Participatory Biblical Exegesis

A Theology of Biblical Interpretation

Matthew Levering

The interpretation of Scripture has depended largely on the view of history held by theologians and exegetes. In Participatory Biblical Exegesis, Matthew Levering examines the changing views of history that distinguish patristic and medieval biblical exegesis from modern historical-critical exegesis.

Levering argues for a delicate interpretive balance, in which history is understood both as a process that participates in God’s creative and redemptive presence and as a set of linear moments. He identifies a split between theological and historical interpretations of scripture beginning in the high Middle Ages, considerably earlier than the emergence of historical-critical methods in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Instead, he offers a vision of Scripture that is rooted in the exegetical practice of St. Thomas Aquinas and his sources but embraces historical-critical research as well.

Participatory Biblical Exegesis provides an original theological basis for critical exegesis. It integrates the work of contemporary exegetes, philosophers, theologians, and historians to provide a compelling vision of biblical interpretation.

Matthew Levering is associate professor of theology at Ave Maria University. He has published numerous books, including Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).

“In recent years a number of theologians have addressed the growing awareness that a strictly historical approach to the interpretation of the Bible has run its course. . . . Levering’s book is the most learned and sophisticated discussion of the issues to date.” —Robert Louis Wilken, University of Virginia

Reviews

“Levering compellingly argues for the legitimacy of a type of biblical interpretation once prevalent among the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians, one that includes a participatory encounter with the divine. . . . Written from a Roman Catholic perspective, the volume will appeal to anyone interested in biblical interpretation. While directed toward scholars, the book is nonetheless accessible to the intelligent lay reader.” — Library Journal

“Levering has written an engaging and fair-minded intellectual history which aims to return modern biblical interpretation to its philosophical and theological source in the practice of the Church Fathers and medieval interpreters. . . . Levering is to be credited . . . with advancing a Catholic approach to Scripture within the broadly ecumenical context of the ongoing public theology debate.” — Letter and Spirit

“New methods in biblical interpretation have become something of a staple in the theological diet over the past decade, but the subject is so vast that a different angle is always possible, and Matthew Levering offers us just that. In this book, he explores the thesis that the interpretation of Scripture followed a particular path of development up to the late thirteenth century, when it suddenly diverged into something much more academic and distant from the life of the church.” — Themelios