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Archive for the ‘Gospels’ Category


Richard Hays, “Torah Reconfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew”

In Edinburgh, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, Kerry Lee, Matthew, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS, Septuagint on January 25, 2012 at 8:29 am

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 19 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.”

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Professor Hays’ third lecture in the 2012 Gunning series focused on the Gospel of Matthew, whose use of the Old Testament has become a central feature of the scholarly characterisation of the New Testament’s overall appropriation of the Old Testament. Very often, the Gospel writers’ use of the Old Testament is understood as a series of proof-texts which show no concern for the meaning or context of the cited or alluded Old Testament reference. Professor Hays’ aim in these lectures, and especially in this one, is to challenge this view by closely reading the Gospels with special sensitivity to the unique narrative strategies of the individual writers.

The intertextual strategy of Matthew in many ways makes a striking contrast with that of Mark. Read the rest of this entry »


Francis B. Watson, “Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective”

In Durham, Early Christianity, Francis B. WATSON, Gospels, Justin A. Mihoc, NT reception history, SEMINAR REPORTS on January 17, 2012 at 8:13 pm

This is a report on a book preview by Prof Francis Watson, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Durham University, at the New Testament Research Seminar, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, 12th of December 2011. The list of forthcoming papers in the NT Research Seminars at Durham University can be found here. 

The second book preview in the series inaugurated by Prof John Barclay at the beginning of November (2011) here, at Durham University, was the forthcoming monograph by Prof Francis Watson. His approach towards Gospel studies focuses on the reception and interpretation of the canonical texts, without neglecting the non-canonical gospels. In Prof Watson’s words, the phenomenon of reception is almost a universal precondition of the historical knowledge in general. History of the impact that one writing or figure had in history, or Wirkungsgeschichte as Gadamer puts it, is not a uniquely theological concept, but has specific particularities within the Christian context. And reception is not only reconstruction. Read the rest of this entry »