Biblical Exegesis Research Articles

Kabała a mistycyzm

The article "Kabbalah and mysticism" is divided into three parts, in which the general understanding of Kabbalah based on mysticism is presented. The first is devoted to the general definition of mysticism, wanting to reflect on this: Is Kabbalah one? In order to be able to answer this question, the author gives voice to the more important scholars of Judaism who have dealt with this issue or are still dealing with it. They are clearly characterizing what mysticism is, they try to create an equivalent explanation of Kabbalah, thus showing its specificity. Once confirmed that Kabbalah can be considered a kind of mysticism, the author moves on to the second part, in which she presents the basic sources of mysticism of Kabbalah. It discusses the most important items of rabbinic and non-rabbinic literature, showing how the non-rabbinic is continuator of the rabbinic. The third part of the article focuses on a deeper description of the initial types of mysticism: creation, chariot and body, which form the foundation for the later mysticism of word and letter. The mysticism of words and letters is kabbalah, that is, the hermeneutical art of biblical exegesis, based on the properties of the Hebrew alphabet and language, as God's tool for knowing Him. The article is based on the considerations of such authors as: Gershom Scholem, Roland Goetschel, Joseph Dan, Charles Mopsik, Marc-Alain Ouaknin, or the controversial Moshe Idel.

Antitrinitarismo della prima età moderna e cultura italiana

Abstract This special issue is devoted to the influence of Italian culture on the Antitrinitarian movements that spread through Europe during the early modern period. One of the objectives is to go back to the period preceding the activities of Lelio and Fausto Sozzini, and to consider the influences of various trends in the Italian thought of the 15th and 16th centuries that made a crucial contribution to shaping Antitrinitarian ideas about Biblical exegesis, spirituality, baptism and the Trinity. Some papers also cover the phase following the international establishment of Socinianism. While for the first half of the sixteenth century there is a tendency to underestimate the Italian contribution to European Antitrinitarianism, the exact opposite is true for the period between the end of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The perception of Antitrinitarianism changes completely and, following the international affirmation of the Sozzini, is often mistakenly identified with Socinianism, taking the part for the whole (as is still often the case today on a historiographical level).

Understanding the Difference Between Antisemitism and Anti-Judaism

Understanding the Difference Between Antisemitism and Anti-Judaism Marianne Moyaert (bio) In his article, John Pawlikowski begins by discussing the Church's ambivalent position vis-à-vis the history of antisemitism. On the one hand, Pope John Paul II explicitly condemned antisemitism as a sin, a condemnation, which Pawlikowski notes, "represents the strongest theological statement against this pernicious disease." He also makes explicit what steps have been taken, especially since the Second Vatican Council, by both ecclesial authorities and theological scholars to remove anti-Jewish legacies from their theology. On the other hand, there are reasons to doubt whether the Church has taken responsibility for its implication in the history of antisemitism. The Church has tended towards arguing "that antisemitism came only from fringe elements in the Church who were muscled by wayward preachers and teachers." Such an argument denies the pervasive and systemic problem of antisemitism and disavows the view that it is deeply embedded in the Catholic tradition. The document We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah (1998), which Pawlikowski also mentions, is exemplary in this regard. While this document makes clear the necessity of thoroughgoing scholarly research to better understand the mechanisms that finally led to the Shoah and emphasizes that Christians have to confront the injustices of [End Page 373] the past to open up a new future (memoria futuri), the document also shifts responsibility away from the Church and its theological traditions to those Christians who failed to live according to what "might have been expected from Christ's followers."1 Rather than recognizing antisemitism as a form of systemic racialization legitimized and institutionalized by Catholic tradition and its authorities, the document tends to reduce the problem of antisemitism to the personal failure of some.2 To make matters worse, the document immediately contrasts the few rotten apples to the many initiatives taken by ecclesial authorities to halt the suffering of the Jews under the Nazis. In addition, We Remember emphasizes that National Socialism was in fact a modern, anti-Christian, pagan racist regime, which ought to be clearly distinguished from Christian anti-Judaism. By way of conclusion, the document acknowledges that "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people" contributed to "feelings of hostility towards this people," but points out that such interpretations have been "totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican Council." Understood in this way, the problem of Christian anti-Judaism belongs to the past and has been dealt with appropriately within the Church; the problem of racist antisemitism is inimical to Christian tradition and its theological vision about the unity of the human race, and has been condemned in the strongest words. In contrast to We Remember, Pawlikowski explicitly states that "thus far the roots of antisemitism in the Catholic Church have [not] been fully erased from Catholic consciousness." To this day, Pawlikowski asserts, there is a problem of latent or dormant antisemitism, which can become the ground for new more explicit expressions of hatred, such as the attacks on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. To uproot antisemitism from Catholic tradition, Pawlikowski suggests a research program focused on biblical exegesis and the Patristic tradition, as well as on the failure of the Church to acknowledge how its anti-Jewish traditions provided fertile ground for the Shoah. Finally, he also urges us to revisit the issue of the Church's evangelizing mandate in relation to the Jewish people. [End Page 374] I am a Catholic comparative theologian working after Nostra Aetate and I find myself in full agreement with Pawlikowski. The history of Christian antisemitism covers almost 2,000 years and we only started to grapple with it in the aftermath of the Shoah. Far from it being merely a surface issue, antisemitic discourse has seeped deeply into the core of (European) Christian culture. Antisemitic patterns of thinking were imprinted on the Christian imagination through liturgy, prayer, and sermons, but also through art, illuminated manuscripts, theatre, music, as well as legislation. Even when one is dedicated to moving beyond antisemitism, it remains difficult to step outside of this framework. As David Nirenberg states, "The peril of fantasizing our freedom from the past is great": when we...

