Abstract
The contributors to this outstanding work (PBC) are drawn from Australia (two), Canada (three), England (one), France (three), Germany (two), Italy (six, including Cardinal Albert Vanhoye on Hebrews), New Zealand (one), South Africa (one), and the USA (57). The commentaries, which are provided on the 73 books of the Bible in the Roman Catholic canon, follow the canonical order rather than altering the sequence to reflect the chronology of their composition, as did the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1992). Hence the Old Testament section ends with the prophet Malachi and the New Testament section begins with all four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, before taking up Paul and his epistles.
The commentaries on individual books dominate. There are some general articles: an introductory, three-page piece by Timothy Radcliffe (“Reading the Bible in the Twenty-First Century”), similarly short articles by Antony Campbell (“The Pentateuch”), Dianne Bergant (“Wisdom Literature”), Carol Dempsey (“The Prophetic Literature”), Pheme Perkins (“The Gospels”), and Michael J. Gorman (“Paul: His Life and Theology”). The volume ends with nine “general articles,” which run from Ronald D. Witherup’s “The Bible in the Life of the Church” (just over six pages) to “The Christian Bible” by Richard J. Clifford and Thomas D. Stegman (five pages). These concluding nine articles amount to only thirty-three pages. All in all, the general articles take up barely fifty pages. The overall emphasis falls on expounding the biblical texts themselves.
Excellent maps and well-chosen bibliographies enhance the value of the PBC. Inevitably judgments can vary on choices for the bibliographies. I wondered about Richard Bauckham being omitted in the article on “The Gospels,” Joel Marcus’s two-volume commentary on Mark’s Gospel being overlooked in the chapter on Mark, and Roland Murphy being listed for the Song of Songs and Proverbs but otherwise remaining absent from the contributions on wisdom literature.
Occasionally readers will face disappointment. The two short paragraphs on Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16–34) (1215–16), for instance, fail to expound the tactful masterpiece of the apostle’s sermon. Here Luke depicts the major Christian missionary in the second half of Acts confronting and being confronted by, seriously and for the first time, Graeco-Roman culture. There are significant lessons to be drawn for interfaith relations today.
At times readers might have profited by hearing further lines of interpretation. At the close of Luke’s Gospel, the risen Jesus lifts up his hands, blesses his disciples, and is taken up into heaven. The PBC recalls the experience of Zechariah in the Temple which, at the beginning of the Gospel, prevented him from doing what Jesus does at the end by imparting a priestly blessing (1103–1104). But, one should add, Luke also “presents the Risen One in a way the Bible describes a patriarch at the end of his life. Faced with his ‘children’ Christ blesses them before the final [visible] separation” (François Bovon on Luke 24:50–53). Bovon understands Jesus to impart a blessing both like a priest and like a patriarch (see also the final blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 33). Moreover, the inclusio extends beyond Zechariah to involve the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in Jerusalem and its Temple, which is no longer a place of sacrifice but now a place of prayer.
But these are minor quibbles. The PBC offers splendid help to busy bishops, priests, deacons, catechists, teachers of religious education, members of biblical study groups, general readers, those who practice lectio divina, and others. It provides immediate guidance for all who want to break open the inspired Scriptures for purposes of preaching, teaching, group sharing, personal study, and prayer. The work contains many real gems, like Brendan Byrne’s comments on the Beatitudes, the call of the first disciples in Matthew’s Gospel (918, 919–20), and much else besides. I also found the commentaries on other books to be outstanding: for instance, Richard Clifford on Genesis and Carol Dempsey on Isaiah.
Some prospective buyers may be discouraged by the $150 price tag. But they should remember that they are purchasing a small library, which contains, for instance, book-length studies of the Pentateuch, wisdom literature, the prophets, the Gospels, and the Pauline letters.
The volume aims at supplying help toward opening up and applying the Scriptures for those in pastoral ministries of all kinds that are based in parishes, schools, colleges, houses of prayer, seminaries, and homes. To test at random what was on offer, I decided to examine the commentaries on the three readings and Psalm passages for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time for Year B: Jeremiah 31:7–9; Psalm 126:1–6; Hebrews 5:1–6; and Mark 10:46–52. Equipped with four sturdy ribbons, the PBC makes it easier to read, compare, and contrast the four texts chosen for the Sunday lectionary. The commentary on the Markan passage (the healing of the blind man at Jericho) relates it deftly to what has come before in Jesus’s ministry and what will follow with his entry into Jerusalem, as well as unpacking the image of Bartimaeus. Being enabled to see both spiritually and physically, he could follow Jesus on “the way” of true discipleship. Where the Gospel focuses on an individual, the reading from Jeremiah pictures the return of traumatized and disabled exiles, to whom the communal lament of Psalm 126 readily applies. The comments offered in the PBC on Jeremiah and the Psalm complement each other neatly in bringing out the sufferings and the future of vulnerable people. They experience “captivity after captivity, tyrants exchanging [replacing?] tyrants, spirals of violence repeating themselves after brief periods of peace” (512). Cardinal Albert Vanhoye elucidates the rich exposition of priesthood and its fulfilment in Christ contained in the reading from Hebrews. His reflections on the originality of declaring that every high priest “is established for humankind,” instead of “introducing the high priest as a person who is at the service of God” (1496), could serve to spark discussion in a Bible study group. On that Sunday, with the help of the PBC it would be relatively easy to bring together, by way of comparison and contrast, the first reading (with its attendant psalm) and the passage from a Gospel. The second reading (from Hebrews), as happens frequently with second readings, stands somewhat apart, but is valuable all the same.
Generally the PBC reaches an attractive level of accessible writing that opens up questions and yields thought- and prayer-provoking insights. Thus, the final pages, dealing with the apocalyptic perspective and the three exodus moments of “the Christian Bible,” are among the most distinguished. Just before you read this and the other concluding articles, the commentary on the book of Revelation warns against reading the Bible’s final text as “a timetable for doomsday.” Rather it invites “Christians to experience the presence of God in the here and now” (1571–72), above all in the context of worship. Without ignoring the prophetic concerns of Revelation, the PBC picks up here some long-neglected work of Ugo Vanni and emphasizes the liturgical expressions that shape the rhetoric and images of the closing book of the Bible.
In his foreword, Cardinal Joseph Tobin rightly observes how the PBC is inspired by the desire of Pope Francis, articulated right from his first apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium), to let the Scriptures nourish the life and ministry of the whole church. In opening up the rich meaning of the sacred texts, the PBC will undoubtedly illuminate and encourage both “those who preach in the liturgies of the Church” and “those who preach with their lives.” This wonderful volume will do its work in serving all Christ’s followers in “hearing the word of God and keeping it” (Luke 11:28).