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Scripting the Son: Scriptural Exegesis and the Making of Early Christology
In Scripting the Son, Kyle R. Hughes analyzes how dialogical texts in the Old Testament presented early Christian exegetes with riddles that were best solved through a person-centered reading strategy known as prosopological exegesis. From the method’s roots in the pages of the New Testament through its increasingly careful application in the hands of church fathers such as Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen, this book traces how prosopological exegesis contributed to the development of Christology in the pre-Nicene period. By examining the origins and evolution of this approach to biblical interpretation, Hughes demonstrates how the very words of Scripture exerted a pressure for a Trinitarian understanding of God that was rooted in the Old Testament and aligned with the emerging rule of faith, exemplifying the dynamic interplay between biblical interpretation and doctrinal formulation in the early centuries of Christianity.
340 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 5, 2024
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January 13, 2025
Hughes traces the use and development of prosopological exegesis (PE) in the early church, paying special attention to Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. He also shows how study of PE has implications for testimonia collections and the developing Rule of Faith.
If all this interests you, then Hughes’ study is well worth your time! It’s a key work in a developing field of study. I eagerly read Scripting the Son because I’ve wanted to do this very study myself. In The Birth of the Trinity, Matthew Bates pointed out that Christian interpreters like Justin and Irenaeus explicitly employed PE. As I read these texts for myself, I recognized the need for more study here. My own interests lie in NT use of the Psalms and I think early Christian interpretation should inform our hermeneutics in this area more than has been the case in the past. So again, this is my jam. But I’m still young in my understanding of early Christianity, so Hughes’ guidance is very welcome.
While I deeply appreciated this book, my one major complaint for me is that Hughes’ regularly switched from being descriptive to prescriptive. His own opinions about the OT texts infiltrated—and undermined—his summaries of early Christian interpretation. For example, when surveying Hebrews 1, Hughes said that the author introduced “a new addressee” for Psalm 2. For Hughes, “Christ was not in view in the original text [Psalm 2], which was presumably a royal psalm centered on the Davidic king” (p30), so Hebrews “shifted” the referent. But how do we know the psalm was never about Christ and that Hebrews shifted its referent? We certainly don’t know that from the inspired authors of scripture—the author of Hebrews gives no hint that he’s ignoring some other “original meaning/referent/context” of the Psalm. Hughes insight about the original meaning comes from the conclusions of modern biblical scholarship.
He goes on to state that we can be confident Hebrews is employing PE because Hebrews changed the referent (from historic Davidic king to Christ). So Hughes’ definition of PE seems to require the interpreter ignoring the original context, but this so called original context is found through modern scholarship; not through any hint of the interpreter themselves. So while studying early Christian interpretation of Psalm 2 , Hughes is letting his own presuppositions introduce problems that the early interpreters didn’t see.
To be fair, Hughes isn’t alone in doing this: in a footnote on the same page, he quotes from Madison Pierce who says the same thing. Perhaps Hughes, Pierce, and others are trying to avoid the criticism of overstepping into OT scholarship. But it irked me nonetheless. These are assumptions the apostles and early followers did not share. In fact, these assumptions are incompatible with their arguments. The entire point of Hebrews 1 is that Psalm 2 could not have been spoken of anyone but Christ. I don’t think the author of Hebrews would agree that the “original context” of Psalm 2 is some historic king. Similarly, when Peter in Acts 2 quotes Psalm 16, he explicitly says the original speaker cannot be David (Acts 2:29–31). Rather, Peter argues that David wrote Psalm 16 in the words of Christ and consciously so! So for Peter, there is no “original context” for Psalm 16 apart from Jesus (cf 1 Peter 1:10–12). If the objects of this study (Hebrews and Peter) wouldn’t agree with Hughes about the original context then why is it even mentioned?
