(Part 1)

JBTM Book Reviews
178
certainly implicit) that God alone forgives sin. The connection between these two passages
becomes even less likely when one considers that Mark’s copy of the OT—the Septuagint—
states that God takes away (aphaireō) sin, while the Pharisees in Mark wonder that Jesus
could forgive (aphiēmi) sin. With the lack of similarity in content and vocabulary, one might
wonder if Mark is reading this passage at all, much less reading it backwards.
Though some of the NT texts Hays identifies may not be evidence of an intentional
backwards reading by the Evangelists, the vast majority of the texts he identifies are clear
examples of the Gospel writers reading Israel’s Scriptures backwards in order to understand
and explain the life of Jesus. By examining the figural OT reading of each Evangelist, Hays
substantiates half of his thesis: the OT does teach us how to read the Gospels. By examining
how the Evangelists use OT intertexts to make vital points—indeed, the most vital points—
of their message, Hays highlights the fact that to understand the Gospels, readers must
understand the OT and how it was used by the Evangelists. Hays highlights that the failure
of contemporary scholarship to consider the way the Evangelists read the OT is particularly
evident in the claim that the Synoptic Gospels contain a low Christology (72).
The second half of Hays’s thesis—that the Gospels teach us how to read the OT—is
proposed in theory in Reading Backwards, but not proven in praxis. Though Hays proposes
that the OT should be interpreted figuratively by the contemporary church, following the
model of the Evangelists, he does not do so within the work. Reading Backwards examines
only OT texts in contexts where they are cited or alluded to by the Evangelists. Though Hays
does not provide a figural reading of any OT passages apart from those found in the Gospels,
he does provide ten observations which may aid in doing so. These observations are perhaps
the greatest gift Hays offers the church and the Christian academy in Reading Backwards.
In these observations, Hays offers a way in which the contemporary Christian community
may participate in a genuinely Christian reading of the OT. Whether it will be for readers of
Hays’s work to put this promising method into practice or if Hays will do so himself when he
expands the current work is yet to be seen. What is certain, however, is that hermeneutical
ventures of this sort are necessary as the church seeks to understand how we are to interpret
from Moses to all the prophets all that was written concerning Jesus, who we confess to be
the Messiah (Luke 24:27).
- Cory Barnes, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, Louisiana