Richard Hays is one of the more influential NT scholars of this generation, and the editors of The Word Leaps the Gap should be commended for producing a fitting tribute to this great man’s legacy and scholarship. The volume is a helpful introduction to his work and thought, as well as an advance in the “important” conversations about the Bible, Christian theology, and the shape of the Christian life” (p. xxii).

In the first chapter, “Why ‘The Way the Words Run’ Matters: Reflections on Becoming a ‘Major Biblical Scholar,’ “Stanley Hauerwas responds to earlier criticism from Hays to his work in Unleashing Scripture, largely on the grounds of hermeneutical incoherence. In “Echoes of the Ancient Near East? Intertexuality and the Comparative Study of the Old Testament,” Christopher B. Hays builds upon the work of Stefan Alkier and Richard Hays on intertextuality, widening the seven criteria for recognizing echoes of the Old Testament in Paul for Old Testament and ANE studies (pp. 36–41). The third chapter, “On Interpreting the Mind of God: The Theological Significance of the Flood Narrative (Gen 6–9),” by Walter Mobely, works through the “evil-thought clause” within Gen 8:21 and its awkward surface relation to 6:5 and the declaration of Noah as righteous in light of the world and context of the scribe “responsible for the clause” (p. 56). Gary A. Anderson, “The Book of Tobit and the Canonical Ordering of the Book of the Twelve,” explores Tobit’s knowledge of Nineveh’s impending fall through a text-critical engagement of 14:3–4 as well as the canonical shaping of the Minor Prophets scroll, resulting in the suggestion that the “canonical ordering of the biblical books does make a difference for the interpreter” (p. 74). Anderson’s contribution is characteristically clever and convincing. In “Faithfulness and Fear, Stumbling and Salvation: Receptions of LXX Isa 8:11–18 in the New Testament,” J. Ross Wagner examines the “meaningful potential” of the Greek text of LXX 8:11–18 through its use in Romans, 1 Peter, and Hebrews.

Joel Marcus follows with the lively “Idolatry in the New Testament.” Marcus traces the opposition of idolatry as the central message of the Old Testament through its appropriations and transformations through the second temple period and into the NT. In “Healing in the Wings of His Garment: The Synoptics and Malachi 4:2,” Dale C. Allison Jr. outflanks “exegetical amnesia” by summarizing seven possible interpretations posed by the historical engagement with Mark 6:56, while, with his usual erudition, works through Pseudo-Epiphanius, Test. 7:30 to show how Mark 6:56 may be evoking Mal 4:2. Bruce N. Fisk’s chapter, “See My Tears: A Lament for Jerusalem (Luke 13:31–35; 19:41–44),” reads the potentiality of Jesus’ lament throughout Luke as well as into what will no doubt be judged to be controversial and charged comments regarding the contemporary political situation of Israel and Palestine (pp. 176–78). David P. Moessner’s essay, “ ‘Managing the Audience:’ The Rhetoric of Authorial Intent and Audience Comprehension in the Narrative Epistemology of Polybius of Megalopis, Diodorus Siculus, and Luke the Evangelist,” is a careful navigation between “effects” and “authorially designed interpretations” of ancient texts.

“ ‘In Our Own Language:’ Pentecost, Babel, and the Shaping of Christian Community in Acts 2:1–13,” by Joel B. Green, suggests “Luke’s account constitutes a profoundly theological and political statement displacing Babel- and Jerusalem- and Rome-centered visions of a unified world in favor of an altogether different sort of community” (p. 199). Stephen B. Chapman, in “Saul / Paul Onomastics, Typology, and Christian Scripture,” asks why the narrative of Acts consistently refers to “Saul” prior to Acts 13:9 and “Paul” thereafter. In this clever piece, Chapman suggests a link with Saul of Kish and the Gentile mission while stating that biblical “names themselves open up space for contemporary intertextual reflection and symbolic cross-fertilization between the Testaments” (p. 241). C. Kavin Rowe continues to publish small miracles. This time, in “The Book of Acts and the Cultural Explication of the Identity of God,” Rowe traces the “clash of the gods” in early Christian and pagan contexts, while chiefly focusing on the narrative of Acts as an exposition of Christian ecclesial life as the cultural witness to God’s name (cf. 15:14). Read everything you can by Rowe.

Marianne Meye Thompson, “ ‘They Bear Witness to Me:’ The Psalms in the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of John,” focuses on the role of the Psalms in the so-called Book of Passion as part of John’s “apologetic agenda” and as instructions for “following Jesus.” Luke Timothy Johnson, “John and Thomas in Context: An Exercise in Canonical Criticism,” discusses the nexus of “canon formation” and “community identity” through an imaginative thought experiment: viz., what if Thomas had been canonized? How would it affect community identity and canonical shape? The experiment is naturally “artificial” (p. 287), but quite interesting! D. Moody Smith follows with an investigation into “The Historical Figure of Jesus in 1 John,” primarily through an analysis of archē in the Epistle.

