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and Theology
Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible
DOI: 10.1177/014610799902800408
1999; 28; 167 Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology
Gerard S. Sloyan
Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998. Pp. ix + 649. Cloth, $99.95
Book Reviews: Giulio D'Onofrio, editor. HISTORY OF THEOLOGY. THE RENAISSANCE, Vol. III.
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167
portive positions.
The call to each
disciple
is
willingness
for conversion and
response
with
liberative
praxis.
As an aid to
research,
the book has a full
bibliography
and indices. Barbara Reids
hope
is that her book will be a
help
to
preach-
ers, teachers, and students of the Bible, and
all who
ponder
the Word.
Betty Jane Lillie
Athenaeum of Ohio
Cincinnati, OH 45230-2091
Giulio DOnofrio,
editor. HISTORY OF THE-
OLOGY. THE RENAISSANCE, Vol. III.
Collegeville,
MN: The
Liturgical Press,
1998.
Pp.
ix
+
649. Cloth, $99.95.
The first book of this multi-volume work
was reviewed in BTB 28/2 (Summer, 1998).
Volume II covers the medieval
period
and is
expected
in
English
translation in 2000. The
editor of Volume III is an instructor in medi-
eval
philosophy
at the
University
of Salerno.
Four
chapters,
more than two-thirds of the to-
tal, are the work of Cesare Vasoli, while
shorter
pieces
are done
by
Graziella Federici
Vescovini and Anna Morisi. A
longer
one on
developments
in
Spain
is contributed
by
Isaac
Vasquez Janeiro.
The books
eight chapters
report
on Renaissance movements and
personages
from 1414 to
1548,
the
opening
dates of the Councils of Constance and Trent
respectively.
The
attempted
reforms of the late
fifteenth and
early
sixteenth
centuries, Catho-
lic and Protestant, are
reported
in detail.
The richness of the
theological thought
of the 1400s in
Italy, Spain, France,
and
Northern
Europe including England
is con-
veyed by
accounts of the careers and
writings
of a
profusion
of
major
and minor humanists
who saw the restoration of biblical and
patris-
tic
study
as the heart of
theology.
The
repudi-
ation of the Schoolmen as
sophists
interested
in useless, speculative quaestiones
did not
emerge
in full force until the
early
sixteenth
century. Cusanus, Biel, Erasmus, and
dAilly
are
presented,
not as forerunners of the Ref-
ormation but as serious
theologians engaged
in humane
study.
Men like Sadoleto,
Contarini, and
Seripando
were of the same
mind,
as were
Hus, Vald6s, and Luther in
their desire for Church reform and their
championing
of a
Spirit-filled, evangelical
the-
ology.
The contest in
theology
was between the
via moderna and the via
antiqua,
but the
major
difference
lay,
in the
goals
of reform, but
rather in the
way
the Church was conceived;
not so much whether reform could be
achieved within or outside
it,
but what the
Church of Christ in fact was.
Numerous
magistri
of the
university
and
studia resisted the
burgeoning
humanities
program,
but
they
could not stem the tide of
matters like the
recovery
of the ancient texts,
the first
regular
chair for the Greek
language
at the studium of Florence
(1397),
or the inau-
gural
role in
philology
and historical criticism
of Lorenzo Valla (t1457). An
important part
of the tide was the
challenge
to
theologys
de-
pendence
on
corrupt
texts of the
Vulgate
and
at times its mistranslations. In
philosophy,
the
struggle
was between those who favored
the Averroist
interpretation
of Aristotle (Ibn
Roshd) and those who
opposed
it. Nicholas
of
Cusa,
a
papalist
rather than a conciliarist
in Church
politics,
was that
paradoxical fig-
ure : a cardinal of the Roman Church who
called into
question non-contradiction, the
first
principle
of Aristotelian
logic, replacing
it with a
theory
of the coincidence of
oppo-
sites.
The
knowledge
of Greek
philology by
Italian humanists at the reunion Council of
Ferra-Florence (1438-1445) brought
to
light
the different
understandings
of
key
terms in
the doctrinal discussions: substantia, ousia,
hypostasis, persona, aitia, causa, principium,
aTcTi~. Far from
closing
the
gap
of
theological
disagreement,
it disclosed it even further.
