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Document Details : Title: The Reception of Dei Verbum 19 and the Undoing of Critical Scholarship on the Gospels Author(s): MCMAHON, Christopher Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 46 Issue: 3 Date: 2023 Pages: 258-274 DOI: 10.2143/LS.46.3.3293956 Abstract : Along with the general acknowledgment of the insufficiency of critical biblical methods, there has been a corresponding marginalization of DV 19 within the fields of biblical studies and theology. Although not a wholesale assault on the Second Vatican Council itself, this marginalization of DV 19 often downplays or simply ignores the historical context of the debates that accompanied the drafting of the constitution itself. By ignoring these debates, the intentions of many of the Council participants are set aside in order to promote an approach to the Gospels that resists critical questions in favor of a more dogmatic approach to exegesis – one that is prone to reinforcing traditional doctrine in a relatively uncomplicated way. Through an initial overview of the production of DV 19, an examination of the reception of DV 19 within the ebb and flow of critical biblical scholarship in the decades following the council, and by highlighting some of the aggressive dogmatism that has emerged in recent English-language biblical publications, this paper argues that the singular contribution of critical scholarship, endorsed at the council, ought to be recovered in the life of the Church that is always called to reform and purification as it journeys through history. |
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