pastors, theologians or lay people interested in deepening their understanding of the gospels.
Grade: A-
At the heart of Hays argument is that the Old Testament shows the reader how to understand the New and how the New then guides the Christian reading of the Old. For Hays, the Old Testament is a Christian book, which is a presupposition that not everyone who reads it will share. But for the reader of the New Testament, one can see how Hays' concepts help understand the mission of Jesus.
Hays attacks this by addressing each of the four gospels and highlighting their unique theological stance. Mark hides the identity of Jesus in plain sight by focusing on the divine mystery. Mark's use of the OT then shows how the passages are revealed in Jesus. Matthew represents Jesus as the embodied Torah and the new Moses. By highlighting the way Matthew shapes his story, we can begin to see the callbacks to the OT passages that he cites. Luke presents Jesus as the redeemer of Israel. Indeed, with Luke's social and economic interests, the concept of redeemer plays a central theme. We begin to see how Luke reworks texts like Hannah's song (1 Sam 2) in order to address the broader themes. John presents Jesus as the New Temple, the true Temple.
Hays addresses the gospels as Second Temple products. The NT writers could not escape the world of the Hebrew Bible and this obviously influenced their portrayals of Jesus. As we carefully read the gospels and see the highlights, we can appreciate their deeper theology.
Because these were originally lectures, the writing is clear. Hays does cite the Greek text, but is careful to translate everything.
I highly recommend this book for pastors, theologians or lay people interested in deepening their understanding of the gospels.
Grade: A-
February 14, 2021
In this book, Richard Hays explores the ways in which we ought to read the scriptures in light of all of the fulfillments found in the Paschal mystery; We are to “read backwards,” reinterpreting what happened before by the cross and resurrection, understanding that the scriptures are to be read as “a unified whole, but . . . not undifferentiated.” Hays argues that this is the basic hermeneutic used by the evangelists. Furthermore, against the majority of scholarship from the 19th century, he convincingly reclaims the idea that all of the evangelists, not just John, portray Jesus as the true embodiment of the God of Israel, largely through their nearly constant Old Testament references that may be illusory to the average modern reader. In doing so, he also valuably points out the distinctions of the four evangelists’ voices.
One thing that I found slightly annoying, however, is that many of his readings of the gospels, to some extent, depend on a theory of Marcan priority which I am not altogether convinced of, and about which there is still obviously much uncertainty. Nevertheless, this presupposition does not detract from the main points of the book.
One thing that I found slightly annoying, however, is that many of his readings of the gospels, to some extent, depend on a theory of Marcan priority which I am not altogether convinced of, and about which there is still obviously much uncertainty. Nevertheless, this presupposition does not detract from the main points of the book.
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