Spurred by
their interest in biblical studies, a
crop
of northern humanists
emerged:
the
short-lived Dutch man of letters Rudolf
Agricola (t148 5), Geiler of
Kaisersberg
(t 1510), and
Jakob Wimpfeling (t 1528).
Wimpfeling published
an edition of the Latin
Bible in 1498 that was
accompanied by
the
commentaries of the French Franciscan and
Hebraist Nicholas of
Lyra (t1349) and of se-
lected Church Fathers, while Geiler some
years
later
provided
a German translation of a
harmony
of the
Gospels.
These northern
scholars included some who
began
to look on
the Bible as the sole source of doctrine but
not as directed to the elaboration of a new
theology.
Their
ecclesiology
was
traditionally
Catholic. In
all, fifty-eight
editions of the
Latin Bible were
published
in fif-
teenth-century Germany
and Basel. The hu-
manists who knew Greek
thoroughly began
to read the Second Testament and
Septuagint
texts as
philologists;
the
exploration
of the
Hebrew text in the same
way
followed
shortly.
Johannes
Reuchlins
story
is told in de-
tail, including
his
coming
to favor cabalistic
exegeis (as Pico della Marandola had done)
and his defense of
Jewish learning against
the
convert Pfefferkorn and the
Cologne
Domin-
icans.
Similarly explored
is Erasmus
publica-
tion in 1516 of an inferior Second Testament
text
(long
in use in the
Byzantine
churches
that was dubbed
receptus
in an edition of
1633),
which continued in use in the West as
the received text until the late nineteenth cen-
tury.
Erasmus haste to
produce
the first
Greek text in
print
was
owing
to a race with
Stunicas earlier (1514) text for Cardinal
Ximenes
Polyglot,
which
appeared
in Alcala
de Henares
(Complutensis)
in 1520.
The biblical interests of
More, Fisher,
and
especially
Colet on Paul are covered in
the same
chapter,
which also
provides
the rea-
sons
proposed
for Erasmus
rejection
of Lu-
thers
appeals
for
scholarly support. Initially
in 1516 Luther had
conveyed through Georg
Spalatini
his
unhappiness
that the Latin
Instrumentum
accompanying
Erasmus Greek
text had understood &dquo;works of the law&dquo; to
mean
simply
the extreme observance of cere-
monies, and denied that St. Paul made
any
reference to
original
sin. In this matter and in
his defense of the freedom of the will
against
Luther (1524) he showed himself both subtle
and
prescient.
His
contemporaries
and
many
since have dismissed the choleric
Augustin-
ian as a
philologist
and no
theologian.
A final
judgment
can be rendered
only by
those who
know Erasmus
thought
as well as Luthers.
The
present
volumes treatment of humanis-
tic
learning, piety,
and zeal for the
gospel
on
both sides of the
Alps gives
the lie to the sim-
plistic
saw that &dquo;Erasmus laid the
egg
that Lu-
ther hatched.&dquo;
The books disscussion of biblical schol-
arship
forms
only part
of its
wide-ranging
treatment. The Council of Constance
(1414-1418),
which
brought
the schism in
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168
the West to an end,
is treated in some detail,
including
the shameful
disregard
of Huss at-
tendance under a safe-conduct
pass
issued
by
Emperor Sigismund
and his death at the
stake voted
by
the assembled fathers. Al-
though
he was
charged
with a list of 260 er-
rors, he seems to have been condemned on
the basis of one:
namely,
denial of the
hypostatic
union of the Word with
Jesus
hu-
man nature, from which a trinitarian error
and one of
worshiping
bread and wine and
not the true
body
and blood of Christ were
somehow deduced. In the event, his condem-
nation seemed to be based on his
adoption
of
Wyclifs teaching
more than on his
responses
to direct
questioning by
the
Spanish
Francis-
can Moxena while incarcerated.
The Council of Basel-Ferrara-Flor-
ence-Rome comes in for a full
treatment,
in-
cluding
the
thoroughgoing
mutual misunder-
standings
of Church doctrines as held
by
East
and West. In the final
signing
there were
many
mental reservations on both sides. The
intransigence
of the Latin
theologians gener-
ally
and of Mark
Eugenicus, Metropolitan
of
Ephesus,
in
particular,
was a formula for fail-
ure. The condition of the
Jews
of
Spain,
both
the rabbis who became Catholics out of
conviction and the
many
more
Jews
who ac-
cepted baptism
for
protection
after a
persecu-
tion that
began
in Seville in 1391 (the anuzim
or &dquo;forced&dquo;), and the Muslims
(Mudjars)
of
similar condition, is likewise described as a
problem receiving
cruel resolution
through-
out the fifteenth
century.
