SCRPT 617 considers the academic study of Scripture as a theological and historical text, that is Biblical exegesis, from the 19th Century to the present. While the course stands on its own, it is also a companion to THEO 616, which treats the topic from the Patristic era to the Reformation. SCRPT 617 opens by discussing modern Church teachings about the nature of divine revelation, Scripture’s relationship to Tradition, and guidelines for interpreting Scripture in the Church.
The course then studies the development of historical-critical textual methods for studying Scripture after the Enlightenment (about 1800 to the present). First, it treats the 19th-Century development of said methods, and the philosophical and theological assumptions of the method’s Protestant pioneers, for instance D.F. Strauss, F. C. Baur, J.J. Griesbach, and A. Harnack. The course then considers the Church’s early response to historical-critical exegesis, beginning with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus.
The course then studies 20th-Century exegetical figures such as H. Gunkel and R. Bultmann, N.T. Wright and R. Bauckham. It treats the Church’s theological and philosophical discernment of, and careful integration of, historical-critical methods, including documents such as Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Benedict XVI’s Verbum Domini. The course concludes by considering future exegetical directions.