In November 2022, as I was working my way through this fine volume in the Wisdom Commentary series, the Holy Father Francis addressed the International Theological Commission here in Rome and encouraged the members of this body to pursue the theological task according to three guidelines: 1) a creative fidelity to tradition, 2) prudently opening up to the contribution to theology that is made possible through interdisciplinary research, and 3) a recognition that the ministry of theology is not only personal but also communal and collegial.
As I pondered the Holy Father's admonition, I realized that the very volume I was holding in my hands was an embodiment of all three of his guidelines. This series certainly seeks to be creatively faithful to the tradition, it is highly interdisciplinary in its approach, and it is most definitely a collegial enterprise.
The volume I was invited to review is the work of three different committed Catholic women who are highly recognized biblical scholars. Each of them has written an exhaustive and erudite commentary on one of three New Testament or Second Testament letters. The volume is highly readable and provides even someone with considerable background in the study of Sacred Scripture with a commentary that is fresh, original, and highly insightful.
The volume is written from a feminist perspective. We know that, sadly, many are inclined to politicize the term “feminist” in a way that ghettoizes the term and is highly reductionistic, or they are inclined to assume that something written “from a feminist perspective” is something of concern to women only. Nothing could be further from the truth. What feminist scholars working from within the Catholic tradition are seeking to do is to contribute to the tradition they love and to which they have given their lives by engaging questions and concerns that are posed to the tradition by contemporary culture and lived experience. They do this precisely out of a deep love for the tradition, out of a desire to assure that the tradition continues to be life giving for people living in a contemporary context and engaging the questions and challenges posed to biblical faith by that contemporary context. As someone who has benefited enormously from the fine work of many women theologians, I know this to be true from my own first-hand experience.
Rather than reacting defensively against feminism, what is needed is an engagement with its legitimate critiques of a culture and a church that has often failed to recognize the full humanity and dignity of women. And so feminist theologians and biblical scholars are seeking to do exactly what the Holy Father is asking all theologians to do: to cultivate the tradition as one would cultivate a garden, so that it remains a living reality, capable—as all healthy living things are—of growth and development. A tradition, as Pope Francis notes, either grows or dies out. As Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have both taught, tradition must be seen as the “living river in which the origins are ever present” so that it “irrigates various lands, feeds various geographical places, germinating the best of that land, the best of that culture. In this way, the Gospel continues to be incarnated in every corner of the world, in an ever new way.” This, in fact, is precisely the goal of this series. As Barbara Reid, OP, notes in her editor's introduction to the series, the goal of the series is “not to lead readers to reject the authority of the biblical text. Rather, the aim is to promote better understanding of the contexts from which the text arose and of the rhetorical effects it has on people in contemporary contexts. Such understanding can lead to a deepening of faith, with the Bible serving as an aid to bring flourishing of life” (xxxiv).
The scholarship exemplified in these volumes is of exceptional quality. The approach is comprehensive and engages the biblical text and the questions it raises by employing the methods and tools of a range of disciplines: linguistics, literary analysis, history, cultural studies, and textual criticism. The text is highly readable while being erudite and will be illuminating for any serious scripture student. The footnotes lend a depth and subtlety to the discussion in the main body of the text, and the rich bibliographies provide plenty of material for further reading and research.
I found each of the extended essays in this volume to be informative and highly worthwhile. My one criticism of the volume is a matter of formatting more than a question of scholarship. Given three different biblical scholars contributed to the volume but each wrote her commentary on a single New Testament letter, it would be enormously helpful to the reader if the lead author of each essay was clearly identified at the beginning or end of the essay. As the volume is designed, one might be tempted to think that all three authors worked collaboratively on the entire volume. However, I consulted one of the authors who clarified for me that each essay had a lead author.
As a theologian who works a great deal with Scripture both in the classroom and in pastoral practice, but whose primary competence is not in Sacred Scripture but in fundamental theology, I found that I was learning a great deal as I worked my way through this splendid volume in the Wisdom Commentary series. This volume—and all the volumes in the series—belong in the library of every Catholic college and university, and professors of theology should encourage students to make use of the erudition and insight to be found in each of the volumes.