On balance this
immensely
erudite vol-
ume, despite
its occasional lack of editorial
discipline, opens
a window on an era that is
often
reported
on from a
quite
different
standpoint.
It is a serious work on the
history
of
theology,
which is what it claims to be.
Gerard S.
Sloyan
The Catholic
University
of America
Washington,
DC
John Barton,
HOW THE BIBLE CAME TO BE.
Louisville,
KY: Westminster
John
Knox
Press, 1997. Pp. xi
+ 100.
Paper, $10.00.
John Barton,
Professor of the
Interpreta-
tion of
Holy Scripture
at Oxford
University,
has written a short introduction to the devel-
opment
of the Bible: i.e., how the Bible came
to be
Scripture.
He writes for the
non-technical reader, such as the
layperson.
His
premise
is that the formation of the Bible
was a
drawn-out, highly complex process.
Therefore, he
categorizes
his
writing
in two
distinct areas of biblical formation: (1) how
and when the books of the Bible were
written,
and (2) how
they
were collected to form the
First and Second Testament
Scriptures (p. x).
Barton divides the second area into three sec-
tions : (a) collecting
the
books, (b) from books
to
scripture,
and (c) the
fixing
of the canon.
Chapter one,
which
gives
a brief over-
view of the contents of each book in the Bi-
ble, actually functions, therefore,
as an adden-
dum to the book itself. Its
purpose
is to ac-
quaint
or
reacquaint
the reader with each
biblical books
general
contents.
Taking
a mainstream
scholarly approach
to the
development
of the individual books
(chapter 2), Barton
argues
that
very
few books
were written
by
an individual
person; they
are
mainly compilations
and the work of
many
authors. For
example,
he
argues
that the Pen-
tateuch and the
Synoptic Gospels
came to-
gether
from earlier collections of stories or
earlier traditions-that is, pre-existing
materi-
als. He
carefully explains
how Moses did not
write the Pentateuch as found in
todays
Bible
(p. 15),
but rather the Pentateuch is the result
of
compiling
several strands of material
through
the efforts of
multiple people
over
several centuries. Further, he discusses how
the
Synoptic Gospels
came from the hand of
an editor or redactor
creatively using existing
material to fashion the stories of
Jesus
accord-
ing
to each writers
theological position (pp.
18-22). Basically,
his intent in this section is
to demonstrate that the biblical books came
together
in a
complex
manner.
In
chapter three, Barton focuses on the
collecting
of the books. He
categorizes
his dis-
cussion of the
collecting process by
tradi-
tional
groupings:
the Pentateuch, the Law
and the
Prophets,
the Book of the
Twelve,
the
Gospels,
Pauls Letters, etc. His
premise
here
is that the
collecting process
is as
complex
as
the
writing process (p. 49).
Barton turns to the issue of the books
becoming Scripture
in
chapter
four. He de-
fines
&dquo;Scripture&dquo;
as a book
having authority
that
goes beyond
the words on the
page.
Among
other reasons, he maintains, a book be-
comes
Scripture
when it is relevant and
applica-
ble to the
present
and is considered sacred.
Addressing
the issue of canon in
chapter
five,
Barton
discusses, basically,
how certain
books were chosen to be in the Bible and
why
others were not. The
emphasis,
as in his dis-
cussion of the other
processes,
is that canon-
ization
developed gradually
and in a
complex
manner.
A brief
glossary
defines
key terms, and
brief
biographies
of
people key
to the forma-
tion of the canon (Athanasius, Augustine,
Jerome, Irenaeus, etc.) complete
the last
pages
of the book.
Overall, the book is concise and
easy
to
read. Barton
explains
terms for the non-technical
reader. He
successfully
addreseses the false no-
tion held
by many
that the Bible has
always
been the
way
it is. The book would be useful
in a church or
study group setting
as a basic
tool for
discussing
the
development
of the Bi-
ble and the
myths
often associated with this
process.
Terry
W.
Eddinger
Houston Graduate School of
Theology
NC
Campus
High Point, NC 27262
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