This course offers an introduction to the academic study of the Bible. First, we will ground ourselves in modern Church teachings about the nature of divine revelation; the relationship of Scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium; and, guidelines for interpretation of Scripture.

Second, we will study Biblical interpretation in the Church and in the world as it has developed from the Patristic Era to the Renaissance. Starting with the Church Fathers we will move through the medieval scholastics, to the Renaissance and issues of the Protestant Schism-Heresies / Reformation, and finally the challenge of Enlightenment philosophy and textual scholarship.

While the course does stand its own, it’s the first of a two-part discussion of the interpretation of the Bible that was originally one course (SCRPT 615).

SCRPT 617, the second course, considers the academic study of the Bible in the post-Enlightenment era; the development of modern critical methods; the development of the Church’s response to these methods through Vatican II and the Pontifical Biblical Commission; and, directions for future development.