Customer Reviews

The Collegeville Bible Commentary, Based on the New American Bible: Old Testament / New Testament

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This commentary is not an academic, scholarly reference, but a practical, down-to-earth analysis of the entire bible, passage by passage, using the best of modern research and scholarship. Highly recommended for the average person who wishes to understand what the biblical writer is trying to communicate.

I was most pleased by the book I puchased. I was made aware of this books existance by the Decon of our church. I am a catholic christian and I am very involved with my parish. I am an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist,Minister of the word, and I also teach 3 religious education classes RCIA(adult education),Highschool ages 14 and 15 year olds, and 2nd and 3rd grade children. My problem was trying to understand the readings(scripture and gospel), and this book was the best tool I could have found to help me in my responsability to our LORD and GOD. I want to thank you for this book and I also let others know about it so they can find help in explaining and understanding. Again thx.
Adolfo Rodriguez

I found the commentary to be invaluable if my research and study of the buble.

Dr. Bergant's view of the Old Testament presents it as a series of mythological stories meant to impart religious principles and ideas. This is typical of the so-called Historical Critical methodology. It is in direct conflict with the Church's directive that the text of the Biblical passages are to be understood in the common meaning of the words employed. I could quote numerous Fathers of the Church, Popes, and Vatican Councils to this effect, but will restrict myself to saying that you can look it up in Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and Denzinger's The Sources of Catholic Dogma.

Her first error is adopting the Yahwist (J) tradition, Elohist (E) tradition, Deuteronomist (D) tradition, and Priestly (P) tradition schemata for explaining the Pentatuch portion of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, except only in the dreams of the practioners of historical criticism, is there any evidence at all for idea that these books were written over a period of several hundred years by many authors and redactors. The JEPD view of the Bible is the brain child of the German Protestant liberal scholar Julius Wellhausen, expanded and expounded greatly by another Protestant, Bultmann, who passed it on the many modern Catholic theologians, who for reasons known only to God and themselves, studied in Protestant theological seminaries. I should like to point out that on his deathbed, by specifically selecting the Biblical passages to be read out unaltered without comment and hymns to be sung as written, Bultmann appears to have repudiated his historist viewpoint.

For example, Dr. Bergant passes off Genesis as just another creation story having much in common with the creation stories of other peoples. In particular, she makes it sound as if Genesis is a retelling of the pagan epic Enumu Elish. This is total speculation and there is not a shred of evidence for it. The earliest extant copies of Enumu Elish date from 1000 B.C., which is 400 years after Moses and a 1,000 years after Abraham. W.G. Lambert states that Enumu Elish was officially sanctioned in the late 12th century under Nebuchadnezzar. It is more likely that the pagans copied from Genesis than the other way around as Dr. Bergant strongly implies. I should further point out that Enumu Elish is not a creation story (Genesis is); Marduk, who appears late in the story, struggles continuously while Elohim merely speaks and the world is created; Marduk was selected by the gods because they wanted revenge whereas Elohim competes with no one and serves no one; Marduk is a bloody warrior that creates mayhem while Elohim creates beauty and order, etc. etc., etc. The simularity between the stories exists only in the fervid imaginations of the historists.

Early in the book, Dr. Bergant makes the point that "Elohim" is the plural form of the word for god and then speculates, without presenting any evidence, that perhaps the Jews initially believed in multiple gods and only became monotheistic at a later date. This completely ignores the Genesis passage (1:26) that starts out "Let US make man to OUR image and likeness ..." which clearly presages the Trinitarian form of God.

Her discussion of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reprises the pro-homosexual orientation of the modern scholars by attributing the cities' destruction to the lack of hospitality rather than the immoral homosexual practice of sodomy widespread throughout the cities. She completely misses the point of Lot offering his daughters in that they were offered to prevent his guests from being sodomized and therefore committing a far worse sacrilege than unmarried sex. She also throws in the gratuitous observation that the offering of the daughters reflects the "lowly status of daughters in ancient society."

I could go on and on, but anyone who takes Dr. Bergant's explication of the Old Testament seriously is being led down the garden path. I suggest consulting, for example, the Catholic Apologetics International website if you are seriously interested in hearing an exposition of Catholic Biblical thought fully in conformance with the Magisterium of the Church.

I would have given Dr. Bergant's book zero stars, but that is not possible under Amazon's rating system. I fully expect to be attacked vehemently for the views expressed above, but so be it. There is truth and there is fantasy; Dr. Bergant is peddling modernist religious fantasy fully in conformance with politically-correct secular philosophy. It speaks volumes about the current degraded condition of the American Church that this book received an Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. I guess I should not be surprised as the latest Catechism promulgated by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) contains the blatantly heretical statement that the Mosaic covenant is still operative for Israel and was not superseded by the death of Jesus Christ. If the Bishops still say mass seriously, I recommend that they pay particular attention to this part of the consecration "... the new and everlasting covenant..."