From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race, By J. Daniel Hays
From Every People and Nation
paperback
  • Length: 240 pages
  • Dimensions: 5.5 × 8.5 in
  • Published: July 12, 2003
  • Imprint: IVP Academic
  • Item Code: 2616
  • ISBN: 9780830826162

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"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language . . ." (Revelation 7:9).

The visions in the book of Revelation give a glimpse of the people of God at the consummation of history—a multiethnic congregation gathered together in worship around God's throne. Its racial diversity is expressed in a fourfold formula that first appears in Genesis 10.

The theme of race runs throughout Scripture, constantly pointing to the global and multiethnic dimensions inherent in the overarching plan of God. In response to the neglect of this theme in much evangelical biblical scholarship, J. Daniel Hays offers this thorough exegetical work in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. As well as focusing on texts which have a general bearing on race, Hays demonstrates that black Africans from Cush (Ethiopia) play an important role in both Old and New Testament history.

This careful, nuanced analysis provides a clear theological foundation for life in contemporary multiracial cultures and challenges churches to pursue racial unity in Christ.

Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

"J. Daniel Hays is able simultaneously to make us long for the new heaven and the new earth, when men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation will gather around the One who sits on the throne and the Lamb, and to make us blush with shame when we recognize afresh that already the church of Jesus Christ is to be an outpost in this fallen world of that consummated kingdom. This book deserves the widest circulation and the most thoughtful reading, for it corrects a fair bit of erroneous scholarship while calling Christians to reform sinful attitudes."

D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois)

Hays' book is an important step in both compelling us to embrace Scripture?s vision of multi-ethnic people of God as well compelling us to work for practical expressions of this vision in our own churches.

Evangelical Review of Theology, July 2007
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CONTENTS

Series Preface
Author's Preface
Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. The Ethnic Make-up of the Old Testament World
Introduction
Ethnicity
The "Asiatics": Israel and Her "Semitic" Cousins
The Cushites
The Egyptians
The Indo-Europeans (Philistines, Hittites)
Conclusions

3. Creation, Blessing and Race (Genesis 1--12)
Introduction
Created in the Image of God
The So-Called "Curse of Ham" (Genesis 9:18-27)
The Table of Nations (Genesis 10)
Blessing for All Families of the World (Genesis 12)
Conclusions

4. Israel, the Torah, Foreigners and Intermarriage
Introduction
The Formation of Israel
The Sojourner and the Foreigner
Moses and Intermarriage
Phinehas the Priest
Conclusions

5. Israel and Black Africa During the Monarchy
Introduction
Cushite Soldiers in the ANE prior to the Israelite Monarchy
Soldiers and Generals: Cushites in the Early Monarchy
Enemies and Allies: Cush, Assyria and Judah
Postscript: Cushite Soldiers in the ANE after the Monarchy
Conclusions

6. Racial Issues in the Prophets
Introduction
Judgment and Blessing in Isaiah
Amos: Are You the Same to Me as Cushites?
The Prophetic Voice in Psalms
Zephaniah and the Name Cushi
Ebed-Melech the Cushite
Conclusions

7. The Ethnic Make-up of the New Testament World
Introduction
The Greco-Roman World (Greeks and Barbarians)
The Jewish Diaspora
Black Africa (Cush, Meroe, Ethiopia)
North Africa (Berbers, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans)
Anatolia (Celts and Others)
Conclusions

8. Race and the Theology of Luke-Acts
Introduction
The Other Gospels
Luke: Abraham and the Blessing for All Nations
The Good Samaritan
The Ethiopian Eunuch
Simeon Called Niger
Conclusions

9. Race, Pauline Theology and the Apocalypse
Introduction
Galatians: Neither Jew Nor Greek
Colossians: Neither Barbarian Nor Scythian
Ephesians: Unity in the Church
Paul and the Nations
Revelation: From Every Tribe, Language, People and Nation
Conclusions

10. Conclusions and Applications
Synthesizing Conclusions
Final Thoughts

Bibliography
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Scripture References
Index of Ancient Sources

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Hays (Ph.D., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is chair of the department of biblical studies and theology at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He and his family have worked previously as missionaries in Ethiopia. He is also a coauthor of Grasping God's Word (Zondervan).
D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.