(As an aside, the idea that PE requires the interpreter to ignore “original referent” is a primary reason for why PE is criticized among some conservative scholars—they think PE requires one to believe the NT authors are “misreading” the OT. But that’s not what I see happening by the early church. Rather, the accusation of misreading are introduced by scholars who disagree with the texts they’re studying)
Hughes judges the data against his own criteria in other places too: 1) Hughes doesn’t see Acts 2 as a clear instance of PE because for him, true instances of prosopological exegesis must be marked explicit citations. That’s puzzling to me, since so much of the tradition looked back to Acts 2 for its rationale for PE; for example, Origen does, as Hughes notes (p158). 2) I’m unconvinced that predictive prophecy and prosopological exegesis are utterly distinct categories in the minds of early Christians. At times Hughes seems to pit them against each other. 3) Hughes oddly suggests that PE obliterates the voice of the prophet. For example, if Christ is the speaker of Psalm 16 then David disappears entirely. But that’s not how I think the NT and early church present PE (Acts 2; 1 Peter 1). The prophet is the microphone, the conduit, the “mouth” through whom the Spirit of Christ speaks — clearly the prophet plays an important role and isn’t obliterated. So, on the whole, I think Hughes’ work sometimes oversteps from description to prescription—he criticizes the data for not aligning to his expectations.
My review is largely critical but that’s likely because when you’re close to something its problems seem bigger—I obviously have strong opinions on this topic! But none of my complaints should discourage the reader from reading this book! I’m thrilled it exists and I’m going to be referencing it many times! Hughes reveals deep familiarity with the texts in question and does the reader a service. The many tables and summaries are very helpful. Also, the final section that pulls together all the instances of PE into a “script” was wonderful. I found myself deeply moved.
If all this interests you, then Hughes’ study is well worth your time! It’s a key work in a developing field of study. I eagerly read Scripting the Son because I’ve wanted to do this very study myself. In The Birth of the Trinity, Matthew Bates pointed out that Christian interpreters like Justin and Irenaeus explicitly employed PE. As I read these texts for myself, I recognized the need for more study here. My own interests lie in NT use of the Psalms and I think early Christian interpretation should inform our hermeneutics in this area more than has been the case in the past. So again, this is my jam. But I’m still young in my understanding of early Christianity, so Hughes’ guidance is very welcome.
While I deeply appreciated this book, my one major complaint for me is that Hughes’ regularly switched from being descriptive to prescriptive. His own opinions about the OT texts infiltrated—and undermined—his summaries of early Christian interpretation. For example, when surveying Hebrews 1, Hughes said that the author introduced “a new addressee” for Psalm 2. For Hughes, “Christ was not in view in the original text [Psalm 2], which was presumably a royal psalm centered on the Davidic king” (p30), so Hebrews “shifted” the referent. But how do we know the psalm was never about Christ and that Hebrews shifted its referent? We certainly don’t know that from the inspired authors of scripture—the author of Hebrews gives no hint that he’s ignoring some other “original meaning/referent/context” of the Psalm. Hughes insight about the original meaning comes from the conclusions of modern biblical scholarship.
He goes on to state that we can be confident Hebrews is employing PE because Hebrews changed the referent (from historic Davidic king to Christ). So Hughes’ definition of PE seems to require the interpreter ignoring the original context, but this so called original context is found through modern scholarship; not through any hint of the interpreter themselves. So while studying early Christian interpretation of Psalm 2 , Hughes is letting his own presuppositions introduce problems that the early interpreters didn’t see.
To be fair, Hughes isn’t alone in doing this: in a footnote on the same page, he quotes from Madison Pierce who says the same thing. Perhaps Hughes, Pierce, and others are trying to avoid the criticism of overstepping into OT scholarship. But it irked me nonetheless. These are assumptions the apostles and early followers did not share. In fact, these assumptions are incompatible with their arguments. The entire point of Hebrews 1 is that Psalm 2 could not have been spoken of anyone but Christ. I don’t think the author of Hebrews would agree that the “original context” of Psalm 2 is some historic king. Similarly, when Peter in Acts 2 quotes Psalm 16, he explicitly says the original speaker cannot be David (Acts 2:29–31). Rather, Peter argues that David wrote Psalm 16 in the words of Christ and consciously so! So for Peter, there is no “original context” for Psalm 16 apart from Jesus (cf 1 Peter 1:10–12). If the objects of this study (Hebrews and Peter) wouldn’t agree with Hughes about the original context then why is it even mentioned?
