Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI and Thomas Aquinas by Matthew J. Ramage

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI and Thomas Aquinas by Matthew J. Ramage Christopher T. Baglow Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI and Thomas Aquinas by Matthew J. Ramage (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), vii + 303 pp. Fifty years ago, the German Jesuit and exegete Norbert Lohfink bemoaned the rumor that the fathers of the Second Vatican Council were considering removing the cursing psalms from the breviary, asking if such a move “might not be throwing the baby out with the bath water.” His fear was confirmed when Psalms 58, 83 and 109 were omitted from the psalter cycle because of “a certain psychological difficulty.”1 Despite the specification of the doctrine of inerrancy as pertaining to truth “for the sake of our salvation” in Dei Verbum §11, as well as the doctrinal commitment of Dei Verbum §12 to the necessity of a holistic reading of the biblical text in the light of Sacred Tradition, this pastoral decision regarding the Divine Office seems to indicate a lack of magisterial confidence that a proper interpretation of these psalms could be readily put into practice among those praying the official prayer of the Church. [End Page 707] This gap between conciliar teaching and application has become a hallmark of post-Vatican II biblical interpretation, which has been marked, on the whole, by a radical instability in which the use of modern methods of analysis and the hermeneutic of faith are rarely integrated. Current attempts at interpretation often swing wildly from one to the other, from historical-critical homilies that never seem to reach the point of preaching to strained attempts to domesticate the Bible by reference to one or more controlling concepts that promise to “unlock” it as a perspicuous sourcebook for faith and morals. In this confusion, the really difficult, even demoralizing, passages in the Bible are very often simply overlooked, so much so that Benedict XVI felt it necessary, in his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, to encourage scholars and pastors to avoid neglecting these “dark passages” and even “to help all the faithful” to understand them “in the light of the mystery of Christ” (§42). In response to this call, Matthew J. Ramage undertakes an encounter with the “dark passages” of the Bible and does so with candor, depth, and profound attention to the Catholic tradition of reading Sacred Scripture. His work, the published version of his doctoral dissertation, comprises a thorough synthesis of historical-critical exegesis and dogmatic interpretation that greatly respects and draws upon both approaches, bringing them into a fruitful synthesis that he applies, with great benefit, to some of the most unsettling passages of Sacred Scripture. Ramage introduces his work by expressing his goal: “to elucidate a theology of Scripture” that remains true to Catholic doctrine, but at the same time, contains an “inductive dimension” in which theory is confronted by reality in the historical-critical analysis of “the most difficult texts of Scripture” (3). To this end, he endeavors to wed the perspective of “Method A” exegesis—the patristic and medieval approach that emphasizes the unity and harmony of Sacred Scripture—with the practice of “Method B” exegesis—the unsparing scientific approach of the modern historian that seeks not to unite texts, but to distinguish them as products of unique human authors writing in specific historical and cultural situations. The product of this union is “Method C exegesis,” which Ramage hopes can synthesize such perspectives by relating unique texts through attention to development in light of the Catholic Faith, understood as the mature fruit of this development, never compromising, but carefully nuancing the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy. These doctrines serve the Method C exegete not as rigid confines that commit the exegete to obscurantism, [End Page 708] nor as a substitute for encountering the Bible as a historian. Instead, they comprise the modus vivendi that enables the Christian exegete to have the courage and confidence to be unsparingly historical, to deal honestly with imperfect and even demoralizing passages as representing not themselves, but as one stage of a movement toward Christ. In the words of Benedict XVI, quoted by Ramage...