Reviewed by: Jesus, Interpreted: Benedict XVI, Bart Ehrman, and the Historical Truth of the Gospelsby Matthew J. Ramage Andrew D. Swafford Jesus, Interpreted: Benedict XVI, Bart Ehrman, and the Historical Truth of the Gospelsby Matthew J. Ramage (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2017), 263pp. M atthewR amagehas shown himself to be a formidable exponent of the thought of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. In his Jesus, Interpreted, he situates Benedict's exegetical vision alongside that of Bart Ehrman—where skeptic and Pontiff alike receive an eminently fair hearing. By the end of the book, we have encountered not just a dispute over grammar and syntax—over historical inquiry itself—but of philosophical worldview. Ramage deftly brings out the centrality of these meta-questions, going so far as to say they more or less determinethe exegetical outcome. The beginning of the book takes one through a tour of how—at least on its face—revolutionary Ratzinger's exegetical project was: Ramage demonstrates the tension between Ratzinger's positions and those seemingly rejected by the Pontifical Biblical Commission at the early part of the twentieth century (27–37). Throughout, one is introduced to Ratzinger's exegetical program—where the emeritus Pope is shown to be at once a practitioner and admirer of modern historical-critical methods, and yet is at the same time their "incisive critic" (57–72, 233). If patristic biblical interpretation tended to focus on the divinity and unity of Sacred Scripture, modern historical methods tend to accentuate the diversity of human voices at the origin of the Bible. As Ramage well notes, "Spiritual exegesis can go beyond the text of Scripture only after it has gone throughthe text by dealing with its literal sense" (60, emphasis original). If there is a perceived weakness in the patristic method, it is jumping too quickly to the spiritual. But as Ramage explains, Benedict clearly sees deficiencies in the modern approach as well: "Since faith is not a fundamental component of Method B [historical-critical] exegesis, those who employ this method sometimes miss the ultimate end, the very raison d'êtreof Scripture: the opportunity to encounter the living God who teaches man through his sacred word" (63). The middle section of the book takes one through Erhman's historical-Jesus analysis, detailing and summarizing his arguments principally against the divinity of Jesus and the resurrection (101–44). This [End Page 579]is followed by a survey of Benedict's counter positions, providing what Ramage takes to be a reasonable exegetical alternative (145–93). Ramage distills Benedict's penchant for trying to discern the "core" of faith and his willingness to concede extraneous "accidental" aspects as non-essential—a case in point being Benedict's opting for John's chronology and his rejection of the Synoptic account that the Last Supper was in fact a Passover meal (160–61). Another key feature that comes out—in contrasting Ehrman and Benedict—is the issue of development. For Ramage, the importance of Newman here could hardly be overstated. Ehrman's position is that Christology had its "Big Bang" within the first twenty years after the death of Jesus—at which point followers of Jesus began to believe in Jesus's resurrection and thereby mythologized the apocalyptic rabbi, setting forth a trajectory that would culminate in Nicea. But for Ehrman, of course, such a trajectory has very little to do with the historical Jesus. And for Ehrman, the whole question of "orthodoxy" has more to do with claims of power than it does truth. Ramage readily concedes development: the question is whether this development is the work of divine providence, leading the Church into an ever-deeper encounter with the truth (see 145). Ramage likewise provides a similar analysis for the question of Christ's Second Coming. Here, too, Ramage is willing to concede Ehrman's point that the "second coming" is largely the result of a delayed imminent expectation of Christ's coming (198). Ramage takes the reader through Ratzinger's willingness to countenance this basic framework, while attempting to discern faith's essential core: "For Ratzinger this is the critical point: in dealing with the second...