James B. PROTHRO, and Isaac Augustine MORALES, OP, eds.  The Future of Catholic Biblical Interpretation: Marie-Joseph Lagrange and Beyond. Grand Rapids: Eerdmanns, 2024.  Pp. 350 + xiv. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8028-8291-2 (Hb).  Reviewed by Daniel SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA 90045

A book with a title like this immediately sets the stage for controversy.  First, is this to be simply a survey of Catholic Biblical scholarship in all its interesting variety?  Or does the subtitle’s reference to Marie-Joseph Lagrange point to a particular party line to be argued here?  The answer, it seems, is both.  This excellent collection draws together a number of important Biblical scholars who identify as Catholic, but they are united (in otherwise interesting diversity, more on this below) by their admiration for the early pioneering work of Dominican Priest, Fr. Lagrange (1855 – 1938), called by the editors, “…a founding father of Catholic biblical studies in the modern era.” (9).  Among his impressive academic accomplishments, he not only authored groundbreaking studies, but was the founder of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem (1890, to this day one of the most important centers for Biblical scholarship in the world certainly, but in the Middle East definitely) and two years later, started the important Biblical studies journal, Revue Biblique.

As this work demonstrates, Catholic Biblical scholarship, if it is to be identified as such, continues to struggle with the task of doing first-rate scholarship (which, among other things, surely includes going where the scholarship and the evidence takes you) on the one hand - with being members of, in service to, and contributing to the faith of, the church, on the other hand.  The first three chapters certainly raise these issues in detail, summarizing the often-repeated major steps in 20th Century embracing of Critical Biblical scholarship by the highest officials of the Catholic Church (“Catholic Biblical Interpretation”, James Prothro and Isaac Augustine Morales, OP; “Biblical Interpretation and the Community of Faith” by the late Donald P. Senior, CP; and “Dei Verbum, Historical Criticism, and Theological Exegesis”, Brant Pitre). 

The next two essays lay out somewhat of an “ideal” of Catholic Biblical scholarship as represented in the life and work of Lagrange – as a kind of guide to modern Catholic scholarship.  Lagrange, it is argued, was both appreciative of all Biblical scholarship, including Protestant scholarship, but was also willing to be critical of philosophical presumptions that operated in some of this (heavily European) scholarship, especially when seen to conflict with differing philosophical proposals that may be said to guide Catholic scholarship (“Reading Beyond the Horizon”, Laurie Brink, OP; and “Pere Lagrange and the Criticism of Criticism”, Isaac Augustine Morales, OP).

Here, however, the essays begin to change tone.  Mark Giszczak’s essay sets what I perceived was a new tone (“Why Did Marie-Joseph Lagrange Abandon the Old Testament?”) because it is rather forthright about the difficulties that Legrange faced in his own scholarship and navigating the suspicions of Biblical scholarship among Church leaders even as he was tasked to set up major Catholic centers and publications for promoting serious Biblical scholarship.  Clearly, Legrange is a model of academic tenacity as well as scholarship!   Among the (in my view) most important essays in what I am calling a ‘second portion’ of the book are J.L. Manzo’s essay “A Postcolonial Latino/a Catholic Biblical Interpretation in the Americas” and Kathleen Rushton RSM, “Catholic Biblical Interpretation”.  Both of these essays point to challenges to the largely European (and Patriarchal) assumptions and debates that characterized Legrange’s own work and era.  In fact, if I were to be critical of any aspect of this otherwise fine collection, the fact is that the book is heavily weighted toward European-centered Biblical scholarship and does not do enough to discuss the important Catholic contributions to Liberationist Biblical analysis, Feminist analysis, and Latinx Biblical scholarship in the modern world, especially beginning in the second half of the 20th Century.  These, too, are surely legacies that honor Legrange’s courage as well.

I regret that space does not allow summarizing all these fine essays.  In sum, this is an important collection, and one comes away wondering if Catholic Biblical scholarship, which has obviously progressed in ways that Legrange would have found gratifying, nevertheless still continues to struggle with many of the same internal religious issues of suspicion that Legrange clearly faced.  There is a great deal of important thinking represented in these essays, especially for teachers of Biblical studies in Catholic institutions.