A few years ago Luke Timothy Johnson claimed that Catholic Biblical Scholarship was now scholarly but not particularly Catholic. In other words, Catholic scholars had now fully caught up with the demands of biblical critical scholarship practised by other Christian denominations but in the process had lost any distinctive Catholic character.
This new series, The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, intends to correct that deficiency. In their preface to the series the Editors explain that they are responding to a hunger among Catholics for a deeper knowledge of scripture which is scholarly but also integrated within the rich treasury of Catholic tradition. How do they propose to do this? There will be no dumbing down on scholarly standards but less attention will be given to technical issues and more to material that can nourish the readers’ spiritual life.
In practice this means that each section begins with a critical examination of the text, examining particular words and placing the pericope in its historical context. It ends with a section entitled Reflection and Application, which suggests ways the text might respond to contemporary questions in the light of Catholic teaching. Then there are two kinds of additional aid, which appear in boxes scattered through the commentary. The first is entitled Biblical Background, which gives useful information on, for example, Womens’ fashions in the Roman Empire or Life of a Roman Prisoner, and in the second, a box entitled Living Tradition, we are given insights from Catholic teaching, for example, The Church's Teaching on Slavery.
The first two volumes to appear in the series, reviewed here, also include on the first page numerous recommendations from Catholic scholars and bishops, each stating what a good idea the series is and what an important slot they will fill. So do these two initial volumes, one on Mark's Gospel and one on the Pastoral Letters, live up to the promise? In a word, yes. Both authors, Healy and Martin are experienced writers and manage to do what was asked of them.
In her commentary on Mark Professor Healy does a good job of placing each pericope in its historical context but also of placing it within the larger literary patterns of the whole gospel. For instance, when dealing with the accounts of the multiplication of loaves she places them within the biblical context of the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert but then also notes that, in what she calls the Bread Section (6.33–8:26), the word bread occurs seventeen times. She divides the section into two then proceeds to deal with each under the title of Understanding Bread I and Understanding Bread II. Then in the Reflection and Application she brings out the Eucharistic symbolism of the feeding and applies the command in 6:37, ‘Give them some food yourselves’, to those involved in pastoral ministry in the Church today. But there is more. In the Living Tradition box she quotes from Tertullian to show how important the flesh was in God's plan of salvation with a sentence beginning ‘The flesh is the hinge of salvation …’
The tradition is not exclusively Catholic. When Healy deals with the central theme of discipleship and Jesus’ warning that following him will involve suffering she gives us two Biblical Background boxes on the Suffering Servant in Isaiah and then Crucifixion as the Ultimate Punishment. But then she turns to Dietrich Bonhoeffer for a quote from The Cost of Discipleship. On the whole, though, references to tradition are very Catholic. She includes for instance an interesting comment on Jesus’ rejection of the demand for signs taken from Pope Benedict's own exegesis on Jesus. But some may feel her enthusiasm carries her away when, having given a clear presentation of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ question about divorce, she recommends another Pope. ‘This passage’ she writes ‘calls to mind Pope John Paul the Great and his profound reflections on human love in the divine plan, known as the theology of the body’. On the whole Professor Healy does not use her own personal experiences in applying the texts.
Professor George Montague is far more personal. He has written more than twenty books on biblical topics and has a wide pastoral experience so it seems perfectly legitimate, in a series like this, for him to use this experience in writing a commentary on the Pastorals. But he begins with a judicious assessment of the authorship of these letters and finds the case for authenticity more probable. As with Healy, he starts each section with careful exegesis of the text and then turns to contemporary applications. With such controversial topics as women's ministry, homosexuality, false teaching, and slavery it is interesting to see how the Catholic tradition is invoked. He gives us a whole page on Women Deacons in the Living Tradition tracing the topic from the early church and ending with a comment written by the International Theological Commission in 2003.
I Timothy 5:19 says ‘Do not accept an accusation against a presbyter unless it is supported by two or three witnesses’. Montague refers to his Dominican mentor and exegete Ceslaus Spicq who cited here a Greek inscription concerning Alexandria where ‘the city had become almost uninhabitable because of the number of accusers and each household being prey to the menace’. Frivolous accusations are still made today. Montague in his Application writes, ‘One may wonder about the discipline that requires the immediate removal of a minister on the basis of a single unsupported accusation’.
This is a commentary made lively by the many stories and personal experiences which the author recounts to make the text speak for today. But in his teaching he always keeps within the orthodoxy expected in this series. At the end of the Commentary, where he offers further reading, he gives a very strong recommendation to the writings of Luke Timothy Johnson on the Pastorals but feels it necessary to add in a footnote, ‘Although in some of his writings Johnson rejects various aspects of the Church's teaching on sexuality he does not express these problematic views in his works on the Pastorals’.
In both these commentaries there is a good mixture of scriptural scholarship, background information, church teaching and practical application. I think they will help especially the teacher and the preacher for they try to do what the Pontifical Biblical Commission asked of Catholic exegetes: not just to offer mere exposition but ‘to explain the meaning of the biblical texts for today’. If the rest of the series is as good as these two commentaries they will be worth buying.
