Book Review - The Art of Reading Scripture

I recommend buying and reading The Art of Reading Scripture solely for Richard Hays’s Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection. Not too long ago, I read his book, The Faith of Jesus Christ, and commented to my wife that here was a scholar who wrote dynamite and didn’t know it. He does the same in Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection, one of fifteen essays found in The Art of Reading Scripture.

The premise of Hays’s essay is found on the road to Emmaus. In that Gospel account, Jesus appears to two disciples and says that all the scriptures bore witness of him. Hays writes:

“The New Testament’s resurrection accounts teach us to read the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. To read it in this way … does not mean to deny its original historical sense, nor does it preclude responsible historical criticism. Christians have a stake in seeking the most historically careful readings of the Old Testament texts that we can attain. At the same time, however, in light of the New Testament’s witness, we cannot confine the meaning of the Old Testament to the literal sense understood by its original authors and readers, for these ancient texts have been taken up into a new story that amplifies and illumines their meaning in unexpected ways. … [The New Testament writers] insist that Israel’s Scriptures, understood in their fullest and deepest way, prefigure Jesus.”

What Hays has picked up on, which appears difficult for New Testament scholars to do, is the fallout from Paul’s revelation of the “mystery of Christ” that had remained hidden throughout history. There are many New Testament scholars (and even Old Testament scholars) who don’t possess a clue about the real drama of redemption or how Paul handled Old Testament scripture, but who will argue night and day about iotas and commas and jots and tittles. It is wonderful to read after Hays, a respected scholar who is not, to use his own phrase, an “unwitting partisan of the Sadducees.” His essay is not for the faint at heart, but it is well worth the price of the book. A copy of his essay should be given to every Sunday preacher who wants to use O.T. Scripture as his base text.