Roman Catholics and the Bible
A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. (Nelson. 84s.) THE Reformation is popularly supposed to have left the Christian West divided into two camps, appealing to the authority of the Church and the Bible respectively. If so, the scales are weighted against Protestantism today, when criticism has undermined its authority in the eyes of many. We might expect Roman Catholics to point the moral : No wonder you are disintegrating if you base your religion on so weak a fotindation. As this monumental work shows, their scholars eschew such a short-sighted approach. In the-preface they claim as allies all who share the traditional view of the Bible.
For many reasons this fine book deserves a welcome. To Roman Catholics it will be of untold Value. To all others it will give an authdritative answer to the 'question: What does the Roman Catholic Church teach about the B.ble? They will find a grave religious treatment suited to the solemnity of the theme and, however well versed in their own interpretations, will learn much that is new. Unfortunately it must be said that ,the admirable printing with its clever typographical devices is too small to be read for long without some discomfort.
The forty-three authors, drawn from the English-speaking world, are enabled to maintain a consistent attitude towards their subject thanks to their loyalty to the replies of the Biblical Commission at Rome. They claim that the Catholic Church is the exclusive pos- sessor and interpreter of the Bible, but they are thoroughly conversant with the work of notpathol.c scholars, by which they are often influenced. Their Church after all does "move," and the criticism sometimes would have seemed advanced in the England of 1853. Some interesting concessions are the dictum on the Book of Wisdom, the author of which was led by the Holy Spirit to adopt the pseudonym of Solomon; the warning that the early stories of the Old Testament must not be taken in an over-literal and Europeanised sense; the explanation of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as implying "the large part, and profound influence of Moses as author and legislator" (which would to a large extent satisfy Protestant critics); and the description of the speaking of Balaam's ass as "a dramatic representation of an unusual incident."
- Free use is made of glosses and interpolations to get rid of diffi- culties; also of textual corruptions. There are countless passages where the interpretation seems forced and unnatural to non-Catholics, but generally reasons are given; it is not imposed by the mere weight of tradition. A passage which illustrates the fundamental differences between the two sides occurs on p. 779. The human knowledge of Jesus included "all actual events, past, present and to come." When he said that "of that day" he knew nothing, he meant he had not been authorised to give the date and "was within his rights
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