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

26 HORIZONStacularism on the part of second class scholars but on the whole theresult was positive. The educated Catholic population, virtually ignorantof the Scriptures two decades before, became not only scripturallyliterate but enthusiastic about the role of the Word of God in theirpersonal and communal lives. Thus official approval, professional challenge,and popular appreciation combined to stimulate a prodigiousscholarly output which reached a certain symbolic highpoint in 1968with the publication of The Jerome Biblical Commentary. 14The fact that the Bible had become a vital factor in Roman Catholiclife and that biblical scholarship was perhaps the most completelyecumenical endeavor in the contemporary church profoundly influencedthe production of Dei Verbum. This dogmatic constitution ofVatican II, one of the most hotly debated of the Council, had to come togrips with the Reformation's contributions regarding the nature of biblicalrevelation and its transmission, with questions concerning the meaningof inspiration and inerrancy which had emerged as scientific criticismchallenged naïve positions on historical facticity and biblical truth,and with the greatly enlarged role of Scripture in the life of the posttridentineChurch. 15 The ecumenical, scholarly, and pastoral dimensionsof the Church's biblical concerns surface in the constitution, oftenin unresolved tension with each other. The document is the symbolicarticulation of the second phase of modern biblical renewal in RomanCatholicism.This second phase is much more complex and tension-laden thanthe first, but potentially even more exciting and fruitful. In the first phasescientific method was the determining voice in biblical scholarship. Themethod was historical criticism with its ancillary disciplines and themethod determined its object which was defined as the literal sense ofthe text, i.e., the meaning which the human author intended to communicateto his original audience. Although there were notable exceptions,the exegetes in general did not much concern themselves withtheories of revelation, inspiration, and canonicity because, whatevereffects these had on the sacred text, they did not affect the methods bywhich the scholar tried tò get back to the author's intended meaning. 1614 The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, R. E. Murphy(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968).15 For an excellent commentary on Dei Verbum which gives the flavor of the Conciliardebates surrounding its production, see Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed.H. Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), vol. ΙΠ, "Commentary on Dei Verbum,"by J. Ratzinger, A. Grillmeier, B. Rigaux, pp. 155-272.16Some of the most important work done on inspiration, revelation, and canonicity byCatholic scholars during the 1960's and 1970's are the following: L. Alonso-Schökel, TheInspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature, tr. F. Martin (New York:Herder and Herder, 1972); J. Audinet et al., Révélation de Dieu et langage des hommes(Paris: Cerf, 1972); P. Benoit, inspiration and the Bible, tr. J. Murphy-O'Connor andM. Keveme (London/New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965); W. Bulst, Revelation, tr. B. Vaw-