2. THE SPECTRUM OF POSITIONS WITH REGARD TO CRITICAL EXEGESIS

The rise of critical exegesis has sparked a whole variety of reactions within the Christian (Catholic and Protestant) community. The differences in the reactions has created different types of exegesis within the Christian Church. A rough classification of these different types of exegesis would look like this:

A. Sectarian Fundamentalist Exegesis.

B. Fundamentalist Protestant Exegesis.

C. Fundamentalist Catholic Exegesis.

D. Conservative Critical Protestant Exegesis.

E. Moderate Critical Catholic Exegesis.

D' Neo-Orthodox Critical Protestant Exegesis.

C' Liberal Critical Catholic Exegesis.

B' Liberal Critical Protestant Exegesis.

A' Faithless Critical Exegesis.

This classification demands a few words of explanation.

2.1

Firstly, regarding the terminology used. The key terms are a) Fundamentalist; b) Critical: c) Conservative or Moderate; d) Liberal. For the purposes of this paper, a) by Fundamentalist I mean a faith that a priori excludes the necessity of the historical-critical method for the understanding of the Bible (2) ; b) by Critical I mean "the scientific study of the Bible utilizing the same formal methods as those used in the study of antiquity, namely, classical philology, archeology, and ancient history."(3); c) by Conservative I mean a critical exegesis which takes seriously the concerns of fundamentalist believers, namely, the "fundamentals" of Christian faith: the inspiration and authority of Sacred Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, real resurrection from the dead, and second coming.(4) I call today's mainstream Catholic Critical Exegesis "Moderate" and not "Conservative", because I have not found the moderate Catholic Critical Exegetes calling themselves "Conservatives" as readily as moderate Protestants do; d) by Liberal I mean the critical exegesis which dispenses even with the "fundamentals" mentioned above, if so demanded by critical evidence. To give some substance to these definitions, later in this paper I shall consider three works representative of the three main types of exegesis which I shall discuss in detail: the Fundamentalist, the Moderate Catholic Critical, and the Liberal Protestant. Liberal Protestant exegesis will be represented by the work of Conzelmann and Lindemann mentioned above. Moderate Catholic Critical Exegesis will be represented by the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (5); it is a sign of the times that the results of moderate critical exegesis have entered into a Catechism to be used as a standard reference work by the universal Church. Fundamentalist Protestant Exegesis will be represented by the Word Studies in the Greek New Testament of Kenneth S. Wuest (6), an old work recently re-published.

2.2

Secondly, the order of my classification must be legitimated. By putting Moderate Catholic Critical Exegesis in the centre I may appear to beg the whole question from the very beginning. But in reality this is not so. The classification is only a working hypothesis with which to begin. My paper is meant as a test of this hypothesis. The end result of my work will be judged by the reader. Still, the basis of this classification must be explained. This basis is the tension between the contrasting requirements of criticism and of faith in biblical exegesis. At the extremes of the classification there is in A the unqualified appeal to faith and the rejection of any critical stance characteristic of sectarian Christianity (the cults), while in A' there is the exclusive appeal to criticism and the rejection of any role of faith in biblical interpretation, the standpoint aracteristic of liberal exegesis. At first sight at least, the contemporary official stance of the Catholic Church seems to attain an equilibrium between the two exigencies. Therefore, there is at least a preliminary justification for this classification.

Of course, I am well aware that, holding any of the other positions, one could draw up a similar classification by putting oneself in the middle and rearranging the other positions accordingly. Actually this is precisely what is done by Conzelmann and Lindemann when they say: "This principle [that the text determines the method and not vice versa] is to be maintained against criticism from the 'right' as well as from the left'. The 'right', i.e. fundamentalism [...] The left' [is] represented for instance by Marxism's ideology of history [...]." (7) The very same thing is done by the fundamentalists, who see themselves as the golden mean between the extremes of liberal exegesis and Catholic exegesis. James Barr's analysis (8) of this fundamentalist claim is worth quoting: "[...] these two opposite wings [Protestant Fundamentalists and Catholics] have or have had very similar views about the Bible. [...] Protestant conservatives, indeed, feel that the comparison is a rather remote one in any case, because there are so many other factors: in particular, Roman Catholicism, excellent as its doctrine of scripture and its conservatism about historical matters may be, then goes and spoils the whole excellently conservative scheme by adding to the Bible the whole mass of church tradition as another major source of authority. The conservative evangelical, quaintly, thinks that he occupies middle ground in this respect: the liberals' depart from the true position about the authority of scripture by subtracting from it, the Roman Catholics by adding to it.(9)

The Catholic Church and Protestant fundamentalists in the past have made common front in their opposition to liberal critical exegesis, especially during the modernist era at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. But today the situation has changed considerably, especially on the side of the Catholic Church. Hence I think the first thing to do now is to outline more clearly the position of the Catholic Church, comparing it with the positions of Fundamentalism and of Liberal Protestantism.

2. H. Conzelmann and A. Lindemami, Interpreting the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988) 2, define Fundamentalism as the standpoint "that personal faith is presuppositional for proper exegesis - a faith that a priori excludes certain 'critical' results. "Such a definition does not pinpoint exactly the essence of Fundamentalism, since such a definition includes elements proper to Conservative Critical Exegesis and Moderate Catholic Critical Exegesis. The latter can be considered Fundamentalist only by begging the whole question of what Fundamentalism is.

3. Conzelmann and Lindemann, 2.

4. cf. James Barr, Fundamentalism. (London: SCM Press, second edition, 1981) 2.

5. Accessible to me only in the Italian translation: Catechismo delta Chiesa Cattolica (Citta del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992). The English translation in this paper is mine, except for the quotations from Scripture, where I follow the Revised Standard Version, with some minor variations.

6. "Jesus of Nazareth - Who is He?" in Word Studies in the Greek New Testament 11: Great Truths to Live By From the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971, first paperback edition; original edition, 1952); "Greek Grammar and the Deity of Jesus Christ" in Word Studies in the Greek New Testament 3: Treasures from the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company 1971, tenth printing; original edition1941).

7. Conzelmann and Lindemann, 2.

8. It will be noticed that Barr also locates himself in the middle, between the two supposed extremes of Fundamentalism and Catholicism!

9. Barr, 106-107.