Note: More than two years ago when this first book of Pope Benedict XVI in his papacy first became available in one of the Catholic bookstores I frequent, the price of the hardbound edition was around P2,500. Much as I wanted to get my hands on the book, the price was too stiff for me and I decided to wait for a cheaper edition. I was finally able to get a copy a couple of months ago at National bookstore - a bantam hardbound copy at P995. It was still pricey for me, but I decided to take it anyway. The typeface was a little too hard on my eyes, but my cheap reading glasses comes to the rescue.
The book contains 10 chapters, and to date I have only managed to read the foreword, but I guess the foreword by itself is well worth the price of the book. To a non-theologian layman like me, the foreword's essay on the historical-critical method - its importance as well as its limitations in addressing Christology - is thoroughly illuminating. Here are a few excerpts of that 14-page foreword. My emphases in bold, and my [comments bracketed in red].
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The historical-critical method...is an indispensable tool, given the structure of the Christian faith...This method is a fundamental dimension of exegesis, but it does not exhaust the interpretative task for someone who sees the biblical writings as a single corpus of Holy Scripture inspired by God.
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For someone who considers himself directly addressed by the Bible today [although many interpret it in their own way], the method's first limit is that by its very nature it has to leave the biblical word in the past [otherwise, it would be violating the method's discipline]. It is a historical method, and that means that it investigates the then current context of events in which the texts originated. It attempts to justify and to understand the past - as it was in itself - with the greatest possible precision, in order then to find out what the author could have said and intended to say in the context of the mentality and events of the time. [talk about exclusively literal interpretations]. To the extent that it remains true to itself, the historical method not only has to investigate the biblical word as a thing of the past, but also has to let it remain in the past. It can glimpse points of contact with the present and it can try to apply the biblical word to the present; the only thing it cannot do is make it something present today - that would be overstepping its bounds. Its very precision in interpreting the reality of the past is both its strength and its limit. [excellent]
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At this point we get a glimmer, even on a historical level, of what inspiration means: The author does not speak as private, self-contained subject. He speaks in a living community, that is to say, in a living historical movement not created by him, nor even by the collective, but which is led forward by a greater power that is at work. [the Holy Spirit] There are four dimensions of the word that the old doctrine of the fourfold sense of Scripture [CCC 115] pinpointed with remarkable accuracy. The four senses of Scripture are not individual meanings arrayed side by side, but dimensions of the one word that reaches beyond the moment.
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Unless there had been something extraordinary in what happened, unless the person and the words of Jesus radically surpassed the hopes and expectations of the time, there is no way to explain why he was crucified or why he made such an impact. [Non-believers, listen]. As early as twenty or so years after Jesus' death, the great Christ-hymn of the Letter to the Philippians (cf. Phil 2:6-11) offers us a fully developed Christology stating that Jesus was equal to God, but emptied himself, became man, and humbled himself to die on the Cross, and that to him now belongs the worship of all creation, the adoration that God, through the prophet Isaiah, said was due him alone (cf. Is 45:23).
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The historical-critical method...is an indispensable tool, given the structure of the Christian faith...This method is a fundamental dimension of exegesis, but it does not exhaust the interpretative task for someone who sees the biblical writings as a single corpus of Holy Scripture inspired by God.
...
For someone who considers himself directly addressed by the Bible today [although many interpret it in their own way], the method's first limit is that by its very nature it has to leave the biblical word in the past [otherwise, it would be violating the method's discipline]. It is a historical method, and that means that it investigates the then current context of events in which the texts originated. It attempts to justify and to understand the past - as it was in itself - with the greatest possible precision, in order then to find out what the author could have said and intended to say in the context of the mentality and events of the time. [talk about exclusively literal interpretations]. To the extent that it remains true to itself, the historical method not only has to investigate the biblical word as a thing of the past, but also has to let it remain in the past. It can glimpse points of contact with the present and it can try to apply the biblical word to the present; the only thing it cannot do is make it something present today - that would be overstepping its bounds. Its very precision in interpreting the reality of the past is both its strength and its limit. [excellent]
...
At this point we get a glimmer, even on a historical level, of what inspiration means: The author does not speak as private, self-contained subject. He speaks in a living community, that is to say, in a living historical movement not created by him, nor even by the collective, but which is led forward by a greater power that is at work. [the Holy Spirit] There are four dimensions of the word that the old doctrine of the fourfold sense of Scripture [CCC 115] pinpointed with remarkable accuracy. The four senses of Scripture are not individual meanings arrayed side by side, but dimensions of the one word that reaches beyond the moment.
...
Unless there had been something extraordinary in what happened, unless the person and the words of Jesus radically surpassed the hopes and expectations of the time, there is no way to explain why he was crucified or why he made such an impact. [Non-believers, listen]. As early as twenty or so years after Jesus' death, the great Christ-hymn of the Letter to the Philippians (cf. Phil 2:6-11) offers us a fully developed Christology stating that Jesus was equal to God, but emptied himself, became man, and humbled himself to die on the Cross, and that to him now belongs the worship of all creation, the adoration that God, through the prophet Isaiah, said was due him alone (cf. Is 45:23).
Critical scholarship rightly asks the question: What happened during those twenty years after Jesus' Crucifixion? [may I add - would the believers sacrifice their very lives for a grand farce?] Where did this Christology come from? To say that it is the fruit of anonymous collective formulations, whose authorship we seek to discover, does not actually explain everything. How could these groups be so creative? [and very bold to the point of death]. How were they so persuasive and how did they manage to prevail? [those lowly fishermen?]. Isn't it more logical, even historically speaking, to assume that the greatness came at the beginning, and that the figure of Jesus really did explode all existing categories and could only be understood in the light of the mystery of God? [very, very good questions]. Admittedly, to believe that, as man, he truly was God, and he communicated his divinity veiled in parables, yet with increasing clarity, exceeds the scope of the historical method. Yet if instead we take this conviction of faith as our starting point for reading the texts with the help of historical methodology and its intrinsic openness to something greater, they are opened up and they reveal a way and a figure that are worthy of belief...
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It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium [a remarkable disclaimer], but is solely an expression of my personal search "for the face of the Lord" (cf. Ps 27:8). Everyone is free then, to contradict me [anyone care to try?]. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding...
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And I ask the good Pope to write more books, and for the publisher to make them more affordable. The Pope hopes to write a Part 2, "to include the chapter on the infancy narratives, which I have postponed for now, because it struck me as the most urgent priority to present the figure and the message of Jesus in his public ministry...". I am in no hurry, since I still have to read and digest the 10 chapters of this first part - certainly with large doses of goodwill after reading that excellent foreword.
It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium [a remarkable disclaimer], but is solely an expression of my personal search "for the face of the Lord" (cf. Ps 27:8). Everyone is free then, to contradict me [anyone care to try?]. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding...
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And I ask the good Pope to write more books, and for the publisher to make them more affordable. The Pope hopes to write a Part 2, "to include the chapter on the infancy narratives, which I have postponed for now, because it struck me as the most urgent priority to present the figure and the message of Jesus in his public ministry...". I am in no hurry, since I still have to read and digest the 10 chapters of this first part - certainly with large doses of goodwill after reading that excellent foreword.
The Pope says: "I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding..."
Indeed, initial goodwill and subsequent openness can only be present to a true seeker of truth.
As the Psalmist so prays ---
"Come," says my heart, "seek God's face"; your face, LORD, do I seek! (Ps 27:8)
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