Excavating Exodus: Biblical Typology and Racial Solidarity in African American Literature by J. Laurence Cohen

Reviewed by: Excavating Exodus: Biblical Typology and Racial Solidarity in African American Literature by J. Laurence Cohen Brian Britt J. Laurence Cohen, Excavating Exodus: Biblical Typology and Racial Solidarity in African American Literature (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press, 2021) Excavating Exodus presents close readings of African American primary sources, including pamphlets, poetry, and fiction, as expressions of distinct positions on racial identity. With a focus on uses of Exodus and the Moses story from the nineteenth century to the present, Excavating Exodus represents a major contribution to scholarship on African American reception of the Bible. The study moves from a discussion of Mosaic subjectivity in David Walker's pamphlet, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829), Martin R. Delaney's Blake: or; The Huts of America (1859–1862), and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's writings to the twentieth-century works of Alain Locke and Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952), and William Melvin Kelly's A Different Drummer (1962). Contemporary readings of Exodus include works by Beyoncé and Eve Ewing's poetic rendering of Exodus in terms of Chicago politics, featuring Mayor Richard J. Daley as Pharaoh (158–161). Cohen's study articulates a set of arguments about what these sources say and how they use Exodus and Moses to say it. In dialogue with Albert Raboteau, Eddie Glaude, Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Tommie Shelby, Sharon A. Stanley, and others, Cohen advocates a view of African American solidarity that is more pragmatic than essentialist, yet "affective and political" at the same time (25). In [End Page 103] building this account, Cohen displays an impressive range of engagements with the Exodus story, across many genres and perspectives, with particular emphasis on historical and political context. One of the most valuable contributions of Cohen's study is his use of "signifying" as a mode of intertextual engagement. Like biblical reception in general, signifying applies to a wide range of interpretive practices. For instance, Cohen argues that Martin R. Delany's Blake not only represents its main character as a Moses figure, but also signifies Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856) (56). Cohen similarly suggests that Frances Harper responded to David Walker's 1829 use of Moses in her 1859 essay, "Our Greatest Want." This "unmotivated signification," a concept borrowed from Henry Louis Gates's The Signifying Monkey, produces intertextual dialogue and development across the authors and texts. Yet it is not always clear how to distinguish an author's act of signification from Cohen's comparison, such as when he suggests that the character Tom Anderson in Iola Leroy (1892) signifies Stowe and Frederick Douglass alike (75–77). Cohen's sources engage multiple forms of biblical reception, ranging from direct citation of Moses and Exodus to generally Mosaic figures who bear only distant allusions and echoes of the Bible. Cohen skillfully surveys these diverse interpretive approaches, suggesting the categories of "typological rigidity" and "typological plasticity" to account for different interpretive approaches to Exodus (48). Unlike the moralistic rigidity that simply contrasted good Mosaic abolitionists against evil Pharaonic slaveholders, Cohen finds more flexible interpretive possibilities within the abolitionism of Martin R. Delaney and others who imagine a new kind of religious reality beyond slavery (60–62). But the real story of Excavating Exodus is not the how but the what of biblical exegesis. Insofar as Cohen frames Exodus interpretations "as a microcosm of the debates at the heart of the Civil Rights movement," his study contributes more to civil rights history than biblical reception history, leading to this four-part classification: "pro-Exodus desegregationism (King), anti-Exodus democratic pluralism (Ellison), pro-Exodus racial separatism (Malcolm X), and anti-Exodus radical individualism (Kelley)" (149, 153). Excavating Exodus culminates in this useful taxonomy, and it would be interesting to see even more about how these political categories relate to the rhetorical and hermeneutical strategies that produced them. Excavating Exodus bears the traces of the doctoral dissertation from which it draws, but the book's clarity and originality make an important contribution to scholarship on African American racial identity and biblical reception. For the study of American religion more generally, the book is a reminder...

