Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul

Richard B. Hays (1948–2025) was George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Duke Divinity School.

“A powerful reading. . . . [Hays’s] careful and fresh exegesis . . . challenges not a few traditional or highly regarded readings. . . . A major contribution both to Pauline studies and to our understanding of earliest Christian theology as a living dialogue with the scriptures of Israel.”—James D. G. Dunn, Literature and Theology“Hays has without doubt posed the right question at the right time within the horizon of a particularly important problematic. . . . A new beginning for the question concerning the reception of the Old Testament in the New.”—Hans Hübner, Theologische Literaturzeitung“This lively excellent book is a fine effort to link the two worlds of modern critical New Testament scholarship and literary criticism. The book is clear and accessible to the nonspecialist as well as the New Testament scholar. It is up-to-date in the two worlds it seeks to bring closer together and discriminating in its use of secondary literature from each.”—John H. Schütz, Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor Emeritus, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill“Written in a direct, engaging, lively manner, this is a study of great interest to literary students, whether of methods of allusiveness or of biblical literature.”—Eleanor Cook, professor of English, University of Toronto“In the letters of Paul, the serious reader is faced with the fascinating challenge of developing a sensitivity to the resonances of intertextuality, and it is here that Hays makes his weighty and exciting contribution, helping us to sense the remarkable ways in which Paul heard the voice of scripture far beyond the confines of formal citation.”—J. Louis Martyn, Edward Robinson Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary