Richard Bevan Hays

Richard B. (Chip) Hays, renowned Biblical scholar of the Gospels, the letters of Paul, and New Testament ethics and George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Duke University, died on January 3, 2025, in Nashville, TN. The cause was cancer of the pancreas. He was 76.

Hays was born on May 4, 1948, in Oklahoma City. He spent his infancy in Frankfurt, Germany, where his father flew in the Berlin Airlift, and, following his parents’ divorce, returned to Oklahoma City, where his mother was a church organist. He graduated Cum Laude from Casady School in 1966 and from Yale University as an English major in 1970. At Yale, he sang a cappella (baritone) in both the Duke’s Men of Yale and The Whiffenpoofs and, influenced by the Christian activism of Rev. William Sloane Coffin, served as a Battell Chapel Deacon.

On Sunday, June 21, 1970, Hays married Judy Cheek, whom he had met in the 7th grade. Upon proposing marriage, he stated his intention to become “either a preacher or a rock and roll star.” Judy deliberated privately for some weeks before deciding to marry him anyway. Their two children, Christopher Baird and Sarah Elizabeth were born in 1973 and 1976, respectively.

From 1970-1977, Hays completed graduate coursework at Perkins School of Theology and Yale Divinity School, while living in several intentional Christian communities of extended family households in the Argyle (TX) UMC parsonage and in The Ark in Springfield, MA. From 1975-1976 he served as an elder in Metanoia Fellowship (West Springfield, MA), an independent multi-household Christian community and house church. His M.Div from Yale University in 1978 was followed by a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Emory University in 1981, supervised by Profs. Leander Keck and William Beardslee.

Hays loved classroom teaching. His teaching career began in 1971 at Longmeadow (MA) High School, where he hoped to engage students to appreciate Shakespeare and the Bible as literature. Ten years later, he was named Assistant Professor at Yale Divinity School, where he received tenure in 1989, before moving to Duke Divinity School in 1991. Over 38 years, he taught thousands of master’s-level and scores of doctoral students with erudition and humor. In addition to the core course Introduction to the New Testament, he taught stand-alone courses in either English or Greek on each of the four Gospels, Paul’s Letters to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, the Letter to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation.

Although he considered himself a slow reader and writer, his written work was prolific and ground-breaking. His book The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation (1996) was selected by Christianity Today as one of the 100 most important religious books of the twentieth century. Other books include The Faith of Jesus Christ: the Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (1983); Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989); The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (2005); Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (2014); Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (2016); Reading with the Grain of Scripture (2020); and The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality within the Biblical Story (2024, co-authored with his son Christopher B. Hays). His work has been translated into 10 languages. Professor Hays received honorary doctorates (Dr. theol. honoris causa) from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and from St. Mary’s Seminary and University (Baltimore, MD.) In 2022, the British Academy conferred upon him the Burkitt Medal for distinction in Biblical Studies.

Hays’ administrative service included the deanship of Duke Divinity School from 2010 to 2015, where he expanded initiatives in Theology and the Arts and Theology of Medicine and Culture. As well, he chaired the Pauline Epistles Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Seminar on New Testament Ethics in the Society for New Testament Studies and served on the editorial boards of several leading scholarly journals. Like his father before him, he enjoyed being ‘on the road’ and lectured widely in North America, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Japan. An ordained United Methodist minister in the North Georgia Conference, he preached in settings ranging from rural Oklahoma churches to London’s Westminster Abbey.

Throughout his lifetime, Hays was committed to family and church. He coached his children’s sports teams, was a regular at their games and theatrical performances, and supported their emergent careers. He and Judy enjoyed thousands of miles of car trips in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand; they were true companions of the road. Hays regularly sang in church choirs, played guitar in worship bands, and set psalms to original tunes. He particularly appreciated British choral music and the Beatles. After lettering in baseball and basketball at Casady, he became a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox, the Atlanta Braves, and Duke basketball.

He is survived by Judy, his wife of 54 years, his children Christopher B. Hays and Sarah H. Coomer, their beloved spouses, four grandchildren, Madeleine, Calvin, Sky, and Colin, and his brother, Lloyd Hays. Services of remembrance will be conducted at McKendree UMC, Nashville, TN, and in Goodson Chapel, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC, on dates to be announced.

In lieu of flowers, friends and family are invited to contribute to World Relief Durham or Duke University’s Richard and Judith Hays New Testament Scholarship Fund.