Melville's Wisdom: Religion, Skepticism, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America by Damien B. Schlarb

Reviewed by: Melville's Wisdom: Religion, Skepticism, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America by Damien B. Schlarb Ariel Silver Damien B. Schlarb Melville's Wisdom: Religion, Skepticism, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. xiv + 252 pp. In his reading of the Book of Genesis in The Beginning of Wisdom (2003), Leon Kass is guided by philosophia, the love and pursuit of wisdom. He quickly acknowledges that scripture is not often read in this manner, especially by scholars of the Bible, whose training in higher criticism has led them to focus more on textual sources and the "sensibilities and prejudices of an ancient people" (2). These source critics read the Bible much as do literary critics—as literature more than as an aid to wisdom. Melville was neither a biblical scholar nor a literary critic, but in his elegant new book, Melville's Wisdom, Damien Schlarb contends that Melville seeks to demonstrate through his literary work that the Hebrew Bible can be read in a "reflective and philosophic spirit" (Kass, Leon R. The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 2) and that this manner of reading is modeled on the wisdom literature found within the biblical text. In his effort to recover the language and ethics of biblical wisdom, Schlarb asserts that Melville charts a course between the "Scylla of epistemological deadlock and the Charybdis of moral relativism" (20), leading him to theological as well as cultural insight. Literature begins to function as a new form of exegesis, which Melville deploys to try to deeply understand both the biblical text and the religious culture emerging in the midst of modern life. This spirit of philosophia animates Melville, and leads him, through the wisdom literature of the Bible, to what Schlarb calls the "hermeneutics of contemplation" (19). Like Ahab circling the leviathan, drawing ever closer, numerous scholars have sought to apprehend the acute nature of Melville's relationship to the Bible. This search began in earnest after World War II with the publication of Melville's Use of the Bible (Nathalia Wright, 1949) and Melville's Quarrel with God (Lawrance Thompson, 1952), works devoted to the ways in which Melville read biblical prose and poetry. Later works attended more to the religious, political, and cultural milieu informing Melville's biblical interpretations. The [End Page 108] more recent religious turn in literary studies has deepened this search and made it both more incisive and more expansive. In Melville's Bibles (2008), Ilana Pardes seeks to bring together these two previous strains of scholarship on Melville and the Bible: his reading of biblical texts and his reading of cultural contexts through his literary oeuvre. Melville's Bibles focuses principally on Moby-Dick, as does Jonathan A. Cook's Inscrutable Malice (2012). Where Pardes sets biblical texts and characters in Moby-Dick in conversation with multiple modes of biblical exegesis in antebellum America, Cook focuses more on the moral and religious questions which animate Melville's engagement with biblical sources. Melville's interrogation of theodicy—the attempt to reconcile divine justice with the presence of evil—leads him directly to Job. The omnipresence of Job in Moby-Dick points to Melville's interest in biblical wisdom, a genre that informs not only Job, but also Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In Melville's Wisdom, Schlarb expands beyond Job and Moby-Dick to uncover the ways in which Melville works out his epistemology of skeptical devotion through the body of wisdom literature. At a time when the emerging modern world sought to both affirm and displace religious culture and the language of scripture, Melville discovered in the wisdom texts of the Hebrew Bible a contemplative approach that could lead to syncretic knowledge apart from either the dogma of religion or science. Having discovered that both superstition and empiricism are irredeemable, Melville looks instead for an approach that can respond to his inexhaustible call for inquiry and introspection. Wisdom, grounded in experience and reflection, transcends explanatory systems to arrive at its own moral vector: ambiguity and multiplicity. As Schlarb explains in his discussion on the Book of Job: "What remains in the wake of religious and scientific fervor...

