(Part 1)

JBTM Book Reviews
177
Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness. By Richard B.
Hays. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014. xxii + 155 pages. Hardcover, $34.95.
In contrast to some biblical scholars, Richard Hays’s works do not appear on the
shelves of bookstores with the same frequency as quarterly periodicals. Though Hays does
not publish at a prolific rate, when he does publish his works are typically notable in their
impact on the field of biblical studies. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul has affected the
understanding of the impact of Old Testament (OT) texts in the theology and writing of Paul
since its publication in 1989, and The Moral Vision of the New Testament, which was named
one of the top 100 most important religious books of the twentieth century by Christianity
Today, has influenced both the church and academy. Richard Hays currently serves as George
Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, where he served as
dean from 2010–2015.
Reading Backwards is an invitation to embrace a figural reading of Christian Scripture.
By figural reading, Hays means “the discernment of unexpected patterns of correspondence
between earlier and later events or persons within a continuous temporal stream” (93).
The figural reading of Christian Scripture proposed by Hays flows from the hermeneutical
strategies of the Gospel writers. In his introduction, Hays argues that the Gospel writers
should be looked to as models for contemporary interpreters of the biblical text. Thus, he
makes the foundational thesis of his work that “the Gospels teach us how to read the OT,
and—at the same time—the OT teaches us how to read the Gospels” (4). Hays tests this
thesis by examining the unique way in which each Evangelist reads the OT.
After exploring the way in which each Evangelist reads the OT in chapters 2–5, Hays
summarizes his findings in his concluding chapter. He notes that all the Evangelists read the
OT figuratively yet distinctively, providing four voices that come together in a polyphonic
proclamation of Jesus’s divinity, based on Israel’s Scriptures (95). Hays is careful to note
that reading the OT figuratively does not mean reading it as “deliberately predicting events
in the life of Jesus” (94). Hays concludes Reading Backwards by observing ten ways the four
Evangelists read the OT (104–9). Though Hays does not present these observations as a
complete method, he does recommend that they lead toward a “Gospel-shaped hermeneutic.”
Understanding the use of the OT by the New Testament (NT) authors is no easy task,
and continues to be one which divides scholars, particularly in the evangelical world. With
the contentious nature of the topic in mind, there are some areas in which I question
Hays’s analysis. Foremost among these areas is Hays’s propensity to assume a direct level
of influence between OT and NT texts when there are no direct verbal parallels in the text.
One example of this would be Hays’s assertion that when the Pharisees in Mark 2 ask, “Who
is able to forgive sins but the one who is God?” Mark is invoking in the dialogue of the
Pharisees Exod 34:6–7 (21–22). While Exod 34:6–7 does state that YHWH is a God “bearing
away transgression, rebellion, and sin,” there is no explicit claim in the passage (though it is