FROM EXEGESIS TO HERMENEUTICS - Rice School of Pastoral ...

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24 HORIZONSVatican IPs dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, Dei Verbum(1965), 2 emphasized a very different aspect of the Church's ongoing taskof becoming ever more responsive to the Word of God whose privilegedwitness in the historical community of faith is the Sacred Scriptures. Thetwo phases, that of the breakthrough of scientific exegesis and that of theBible's assumption of a central role in Church life, are causally related.But little serious reflection has been done in these forty years on just howthe astounding results of modern biblical scholarship can be responsiblyincorporated into the thought and life of a Church which is ever moreconvinced of the centrality of the Word of God. The resulting tensionbetween biblical scholars on the one hand and laity and pastors on theother appears, rash-like, on the epidermis of Church life in debates overwhat the Bible says about homosexuality, 3 divorce and remarriage, 4 orthe ordination of women 5 and in the not always defensible use of biblicaldata in liberation and Black Theology, 6 in support of apocalypticspirituality and male authoritarianism in some charismatic communities,7 in feminist critiques of clericalism and patriarchy in theChurch, and so on. 8 What is needed is a thoroughgoing reexamination of2 A.A.S., 58 (1966), 817-35. Eng. tr. McGivern, pp. 403-17.3 See, for example, J. J. McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual (Kansas City, KS:Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1976) in contrast to the document of Archbishop JohnR. Quinn, "Pastoral Letter on Homosexuality," The Monitor (San Francisco], May 15,1980, pp. 7-8.4 A very illuminating paper on the biblical material on divorce and its possiblerelevance for current pastoral practice is J. R. Donahue's address to the convention of theMidwest Canon Law Society, "Divorce: New Testament Perspectives," Nashville, April 21,1980. This paper, to be published in the proceedings of the MCLS, contains a usefulbibliography of recent work in this area.5 See the statement of the Catholic Biblical Association's Task Force on the Role ofWomen in Early Christianity, "Women and Priestly Ministry: The New Testament Evidence,"Catholic Biblical Quarterly 41 (October 1979), 608-13 in contrast to the article byJ. D. Quinn, "New Testament Data on Priestly Ordination," America 143 (August 30-September 6, 1980), 94-97.6 For a comprehensive introduction to Black Theology, including pertinent documentationand extensive bibliography as well as studies of the interrelation of Black, liberation,and feminist theologies and discussions of the current debates of Black theologians amongthemselves, see Black Theology: A Documentary History 1966-1979, ed. G. S. Wilmoreand J. H. Cone (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979).Perhaps the best known Catholic exegete involved in liberation theology is J. P.Miranda. See his Marx and the Bible, tr. J. Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1974). ProtestantBiblical scholars in this field include Walter Brueggemann and Norman Gottwald.7 The Catholic Charismatic 1 (February-March 1977) carried four articles on biblicalmaterial concerning women, by E. Schüssler-Fiorenza, C. Stuhlmueller, S. Schneiders,and R. J. Karris, in a concerted effort to counteract the misuse of Scriptural material tojustify the subordination of women.8 Probably the most able and prolific Catholic biblical scholar writing on the relationof biblical material to feminist concerns is E. Schüssler-Fiorenza. See, for example, her"You Are Not to be Called Father: Early Christian History in a Feminist Perspective," CrossCurrents 29 (Fall, 1979), 301-23; "Word, Spirit and Power: Women in Early Christianity,"in Women of Spirit, ed. R. Ruether and E. McLaughlin (New York: Simon and Schuster,1979), pp. 29-70; "The Apostleship of Women in Early Christianity," in Women Priests: ACatholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration, ed. L. Swidler and A. Swidler (NewYork: Paulist, 1977), pp. 114-22. In this latter volume are articles on the same topic, women
Schneiders: From Exegesis to Hermeneutics 25the subject of biblical hermeneutics as the question appears in thetheological and community context of the twentieth century Church.Divino Afflante Spirita is often called the Magna Carta of modernRoman Catholic biblical scholarship. Like its thirteenth centuryanalogue the encyclical did not so much give birth to as symbolicallyrecognize and legitimate what was already well underway amongCatholic scholars despite official resistance. 9 From the standpoint of thescholarly community the major contribution of the 1943 encyclical wasthe clear approval it gave for the unhampered use of modern methods ofbiblical criticism by Roman Catholic exegetes. 10 The methods in questionwere historical, philological, and literary and the purpose whichthese methods were to serve was "to discover and define what the[sacred] writers intended to express." nWith the removal of official hindrances to scientific research, PopePius XIFs warm encouragement to Catholic scholars "inspired by anactive and ardent love of [their] subject and sincerely devoted to HolyMother Church" to grapple with the unsolved problems in the sacredtext, and his equally forceful restraint on those self-appointed guardiansof the faith whose "intemperate zeal... imagines that whatever is newshould for that very reason be opposed or suspected," 12 Catholic scholarsplunged into the mainstream of modern biblical research with suchenergy and devotion that they soon took their places as peers with theirProtestant colleagues. They revelled in the intellectual excitement ofseemingly daily breakthroughs in knowledge in the historical setting,literary forms, and tradition history of the biblical texts.This scholarly development did not stay within the walls ofacademe nor between the covers of professional journals. The sometimesstartling results of biblical scholarship, first in a trickle and then in aflood, inundated the Church at large during the religiously sensitivepost-war years. During the fifties and sixties biblical scholars in thiscountry mounted strong competition to liturgists as the stars of summerschools of theology and religious education and on the middle-levellecture circuit. 13 There was undoubtedly some imprudence and specandministry in relation to the biblical data, by C. Stuhlmueller, J. M. Ford, M. Boucher, P.Perkins, M. A. Getty, J. Casey, R. J. Karris, J. L. McKenzie, S. Schneiders, among others.9 The work of M. J. Lagrange, who founded the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem in 1890 andthe prestigious Revue Biblique in 1892, is the best example of pre-Pius XII scientificCatholic biblical and archaeological work. He was not alone in his efforts but it must besaid that there were very few Catholic exegetes of note during the early part of the twentiethcentury, largely because the official ecclesiastical attitude was hostile to critical biblicalstudy.10 Divino Afflante Spiritu [henceforth DASL esp. paragraphs 11-48."DAS, par. 34.12 DAS, par. 46-47.13 Among the first class scholars who did the most to expose the ordinary lay Catholicand the diocesan clergy to contemporary biblical research were B. Ahem, R. Brown,E. Maly, R. A. F. MacKenzie, J. L. McKenzie, R. Murphy, C. Stuhlmueller, and B. Vawter.
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