Biblical Spirituality of Exile

The paper explores the dynamics of exile and restoration both in the old and new Testaments through Biblical Spirituality. Paying attention to the dynamics of spiritual relation, the paper traces the Divine-human relation beginning from Genesis 3, the fall of Adam and Eve to the Patriarchs specifically Abraham. It also explores the time of the kingdom and temples leading to the Assyrian and Babylonian Exile. Taking a cue from the beginning of the Gospels, the paper shows the continuity of exile in the New Testament as it shows the connection between the Passover, the last supper, the passion and death of Jesus, Resurrection, and Ascension, and the celebration of the sacrament of Eucharist.
 
 References
 Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press, 1984; 2nd ed., revised by Richard Clifford and Daniel Harrington, 2012.
 Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
 Carvalho, Corrine L. Primer on Biblical Methods. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2009.
 Carvalho, Corrine L. Encountering Ancient Voices: A Guide to Reading the Old Testament. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2006; 2nd ed., 2010.
 Ceresko, Anthony R. Introduction to the Old Testament: A Liberation Perspective. New York: Orbis, 1997; 2nd ed., 2001.
 Collins, John J. Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004; 3rd ed., 2018.
 Dictionnaire de spiritualité. ed. Marcel Viller, Charles Baumgartner and André Rayezin, Paris : G. Beauchesne et ses fils, 1932-1995, Tomme 1-17. Sheldrake, Philip. Images of Holiness.
 Duggan, Michael W. The Consuming Fire: A Christian Guide to the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2010.
 Ehrman, Bart D. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
 Gorman, Michael J. Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers. Revised ed. Baker Academic, 2010.
 Gottwald, Norman K. The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002.
 Green, Joel B., ed. Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
 Harrington, Daniel J. Interpreting the Old Testament: A Practical Guide. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991.
 Harrington, Daniel J. Interpreting the New Testament: A Practical Guide. Rev. ed. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990.
 Johnson, Luke T. The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010.
 Montague, George T. Understanding the Bible: A Basic Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. 2nd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2007.
 Stenger, Werner. Introduction to New Testament Exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993.
 Stuart, Douglas. Old Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors. 4th ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009.
 The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version. UK: Bible Society Resources Ltd., 2011.
 Waaijman, Kees. Spirituality: Forms, Foundations, Methods. Leuven: Peeters, 2002.
 Welzen Huub. Contours of Biblical Spirituality as a Discipline, Acta Theologica, 15 (2011), 37-60.
 The Roman Missal. 3rd ed. 2010.

