Henry Wansbrough OSB is well known not only for the enthusiasm and panache with which he opens up the Bible to others – through his teaching, writing and biblical translation – but also for allowing that love of Scripture to permeate other areas of his life and interests. This Festschrift, edited by Philip McCosker, reflects these diverse interests in contributions from a wide variety of colleagues, friends and former pupils. The editor's introduction is not content simply to outline the essays of individual contributors, but also explores the wider hermeneutical issues they raise. McCosker points to the need for a multiplicity of approaches and types of analysis to debate with and critique one another; in particular, the development of a new synthesis which would learn the lessons raised by historical‐critical methods while attentive to the riches of patristic and medieval exegesis (a synthesis advocated by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in a lecture delivered in New York in 1988).
The volume is divided into three main sections –‘Interpretation’, ‘Translation’ and ‘Reception’– followed by a fourth providing biographical (by Julian Borthwick) and bibliographical information on our honorand. As the editor astutely observes, however, border crossing is not prohibited (after all, are not translation and reception themselves acts of interpretation?). The essays in Part 1 display the value of close and careful reading of the text. Adrian Schenker OP explores a conundrum caused by discrepancies between veiling and visibility in accounts of the holy of holies in Solomon's Temple, considering its theological implications and positing a four‐stage development of the textual tradition. Francesca Stavrakopoulou examines evidence for royal legitimation rituals, focusing especially on ancestral endorsement, in the account of Solomon's accession. Sue Gillingham considers the theological potential of attending to the arrangement of the Psalter in its final form. In particular, she reflects on the pairing of psalms stressing power and powerlessness, including how this juxtaposition functions within the Benedictine tradition. Willem Beuken SJ sets Isaiah's oracle on Philistia against the background of a paradigm shift towards a theological rather than political purpose for Isaiah's ‘oracles against the nations’. His literary analysis, building on redaction‐critical insights, shows how in the stripping away of concrete historical references the oracle is transformed into a message of abiding significance to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (and indeed to all readers of Isaiah). Finally, Mark Goodacre's analysis of Peter as both ‘rock’ and ‘stone of stumbling’ in Matthew's Gospel challenges the conventional view that Matthew has softened the harsh Marcan portrayal. His is a fine example of how narrative‐critical readings can force a rethink of redaction criticism's over‐concentration on what is distinctive.
Part II explores the complexity of the translator's task, one dear to Fr Henry's heart. In his discussion of the textual tradition and translations of the Book of Wisdom, Michael Tait urges translators to resist the tendency to downplay, or avoid, sexual innuendo in the text. The next two essays address translation of Paul's letter to the Romans. John Muddiman, in a wide‐ranging exploration of the letter and its context, is approving of how NJB tackles dikaiosunē and related terms, bringing out the nuances of Paul's usage. Albert Vanhoye SJ concentrates on the unusual instances of Paul's pistis language in Romans 12:3 and 6, bringing in the notion of accreditation to overcome the inappropriateness of ‘faith’ as a translation. The final two contributions in this section take a broader view. Olivier‐Thomas Venard OP reflects upon the cultural dimension of translations, with particular attention to La Bible de Jérusalem and its literary offspring. Nick King SJ draws on his own experience as a New Testament translator to consider the translator's art (in which the desire to offer the ‘Bread of Life’ may be more important than any translation theory), engaging with a string of conversation partners including Ronald Knox, Bruce Metzger, and Henry Wansbrough himself.
Part III is the most wide‐ranging and suggestive of all. Benedicta Ward SLG examines another northern‐based monk, the Venerable Bede, and the contribution he made to the scriptural nurturing and education of the English of his day. Henry Mayr‐Harting tackles the reception of the Bible in twelfth‐century English prayer, with particular focus on Aelred of Rievaulx. His is a rich exploration of Christ‐centred prayer heavily based on gospel images, drawing on the Chichester reliefs of the Raising of Lazarus and the St Alban's Psalter – with images from Christ's life as aids to meditation on individual psalms – as well as Aelred's own writings. From a more recent period, Wulstan Peterburs OSB examines John Henry Newman's growing understanding of the interdependence of Scripture and Tradition, not least through correspondence with his brother Francis, and his emerging theory of development. Kevin Cathcart supplements this with an essay on Newman's contemporary, the Egyptologist and Catholic covert Sir Peter le Page Renouf. Cathcart's absorbing account of his life and scholarship well illustrates Renouf's capacity to foresee developments in biblical studies.
Henry Wansbrough's ecumenical concerns are reflected in several papers exploring the reception of the Bible among Christians of other traditions, and in ecumenical dialogue. John Webster's fascinating examination of Karl Barth's Lectures on the Gospel of John offers a portrait of Barth the exegete taking us beyond his more famous Commentary on Romans. Barth's theological exposition of the text as ‘words about the Word’ has important potential for contemporary Christian commentators. Bishop (now Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware provides an Orthodox perspective on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition (drawing upon the 1976 Anglican‐Orthodox Moscow Agreed Statement). He examines the unity of Scripture in terms of its vertical (both human and divine), horizontal (the Scriptures as a coherent whole, for all their diversity, read in a Christocentric way) and diachronic (the unity of Scripture and Tradition as ‘the way in which Scripture has been lived and understood within the Church from generation to generation’) dimensions. From the Catholic side, Donald Bolen reflects upon the role of Scripture in the various ARCIC conversations, particularly in the theological method developed to enable convergence between the churches.
Two final essays reflect more widely on issues of canon and tradition. John Barton, with his characteristic clarity, argues that talk of harmonizing biblical texts actually describes at least two different procedures: one an attempt to achieve consistency from inconsistent sources (e.g. Tatian, or the Qumran Temple Scroll), the other presupposing that any discrepancies are merely apparent (Augustine is an example of the second, though rather more sophisticated than some of his modern counterparts). The strategy employed is indicative of the text's canonical status in the eyes of the harmonizer. James Dunn's reflections upon recent challenges to the contrast between fixed scripture and changing tradition offer new possibilities to the Catholic‐Protestant debate through viewing Scripture as itself ‘living tradition’. The work of Dunn and others on the oral tradition underlying the gospels has itself raised important issues here which are ripe for exploration.
So what, in the end, is it that the Scripture says? The message of this collection, and rightly so, is that the Scripture says many things. This answer reflects the paradigm shift in recent biblical scholarship, which is now far less apologetic about ecclesial commitments, far more modest in its historical claims, and willing to sit at the feet of older interpreters and their varied patterns of exegesis. Textual, historical, literary and theological approaches need to dialogue with each other in a truly Catholic approach to Scripture, and border crossing from one to the other is to be enthusiastically encouraged. This rich and diverse volume goes a long way towards showing us what the ingredients should be, and hinting, however sketchily, at how the recipe might be written.
