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The Critical Meaning of the Bible

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Raymond Brown (1928-1998) was probably the best-known Catholic biblical scholar in the U.S. He was controversial because his views on the Bible were center to left, yet nonetheless his books earned the imprimatur of the Catholic Church and he even was appointed a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. While Fr. Brown appeared to support most of the Church's teaching, it's hard to imagine that his "critical" approach ever did much to increase the faith of Catholics.

THE CRITICAL MEANING OF THE BIBLE (1981) is a collection of essays and addresses Brown gave from 1976-1981. They discuss various questions concerning the inspiration of scripture, the history of Catholic biblical interpretation, the authorship of the NT documents, the priesthood and ecumenical relations.

Brown was a clear writer and, like many of his works, this book may be read by novices and more advanced readers. What is perhaps most annoying is Brown's constant attempt to place himself in the center and "disrespect" anyone who was to the right. Like many "centrists," Brown always seemed to get more worked up over conservatives (whom he often called "ultraconservative") than liberals. Someone like Bultmann (whom Brown casually describes as "left-of-center") is never held up to the ridicule of conservatives who "naively" believe in the historicity of the NT accounts of Jesus' life and publish their articles in "propogandistic" journals.

There is a reason why Ray Brown was considered the foremost Catholic Theologian of our time. There is very little the man does not know about the Bible, biblical archaeology, biblical history, biblical criticism etc. etc. Not only is he fully aware of what other scholars think about individual topics, he generally cites them in the footnotes and discloses whether he agrees or disagrees with their assessment.In general, this makes reading Ray Brown difficult. I would say that "most" of his books are written for scholarly enterprises and if one hasn't acquired a PhD in theology, the time spent is just that, difficult....so many references, so many clarifying paragraphs....which makes for an absolute canvassing of any given topic and his thoroughness leaves nothing to be desired. He is a scholar's scholar. This book is like that, small in number of pages but absolute clarity is given to the topic of "what the Bible means" when read with a critical eye. While any reading of the Bible yields positive results, Ray Brown states categorically that to read the Bible uncritically is to miss the full beauty of the script and the theological message crafted so exquisitely. A "fundamental" understanding of Scripture is far less than what a critical reading yields.