Judah ibn Balaam’s commentary on Samuel and its place in the history of exegesis

Arye Zoref’s article discusses Ibn Balaam’s commentary on the biblical book of Samuel. The biblical commentaries of Rabbi Judah Ibn Balaam, who lived in Spain in the eleventh century, have for the most part been studied and published. This is not the case regarding his commentary on Samuel, of which excerpts are presented in this article. Zoref gathered various Genizah fragments of the commentary together with citations from it that are included in the commentary of R. Isaac ben Samuel the Sephardi. On this basis, he tries to assess Ibn Balaam’s place in the history of biblical exegesis and how he was perceived by the commentators who came after him, especially R. Isaac ben Samuel the Sephardi and Nahum of Jerusalem. Special attention is paid to the term muʾarrikh which is understood by Ibn Balaam to be the biblical narrator. The article also includes editions of the fragments and their translation into Hebrew.

The bride as a ‘locked garden’: An eco-sustainability retrieval of nature metaphor in Song of Songs 4:12–15

Song 4:12–15 depicts the body of the bride as a ‘locked garden’ filled with fruits, exotic and medicinal plants and abundant freshwater. These luxuries are said to be plentiful and appealing but carry with them the threat of spoiling. In this way, the garden is ready for enjoyment, but forbidden (locked) at the same time. The geo-metaphor of the bride fits perfectly with the ancient belief of Mother Earth and resists the dominion drive of the Anthropocene. Dominance is alien to Canticles. The Book pledges that we can rediscover the lost paradise of Genesis 2 through love and partnership, not dominion. This article investigates which assumptions about nature are reflected in the author’s use of nature metaphors to describe the sensual body of the bride. It makes use of insights of ecological sustainability, the principle of intrinsic worth from the six eco-justice principles of the Earth Bible Project and elements of historical-critical approaches to retrieve the ecological significance of Song 4:12–15.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article explores whether the insights of eco-sustainability can be fruitfully used to retrieve ecological wisdom from the metaphor of Song 4 depicting the bride as a locked garden. It involves the disciplines of biblical exegesis, elements of ecological hermeneutics and insights from sustainability theories.

‘Nicholas of Cusa’s Use of Bonaventure in His Sermons’

ABSTRACT The influence of Franciscan thought, including the thirteenth century theologian Bonaventure, on Cusanus, continues to be a rich vein of exploration among scholars, both in the realm of philosophy and speculative theology. This paper will attempt to explore for the first time the varied use of Bonaventure in the large body of sermons by Cusanus. It will seek to demonstrate the multivalent influence of the Seraphic Doctor, in his various genres, on the way Cusanus over his long and varied career sought to present Christian doctrine and inculcate Christian praxis. Specifically, an examination of the sermons of Cusanus demonstrates that throughout his whole career, he utilized at great length a variety of texts by the Seraphic Doctor to explain fundamental concepts of sacramental and moral theology, as well as ecclesiology, eschatology, and the nature of biblical exegesis.

Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives edited by Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart, [Ancient Israel and Its Literature], SBL Press, Atlanta, 2020, pp. xii + 233, £28.00, pbk

Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives edited by Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart, [Ancient Israel and Its Literature], SBL Press, Atlanta, 2020, pp. xii + 233, £28.00, pbk

Biblical exegesis as the soul of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body

John Paul II is often misread as more of a philosopher than a theologian. But his Theology of the Body, rightly read, is in its entirety an exercise in exegesis. By focusing on the Bible, he gives a more fully theological account of his topic, one focused on the mystery of redemption by grace, rather than on merely human efforts.

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Reading: In Mathematics, Remedial Reading, and Biblical Exegesis

This paper studies reading comprehension in three distinct disciplinary settings: Mathematics verbal problems, remedial reading, and biblical exegesis. This transdisciplinary approach enriches our understanding of reading, enabling focus on key methods of improving reading. The transdisciplinary approach also affords us new insights into addressing equity issues. The paper's approach is influenced by Meyer's seminal work on textual organizational structure as a key method to achieve reading comprehension. Consistent with this approach, the paper advocates using signal words or keywords, as well as listing and teaching organizational structures as a means to improving literacy in reading, mathematics, and biblical exegesis. The paper recommends that these techniques should be a primary method of approaching math and biblical fluency.