(As an aside, the idea that PE requires the interpreter to ignore “original referent” is a primary reason for why PE is criticized among some conservative scholars—they think PE requires one to believe the NT authors are “misreading” the OT. But that’s not what I see happening by the early church. Rather, the accusation of misreading are introduced by scholars who disagree with the texts they’re studying)
Hughes judges the data against his own criteria in other places too: 1) Hughes doesn’t see Acts 2 as a clear instance of PE because for him, true instances of prosopological exegesis must be marked explicit citations. That’s puzzling to me, since so much of the tradition looked back to Acts 2 for its rationale for PE; for example, Origen does, as Hughes notes (p158). 2) I’m unconvinced that predictive prophecy and prosopological exegesis are utterly distinct categories in the minds of early Christians. At times Hughes seems to pit them against each other. 3) Hughes oddly suggests that PE obliterates the voice of the prophet. For example, if Christ is the speaker of Psalm 16 then David disappears entirely. But that’s not how I think the NT and early church present PE (Acts 2; 1 Peter 1). The prophet is the microphone, the conduit, the “mouth” through whom the Spirit of Christ speaks — clearly the prophet plays an important role and isn’t obliterated. So, on the whole, I think Hughes’ work sometimes oversteps from description to prescription—he criticizes the data for not aligning to his expectations.
My review is largely critical but that’s likely because when you’re close to something its problems seem bigger—I obviously have strong opinions on this topic! But none of my complaints should discourage the reader from reading this book! I’m thrilled it exists and I’m going to be referencing it many times! Hughes reveals deep familiarity with the texts in question and does the reader a service. The many tables and summaries are very helpful. Also, the final section that pulls together all the instances of PE into a “script” was wonderful. I found myself deeply moved.
October 5, 2025
This is a very narrowly focused academic work on the subject of prosopological exegisis, particularly where it concerns the relationship between the NT writings and the OT. I love how the author notes upfront, "The church's struggle with the Trinity was not a battle against the Old Testament, but rather a battle for the Old Testament."
If you aren't familiar, prosopological exegesis is essentially the practice of interpreting scripture through the characters and persons contained within a particular passage. It makes a good pairing with my own personal philosophy and appraoch when it comes to scripture and theology, which is a mix of participationist and narrative theology.
The book basically sets out to be a study of the historical study of the development of prosopological exegisis beginning with the New Testament and then tracing it through the early writers from Martyr to Irenaeus and Tertullian and ultimately the biggest hitter of them all- Origen. I confess, I was wrestless through some of the early going, even though I knew it was important to the bigger picture, as I wanted to get to Origen. Thankfully that section doesn't disappoint.
That you can trace the development of prosopological exegesis primarily through the concern for building a Christology out of the OT is part of the book's contributions to the field. What I enjoyed the most though was just the clarity it btings to this particular philsophical approach. That characters and persons can function as an interpretive device is intuitive, but not something I had given a lot of thought to. I think it has given me a fresh perspective on engaging the text and theology. What's definitely worth the price of the book though, beyond the section on Origen, is the "script" the book offers in its concluding chapters, essentially runing through the essential examples within the book (much of which comes from the Psalms) as a kind of comprehensive narrative that emphasizes the Judeo-Christian story while teaching readers about this exegetical practice at the same time. Absolutely rich and rewarding.
If you aren't familiar, prosopological exegesis is essentially the practice of interpreting scripture through the characters and persons contained within a particular passage. It makes a good pairing with my own personal philosophy and appraoch when it comes to scripture and theology, which is a mix of participationist and narrative theology.
The book basically sets out to be a study of the historical study of the development of prosopological exegisis beginning with the New Testament and then tracing it through the early writers from Martyr to Irenaeus and Tertullian and ultimately the biggest hitter of them all- Origen. I confess, I was wrestless through some of the early going, even though I knew it was important to the bigger picture, as I wanted to get to Origen. Thankfully that section doesn't disappoint.
That you can trace the development of prosopological exegesis primarily through the concern for building a Christology out of the OT is part of the book's contributions to the field. What I enjoyed the most though was just the clarity it btings to this particular philsophical approach. That characters and persons can function as an interpretive device is intuitive, but not something I had given a lot of thought to. I think it has given me a fresh perspective on engaging the text and theology. What's definitely worth the price of the book though, beyond the section on Origen, is the "script" the book offers in its concluding chapters, essentially runing through the essential examples within the book (much of which comes from the Psalms) as a kind of comprehensive narrative that emphasizes the Judeo-Christian story while teaching readers about this exegetical practice at the same time. Absolutely rich and rewarding.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews