Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul by Richard B. Hays
Essentials in Biblical Theology Series
Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul by Richard B. Hays[1]
Richard Hays’s 1989 book Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul accomplished a level of influence rarely attained in the field of biblical studies. Echoes is often referenced in the fields of Pauline studies,[2] biblical intertextuality,[3] and hermeneutics.[4] The book possesses an enduring legacy as it continues to make an impact on contemporary works—especially those works dealing with the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.[5] Unsurprisingly, Echoes is of significant importance to the field of biblical theology as the book directly addresses the relationship between the OT and NT and the way in which the church should interpret the text of Scripture in a contemporary setting.
Hays opened Echoes by discussing his methodology for understanding Paul’s use of OT Scripture in his letters. Hays argued that Paul was learning to read Israel’s Scriptures in light of his own transformative religious experience. Paul “learned” to read the Old Testament in a way that was “vigorous and theologically generative” (2). In other words, Hays understood Paul as doing something with Israel’s Scriptures rather than just summarizing their meaning. He was not simply reading Israel’s texts, but “reinterpreting Scripture to address the concerns of his communities” (9). Hays’s goal, therefore, was to understand how Paul read Scripture and how contemporary Christians might learn to read Scripture from following Paul’s example (5; 178–92).
Of particular importance to Hays’s work is finding the right terminology for identifying which OT texts or concepts Paul infuses into his work. He proposed that Paul’s use of Israel’s Scriptures is so ingrained in his writing that an intertextual methodology must account for both intentional allusions and citations, as well as more ambiguous “echoes” which do not require “conscious intention” on the part of Paul as author, nor the discernment of his original audience as readers (29). Hays recognized that the boundary between allusion and echo is blurred. He offers as a general rule that he will use the term allusion “of obvious intertextual references, echo of subtler ones” (29). In praxis, Hays rarely distinguished between echo and allusion in his discussion of Paul’s writings.
Echoes is heavier on application than on methodology. Hays offered seven tests for “hearing echoes,” but expected the tests to yield inexact results (29–31). He argued, “We must acknowledge that there will be exceptional occasions when the tests fail to account for the spontaneous power of particular intertextual conjunctions. Despite all the careful hedges that we plant around texts, meaning has a way of leaping over” (33). Hays’s assent that meaning might transcend method is apparent throughout Echoes. Hays’s assent to the inexact nature of his methodology is made apparent by the fact that he rarely mentions his seven tests for an echo after he proposed the methodology. Instead, Hays applied the principle of his methodology—that a Pauline reading of the OT is a reinterpretation of the OT in light of Paul’s current concerns—to the texts he explored.
In addition to an introduction and concluding chapter, Hays explored three areas of the Pauline corpus—Romans (esp. Rom 9–11), the typological connection between Israel and the church in the Corinthian correspondence, and the Pauline metaphor of the church as a letter from Christ in 2 Corinthians 3. Each chapter explores a myriad of possible OT texts as influences on Paul’s theology and message. Perhaps the most important element of Hays’s exploration of Paul’s reading of the OT was his conclusion that Pauline hermeneutics are inherently “ecclesiocentric” in nature. Hays argued that “what Paul finds in Scripture, above all else, is a prefiguration of the church as the people of God” (86). Paul’s ecclesiocentric hermeneutic drives his citation of the Old Testament rather than a methodological exegesis of individual OT passages.
Hays closed Echoes with a chapter summarizing his findings and considering the degree to which Paul’s interpretation of Scripture should be normative in contemporary readings of both the Old and New Testaments. He argued that his examination of Paul’s use of the OT “discovered no systematic exegetical procedures at work in his reading of Scripture” (160). Paul’s use of the OT is rooted in the application to Paul’s current context rather than methodological precision. Paul undertakes a figural reading of the OT, rereading and reimagining Israel’s story within the context of the churches to which he writes. Hays commends Paul’s hermeneutic and recommends that it should be paradigmatic for the church (190).
There are several significant implications of Hays’s work for the field of biblical theology. First, Hays’s work continues to stand as a major contribution to understanding the relationship between the Testaments. Within a decade of the publication of Echoes, a section of an academic monograph comprising six essays was dedicated to discussing Hays’s intertextual strategy.[6] Contemporary works on the relationship between the Testaments continue to dialogue with Hays, even when the authors may ultimately reject his terminology and approach.[7] Hays himself would go on to spend more time exploring how the ideas he proposed in Echoes impacted reading other parts of Scripture, especially the Gospels.[8]
Even more important to the field of biblical theology are various aspects of Hays’s hermeneutical methodology. Hays found in Paul a model for reading the text in a way that generates new theological meanings. Hays showed a conscious effort in his work to walk the narrow path between historically informed and reader-response approaches to the text (27). His approach does give the reader and reading communities a great deal of freedom in interpreting the biblical text; yet, it is still bound by what Hays understood as the boundaries found within Paul’s own interpretation. According to Hays, no reading can be legitimate if it denies the faithfulness of Israel’s God or fails to acknowledge the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus as “the climactic manifestation of God’s righteousness” (191). Guided by these two boundaries, Hays proposes that the major theme of Paul’s writing is that “God’s righteousness, which has now embraced the Gentiles among the people of God, includes the promise of God’s unbroken faithfulness to Israel” (73). This theme leads Hays to his most innovative biblical theological conclusion—that the Pauline texts are to be read from an ecclesiocentric perspective.
Richard Hays’s work in Echoes deserves the serious attention of those engaged in the work of biblical theology. His proposal lacks methodological clarity but does expose some vital Pauline themes through a creative and thorough examination of how Paul understood the Old Testament. Evangelicals can benefit from Hays’s work as he fosters a serious look at the depth to which Paul’s letters and all texts of the NT are bathed in the message of the Old Testament. What evangelicals will find challenging in Hays is the lack of attention to the role authorial intent plays in understanding the OT texts. If Paul is not concerned with what the authors of the OT meant, then interpreters may understandably ask if we might lose concern with what Paul meant in the process of applying his texts to our current situation.
Cory R. Barnes
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (November 2025)
TL;DR
Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul has wide and lasting influence in the field of biblical studies.
Hays understood Paul’s use of the Old Testament Scriptures as a series of allusions and “echoes” that reread Israel’s Scriptures in the context of the churches to which Paul was writing.
While Hays proposed tests for detecting intertextual connections, his main goal was to explore the various ways Paul used the Old Testament, even if it presented no consistent methodological system.
Hays concluded that Paul’s hermeneutic is fundamentally ecclesiocentric. The main themes Paul found in the Old Testament were those of election and promise. Paul employed a figural reading that reimagined Israel’s story in light of God’s work in the New Testament church.
Hays’s methodology offers significant value for the evangelical biblical theology, though evangelicals must consider the lack of attention given to authorial intent in the hermeneutical method he derives from Paul.
[1] Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
[2] See the frequent citation of Hays’s work in Scot McKnight, Lynn H. Cohick, and Nijay K. Gupta, eds., Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023).
[3] See Stanley E. Porter, Sacred Tradition in the New Testament: Tracing Old Testament Themes in the Gospels and Epistles (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016), 9–12; 19–22; 43–46.
[4] See William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, Third edition. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2017), 67; Anthony C. Thiselton, Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009), 89.
[5] For example, the authors of the expansive 2023 volume Israel’s Scriptures reference Hays more than two dozen times. Matthias Henze and David Lincicum, eds., Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings: The Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2023), 1063; Echoes also is a direct influence on ongoing works in the field. See Christopher A. Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians (Leiden: Brill Academic Pub, 2008).
[6] Craig Alan Evans and James Alvin Sanders, Paul and the Scriptures of Israel, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 83 (Sheffield: Sheffield academic press, 1993), 42–97.
[7] Porter, Sacred Tradition in the New Testament, 9–12.
[8] See Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2014); Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016).