Biblical Exegesis and Systematic Theology

Abstract Notwithstanding the legitimate distinction between biblical studies and systematic theology, these disciplines can and should benefit from each other. On the one hand, biblical studies deals with texts that make claims about God that are read primarily in a liturgical context by people with a faith commitment. Accordingly, while the distantiation of an academic approach is helpful, a systematic theological dimension enriches the otherwise rather naturalistic biblical studies. On the other hand, systematic theology needs biblical studies. Historical Christian theology shows that abstract theology without engagement with biblical studies becomes arid. Current emphases on history, language, narrative, and Israel offer opportunities to connect the two disciplines. This article sketches a methodology for the mutual benefit of biblical studies and systematic theology.

1 Timothy 6:6–14 and materialism amongst Nigerian Christian youths

Increasing involvement of Nigerian youths in cybercrime and fraud, ritual activities, prostitution, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, robbery and hired killings reveal the growing materialism of a significant number of Nigerian youths, including uncountable numbers of professed Nigerian Christian youths. There is the need to address materialism amongst Nigerian youths with special reference to Nigerian Christian youths. Paul’s moral instructions to Timothy are still relevant for Nigerian Christian youths to emulate. Therefore, this study employs a redaction critical method of biblical exegesis to interpret and apply 1 Timothy 6:6–14 to the problem of materialism amongst Nigerian Christian youths. This study finds that materialism amongst Nigerian Christian youths is consolidating negative implications to their spiritual lives, families, to the mission mandate of the church and to Nigeria as a nation. This study argues that Paul has shown a model of how a Christian youth ought to be guided with regard to material possessions.Contribution: This study explored the issue of materialism amongst countless Nigerian Christian youths that is consolidating negative implications to their spiritual lives, families, to the church and to Nigeria as a nation. The study recommends that Paul’s instructions to Timothy about godliness and love of money are still relevant for Nigeria Christian youths to emulate.

Exegetical study of John 16:25–33 and the Church in persecution in Nigeria

Currently, there is a high rate of persecution unleashed on Christians worldwide with a special reference to Nigeria. Globally, Nigeria accounts for more than 70% of Christians being killed because of their identification with the Christian faith. This makes Nigeria one of the most dangerous countries for Christians. Employing the redaction method of doing biblical exegesis, this study explores and interprets the context of John 16:25–33 and applies its theological findings to the similar reality of Nigerian Christians being confronted with severe persecutions. This study argues that the lessons drawn from John 16:25–33 can equip Nigerian Christians to have the peace Jesus promised consolidated in their hearts as they are being persecuted because of their faith in him.Contribution: This study addressed the issue of the high rate of persecution being unleashed on the Church in Nigeria from the theological stance of John 16:25–33. The study recommends that the lessons drawn from John 16:25–33 can equip the persecuted Church in Nigeria to enjoy the peace Jesus promised the Church.

Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine by Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw

Reviewed by: Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine by Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw Thomas M. Osborne Jr. Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine. By Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw. Foreword by Andrew Hofer, O.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Pp. xxii + 330. $75.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-8132-3347-5. In this book, Gregory Hrynkiw provides a thorough account of the theology of Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469-1534) and its relationship to faith. Hrynkiw pays special attention to Cajetan's understanding of the subject of theology, theological method, and biblical exegesis. The topic itself is difficult, and it seems to me that its difficulty is increased by three extrinsic factors. First, for much of the twentieth century many scholars largely dismissed Cajetan both as a thinker and as an expositor of St. Thomas Aquinas. Although more recent scholars such as Joshua Hochschild, Lawrence Feingold, and Steven Long have shown that such scholars frequently misunderstood Cajetan and the issues that he addressed, Cajetan's work is largely unknown. Second, Cajetan's readers need to be familiar with late medieval and Renaissance Scholasticism. Frequently Cajetan is not expounding Thomas's texts in their context but rather defending Thomas in light of difficulties raised by such figures as John Duns Scotus (ca. 1265/6-1308), Durandus of St.-Pourçain (ca. 1275-ca. 1332/34), and Petrus Aureol (ca. 1280-1322). Third, Cajetan is only one figure in a long Thomistic tradition. He often relies on the writings of earlier Thomists such as John Capreolus (ca. 1380-1444), and many of his own teachings were rejected or modified by later Thomists of equal or perhaps even greater stature, such as Domingo Bañez (1528-1604) and John of St. Thomas (1589-1644). Hrynkiw deftly guides the reader through these difficulties. He shows how Cajetan's account of sacred doctrine differs from that attributed to him by many twentieth-century scholars and provides an alternative account to that of theologians such as Scotus. Moreover, he shows how Cajetan responds to and builds on theologians such as Hervaeus Natalis (ca. 1260-1323) and Capreolus, and comes into conflict with some of his Thomistic contemporaries and immediate successors, such as Sylvester Mazzolini Prierias (ca. 1456/7-1527). [End Page 498] The book has two parts. The first is entitled "Sacred Doctrine Is the Framework." This part consists of three chapters about what sacred doctrine is in relation to faith, the Church, and the Apostles' Creed. The second part is entitled "Sacred Doctrine as the Habit of Theology." It consists of three chapters that in some way correspond to the various articles of question 1 of the Summa theologiae, which is on sacred doctrine. A conclusion indicates Cajetan's importance in the history of theology and as a resource for contemporary theology. Hrynkiw draws not only on Cajetan's famous commentary on the Summa theologiae, but also on many of Cajetan's theological opuscula and his later works on biblical exegesis. One historical controversy has been over the very meaning of "Sacred Doctrine" and its relationship to theology. For instance, article 1 of the Prima pars's question on sacred doctrine considers the necessity of revelation, which seems to be about faith, whereas the remaining articles are on sacred doctrine as a science, which is how Thomistic theologians understood theology. The argumentative nature of theology is discussed only in article 8. In chapter 1, Hrynkiw shows that some early Thomists, such as Capreolus and Natalis, held that the principles of faith are the principles of the science of theology, which draws conclusions from them. On this view, faith and theology would be distinct. In contrast to this earlier interpretation, a prominent contemporary Thomist, Sylvester Prierias, argued that faith and theology were both the same habit. Cajetan developed and defended the earlier position in his description of theology as a scientific habit that is distinct from the habit of faith even though it depends on it. Hrynkiw shows that the same issues were debated during the Thomistic revival of the twentieth century. He indicates how Marie-Dominique Chenu, who changed his mind over precisely this issue, would have benefited from a more careful...