E. P. Sanders asks, “Did Paul’s Theology Develop?” For Sanders, Paul is “coherent, unsystematic, not notably inconsistent” (p. 328). Paul was “an intelligent and reactive human, who worked in an unprecedented environment” (p. 334) so naturally there was “organic growth” (p. 337n25). James D. G. Dunn, in “ΕΚ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ: A Key to the Meaning of ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ,” challenges Hays’s subjective-genitive reading of pistis Christou. Dunn agrees that “narrative elements … undergird Paul’s thought” (p. 352), but demurs to seeing the story of Jesus as dependent upon a particular reading of pistis Christou. The essay is set in the warm form of a personal letter, emphasizing the importance of ek pisteōs in Paul’s writings as illustrative of Paul’s wider use of pistis. Douglas A. Campbell, “An Echo of Scripture in Paul, and Its Implications,” recants from his previous aversion (Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21–26, 1992) of Ps 98:2–3 (97:2–3 LXX) informing Rom 1:17 as argued earlier by Hays. Campbell develops Hays’s original insight by way of divine kingship, and the “inauguration of the age to come by way of Christ’s enthroning resurrection” (p. 390), the “liberative and eschatological act of God in Christ” (p. 391). Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “From Toxic Speech to the Redemption of Doxology in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” traces the symphonic outworkings of human speech in Romans. John M. G. Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8:1–15,” gives us a sneak peak of his larger forthcoming work on Paul and grace with a reading of isotēs in 2 Cor 8 and its allusion to Exod 16:18 that consists of a “dynamic of mutuality” (p. 423). Reciprocity within the scheme of Paul’s subversive honor code and unity are therefore not ends in themselves, but “part of a larger shared commitment to processes of mutual construction” (p. 425). Susan Eastman, “Imitating Christ Imitating Us: Paul’s Educational Project in Philippians,” advances a twofold thesis of Phil 2:6–11: Christ assumes the post-fall Adamic role “on the stage of human history,” and Paul’s call to “be my fellow imitators” is educational, bringing his readers “onstage with himself, as a fellow ‘mime’ of Christ” (p. 430). Though some will remain unconvinced of her reading, the essay is breathtaking at points.

Francis Watson, “Resurrection and the Limits of Paulinism,” outlines the methodological error of “Paulinism,” viz., “the hermeneutical privileging of the Pauline texts” that “is always characterized by [an] anthropomorphic bias toward the present, so that every statement about Jesus the Son of God must demonstrate its value pro me” (p. 467) through a reading of Epistle to Rheginus. N. T. Wright’s chapter, “Faith, Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom,” is everything we’ve come to expect from the Bishop: bold moves in beautiful prose, shrewd judgments with sprawling compass, and clever twists that will no doubt prove to be controversial all around. He claims “no intention of smuggling in works by the back door,” but wants to name pistis as a virtue in eschatological shade, whilst situating it within now/not now tension of justification (p. 489). His brief articulation of justification will no doubt fall under heavy scrutiny (489–94) while other communities may object to his virtue scheme. “The Conversion of Desire in St. Paul’s Hermeneutics,” by Markus Bockmuehl, challenges Hays’s designation of “imagination” as the proper faculty converted in seeing one’s identity “anew in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (p. 500, citing Hays), with a counterproposal, in conversation with Martha Nussbaum, of “desire.” The concluding three pages offer much for creative future constructions of Paul’s hermeneutic.

Brian E. Daley kicks off a string of historical essays with “Walking through the Word of God: Gregory of Nazianzus as a Biblical Interpreter.” David C. Steinmetz’s chapter, “The Domestication of Prophecy in the Early Reformation,” is difficult to summarize but easy to recommend. “The Bard and the Book: Shakespeare’s Interpretation of Scripture,” by A. Katherine Grieb,” is an interesting essay that suggests “Shakespeare’s use of Scripture is an area where literary and biblical criticism might profitably combine forces” (p. 545). Leander E. Keck follows with a critical appraisal of Matthew Arnold’s reading of Paul (“Is Matthew Arnold Also Among the Prophets? A Victorian Critic Interprets Paul”).

Allen Verhey, in “Neither Devils nor Angels: Peace, Justice, and Defending the Innocent,” quarrels with Hays’s “rejection of violence in the defense of justice” (p. 600) by way of “something like the just war tradition” in the Augustinian tradition (p. 600). Ellen F. Davis, “The Poetics of Generosity,” and Richard B. Hays and Judith C. Hays, “The Christian Practice of Growing Old: The Witness of Scripture,” round out the volume along with Sarah Hays Coomer’s powerful homage to her father, “A Resting Place.”

The essays in this volume are delightful in themselves, but read together in a sustained dedication to Richard B. Hays make this volume an absolute treat.

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