Conclusion
Did Not Our Hearts Burn within Us?
“… it would be an unwarranted hermeneutical presumption to read the Law and the Prophets as deliberately predicting events in the life of Jesus. But in light of the unfolding story of Jesus, it is both right and illuminating to read backwards and to discover in the Law and the Prophets an unexpected foreshadowing of the later story.”
A review of the four gospels.
- Mark: Figuring the mystery of the kingdom of God. “Mark’s hermeneutical strategy, therefore, is to provide cryptic scriptural pointers that draw the discerning reader into the heart of the eschatological mystery.”
- Matthew: Torah transfigured. “Matthew’s hermeneutical strategy, therefore, is to elucidate clearly how Jesus interprets and exemplifies Torah—a Torah now reconfigured around Jesus.”
- Luke: The story of Israel’s redemption.“Luke’s hermeneutical strategy, then, is to renarrate the story of Israel in such a way that the story of Jesus and the church can be confidently recognized as the fulfillment of the divine plan for salvation, for Israel and for the whole world.”
- John: Refiguration of Israel’s temple and worship. “For John, this symbolically transformative hermeneutic is possible for one compelling theological reason: Jesus is the incarnation of the Logos who was present before creation, through whom all things were made. He is the divine Wisdom whose being is the ground of the whole created order.”
The challenge and gift of diversity.
Gospel-shaped hermeneutics. Five ways that the gospels teach us to embrace a Gospel-shaped hermeneutic.
- Reading backwards.
- Conversion of the imagination. “If we learn from them how to read, we will approach the reading of Scripture with a heightened awareness of story, metaphor, prefiguration, allusion, echo, reversal, and irony.” “… a Gospel-shaped hermeneutic will pay primary attention to large narrative arcs and patterns in the Old Testament, rather than treating Scripture chiefly as a source of oracles, proof-texts, or halakhic regulations.” “If we could acquire the single discipline of listening attentively for echoes of Scripture in the Gospel narratives, it would have an enormous impact on our pastoral imagination and our preaching.”
- The unity and continuity of Scripture. "In short, the findings of this study call for the rejection of naďve Marcionite hermeneutics and for a renewed appreciation of the unity of the Old Testament and New Testament as Christian Scripture.”
- Jesus as the God of Israel. “The more deeply we probe the Jewish and Old Testament roots of the Gospel narratives, the more clearly we see that each of the four Evangelists, in their diverse portrayals, identifies Jesus as the embodiment of the God of Israel.”
- The Gospels as testimony and commissioning. “There is only one reason why the Evangelists’ christological interpretation of the Old Testament is not a matter of stealing or twisting Israel’s sacred texts: the God to whom the Gospels bear witness, the God incarnate in Jesus, is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Either that is true, or it is not. If it is not, the Gospels are a delusional and pernicious distortion of Israel’s story. If it is true, then the figural literary unity of Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament together, is nothing other than the climactic fruition of that one God’s self-revelation. As readers, we are forced to choose which of these hermeneutical forks in the road we will take."
Quotes from: Richard B. Hays. “Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels.” Apple Books.