Biblical Studies: Jewish and Christian

The history of critical literary and biblical scholarship has been in the main (with some very notable exceptions) virtually coterminous with Protestant history in Europe and, more recently, also in America. Given this fact, it is not surprising that anti-Catholic and anti-Judaic polemics more than occasionally crept into biblical criticism. Wellhausen's highly influential late 19th century text, for example, managed not so subtly to write off both priests and Pharisees (and therefore Catholic and Jewish traditions) as obsolete, moribund, and superseded by Protestant Christianity by applying Hegelian dialectics to biblical history. Jews and Catholics, understandably, had difficulties feeling at home in critical biblical studies and often tended to look askance at their own members who ventured to enter into such studies.

Thankfully, the age of such polemicized approaches to sacred Scripture is now receding behind us. Among the activities to celebrate the centenary of its founding in 1880, the once-staunchly Protestant and now ecumenical Society of Biblical Literature commissioned a series of Confessional Perspectives. Perhaps nothing other than our liturgies touches the internal life of communities more than the methods and perspectives we bring to bear on the interpretation of the Bible, since it is, in whatever canon, for all of us, our founding and ultimately validating document. (The Muslims, I suspect, were not entirely wrong to call both Jews and Christians "People of the Book" despite the huge differences between us.)

Jews of a scholarly bent who wish to understand how Catholic tradition functions will be interested in Gerald Fogarty's fascinating American Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A History from the Early Republic to Vatican II (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). Similarly, Catholics will be interested in S. David Sperling's Students of the Covenant: A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). Together, these volumes can form the basis for a very rich dialogue of shared perspective among American Jews and Catholics in an area that I suspect will be surprising to both.

In a now classic essay on "Tanakh and New Testament" in L. Boadt, et al., Biblical Studies: Meeting Ground of Jews and Christians (Paulist 1980), Joseph Blenkinsopp of the University of Notre Dame lamented the inability of Christians to "take Tanakh seriously on its own terms" (rather than traditional apologetical ones), an inability which in turn has rendered it virtually impossible for Christians to know "how to write an Old Testament theology" (p. 113). While the theological dilemmas intertwined in Blenkinsopp's deceptively simple lament are far from resolved, at least one approach to his ';how to" is emerging: Christians can write a biblical theology if they do so not in isolation from, but in dialogue with, the Jewish People.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the University of Notre Dame itself began work on this with a conference, the papers of which have been edited by Roger Brooks and John Collins under the title Hebrew Bible or Old Testament?: Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity (Notre Dame, IN, 1990). Wrangling with the issues in addition to the editors and Blenkinsopp are Roland Murphy, Josephine Massynbaerde Ford, James A. Sanders, Eugene Ulrich, Rolf Rendtorff, Jon D. Levenson, David Levenson, James L. Kugel, Adela Yarbro Collins and Charles Kannengiesser. This is a
nificant volume that deserves a wide distribution and readership. The terminological issue has more recently been debated (in most friendly fashion) by Lawrence Boadt, C.S.P., and myself, in the issues of the journal, New Theology Review (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN 56321) for November 1991 (Vol. 4, No. 4), August 1991 (Vol. 5, No. 3), and February 1993 (Vol. 6, No. 1).

Jon Levenson's essay from the Notre Dame volume is reprinted in his excellent collection, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993). Levenson, who is increasingly emerging as a major figure in the field, takes on Christian biases in historical criticism of both past and present, as well as the misuse of the Exodus by some contemporary liberation theologians, a subject on which we shall have more to say later.

On a clearly popular level, two of the most prolific authors of modern times, Andrew M. Greeley and Jacob Neusner, have combined to provide an example of what might be possible with The Bible and Us: A Priest and A Rabbi Read Scripture Together (New York: Warner Books, 1990). Ranging from Genesis through the prophets to the New Testament, the authors comment on the text and gently prod the readers and each other to new perspectives. Rabbi Michael Goldberg in Jews and Christians Getting Our Stories Straight: The Exodus and the Passion-Resurrection (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991) in a sense tries to hold down both sides of the dialogue by himself.

While the result is certainly of interest, it must be said that he is more effective in presenting the Jewish than the Christian narrative. He has restricted himself solely to the Gospel of Matthew, which is a bit misleading since the analogy between Jesus and Moses is distinctive to that Gospel ignoring in the process the liturgical context of the nascent Christian narrative as well as the other three Gospels. Jacob Neusner's A Rabbi Talks with Jesus: An Intermillennial, Interfaith Exchange (New York: Doubleday, 1993) utilizes the literary device of projecting himself into the Gospel of Matthew and offering his own reflections and reactions to Jesus' words as he walks with him. This method does yield insights and recommends itself to the general reader, although Neusner's understanding of Matthew is a bit more "individualistic" than most Catholics would prefer.

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