Convergences: Canon and Catholicity by Christopher R. Seitz

Reviewed by: Convergences: Canon and Catholicity by Christopher R. Seitz R. David Nelson Convergences: Canon and Catholicity. By Christopher R. Seitz. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2020. x + 189 pp. The genre of this book is difficult to pin down. In the afterword, Seitz admits the study falls short of pure intellectual history, due mainly to the investment he has made in the movement [End Page 238] of scholarship he surveys (171). Over seven swiftly paced main chapters, the book considers a few seemingly unconnected lines of scholarship, tracing their developments from their origins and revealing surprising parallels and intersections of methodology and insight. Seitz's contribution to the academic study of the Bible, which reorients the question of scripture's meaning to the final form of the two-Testament canon, lies at the point where the roads he follows meet. Readers get a compact guide to scholarship on canonical criticism during the past half-century, albeit in a form that mixes the analysis of ideas, intellectual biography, genealogy, and memoir. Perhaps, then, we might risk a mishmash and call the book academic travel literature. Convergences boasts no central thesis or groundbreaking proposal. Instead, Seitz invites readers to discover how the grand claims of the canonical approach map out on the terrain of the academic study of biblical literature. He writes evocatively of that landscape, describing canonical criticism by recalling his own journey and retracing the steps of fellow trailblazers. In the Anglosphere, students of biblical exegesis know the movement's focus on the Bible's final canonical form mainly through several seminal works by late Yale Old Testament scholar Brevard Childs, Seitz's Doktorvater. Generally, biblical scholarship undertaken within the intellectual culture of the modern research university is historical and critical in outlook. Scholars devote themselves to uncovering the origins and literary developments of biblical texts, in doing so deconstructing traditional religious and theological notions of the Bible's meaning. Childs took the discussion in a new direction, pioneering the canonical-critical approach and breaking new ground in biblical theology. Childs drew upon insights expressed during the first half of the twentieth century by Old Testament scholars such as Hermann Gunkel, Gerhard von Rad, and Martin Noth, even while pushing back against the emphasis on form criticism dominating that era of German biblical scholarship. For Childs and his followers, an exclusive concentration on origins, such as what one typically encounters in the biblical studies guild, misses a crucial segment of the story; namely, that in time communities of faith recognized these texts as sacred [End Page 239] writ, as a literary nexus of revelatory speech uniquely authoritative for belief, theology, worship, and ethical action. Canonical criticism is less interested in how communities of faith sorted out the Bible's contents than in the form the Bible received as a result of that process. As a student of Childs and himself the author of several influential studies in canonical criticism, Seitz is very much an insider to the discussion. Here he tells the tale, in a roundabout fashion, of how the canonical approach materialized. But his real interest is to explore "kindred contributions" (3) emerging in Europe at the same time Childs was at work in the States. The idea for the book originated after Seitz stumbled upon the scholarship of Jesuit theologian Paul Beauchamp. As he immersed himself in Beauchamp's oeuvre, especially the two volumes of L'un et l'autre Testament (one and the other Testament), Seitz discovered astonishing connections between the Jesuit's approach to the unity of the Bible and Childs's attentiveness to canonical form. His engagement with Beauchamp led Seitz to reconsider other texts from twentieth-century European scholarship, including Protestant philosopher Paul Ricoeur's exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2, and Catholic contributions to hermeneutics and biblical theology from the likes of Jean Daniélou and Henri de Lubac. In the conclusion we find a delightful exchange with Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, showing how canonical exegesis directly informs his reading of the gospels. This book is the yield, then, of an intensive period of discovery and reflection on the part of the author, and likewise an invitation to the reader...

‘Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?’ Jesuit Re-invention of Scriptural Commentary in a Newly Recovered Text from Seventeenth-Century Quito

A large quantity of manuscripts survives from the vast network of Jesuit libraries established across South America, including many examples of a distinctive kind of Latin Jesuit scriptural meditation. Although the social and economic influence of the Jesuits in South America has been well documented, no study has focussed on the literary and theological interest of these scriptural meditations, or the significant extent to which they innovate scriptural reading in response to the spiritual challenges posed by the new missionary contexts. The submitted article offers a close reading of a fascinating example of this innovative exegetical style by examining excerpts from the Canticum Habacuc Illustratum by Lucas Vicente Imperial (Quito, 1642). While bringing to light the Augustinian models that inspire this particular kind of exegetical reception, the text also shows the nuances of Jesuit biblical exegesis and its specific connection with contemporary and practical needs.

2 Timothy 2:15 and the ordained and self-styled Nigerian ministers of God who twist the gospel

In Nigeria, it is a theological issue when ministers of God do not give diligence and utmost care to the study, interpretation and application of the word of truth. Some ordained and self-styled Nigerian ministers of God twist the gospel for a gamut of reasons by not being apt in studying, interpreting and applying the word of God, which have negative implications to the mission mandate of the Church in Nigeria. Consequently, this study exegetically examines the theological implications of some Nigerian ministers of God twisting the gospel for an array of reasons and the need for them to be very apt and meticulous in studying, interpreting and applying the word of truth in the light of 2 Timothy 2:15. Employing redaction method of doing biblical exegesis, this study argues that the experiential issue of some ordained and self-styled Nigerian ministers of God who fail in being apt in studying, interpreting, applying and practising the word of truth is hindering the gospel from being fully known in Nigeria.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This study addressed the theological issue of some ordained and self-styled Nigerian ministers of God who are not diligently committed to the ministry of the word of truth. The study recommends that Nigerian ministers of God should study the ministry of the word of truth with diligence and utmost care as Paul instructed Timothy. Disciplines implicated include New Testament and Theological Studies.

Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers

Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers