I
thought that the best way of reflecting upon my long association with Darton,
Longman and Todd was a look at my (overlong) Curriculum Vitae. Working
through it, I found that it had become more than a list of publications; it is
also a reflection upon my geographical, academic, and spiritual journey! In its
own way, it mirrors the vicissitudes of the Roman Catholic Church over the past
50 years.
Born
in Australia in 1940, I pursued theological and biblical studies in Rome and
Oxford from 1966 to 1975. I completed my academic formation with a D.Phil.,
defended in July 1975, graduated in 1976. By that stage I was back in Rome,
teaching in one of the Pontifical Universities. I was immediately blessed by
the opportunity to publish. My dissertation (The Johannine Son of Man) was
first published in Rome in 1976. Amazingly, it has become something of a
classic, its most recent edition appearing in the USA in 2007.
Emboldened
by my initial success, I decided to write a book on a subject that was dear to
me. Allow me to quote from the Preface of my first DLT book:
I am not only a professional biblical scholar; I am also a
Salesian priest. This means that my life is spent attempting to live a
particular vocation in the Church which is not exhausted by my being a biblical
scholar, and it was here that the danger of schizophrenia arose. As I read
contemporary works on spirituality and Religious life and listened to homilies
and retreat preachers, I found that there was a continual use of certain
biblical material which proceeded as if the biblical renewal had never happened
(Disciples and Prophets [1980], xi).
In
the UK for the summer of 1978, I was advised to talk to John Todd about my
anxieties. He enthusiastically supported my concerns and sent some of my work
to one of his close friends at Downside Abbey, Dom Daniel Rees OSB. Dom Daniel
(himself an editor of one of the all-time best works on Religious life, Consider
Your Call [1978]) immediately took an interest.
The
result was Disciples and Prophets. A Biblical Model for the Religious Life,
a book that went through two reprints in hard and soft cover editions. It also
spawned two smaller DLT spin-offs, focussing on the biblical texts
traditionally used to prop up the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience (Free
to Love [1981], and A Life of Promise [1985]). John’s association
with Downside and Dom Daniel eventually led to my regular presence at the
Abbey, working with the Novices.
John
Todd became a good friend, enthusiastic about my work. Because of this, I found
that I had a ‘London publisher’. Other works followed: Woman: First Among
the Faithful (1985), The Living Voice of the Gospel: The Gospels Today
(1987). Thanks to John, and the publishing and marketing expertise of DLT, my
academic work spilled over into issues that were hotly pursued in the 1980’s:
the role of the post-Conciliar Religious, women in the Church, and ready access
to the biblical renewal.
How
the ground has shifted since then! A contemporary London publisher in the
Catholic tradition could not risk a whole book on the dying phenomenon of the
Religious life, except perhaps an analysis of why it is dying so quickly – yet
energetically! The central role of women is now part of the Papal agenda,
although we have a long way to go, and a requested return to The Living
Voice of the Gospel in 2006 led to a total rewrite of the 1986 original. The
biblical renewal is struggling to survive in a new conservatism.
By
this stage I was back in my native Australia, superior of a student community,
teaching in the seminary and the burgeoning Australian Catholic University.
John Todd had retired (in 1988) and passed to a well-merited eternal reward (in
1993). Catholic publishing in the UK was going through difficult times as such
institutions as Sheed & Ward, Burns & Oates, Herder & Herder,
Collins, and Geoffrey Chapman, either disappeared or were absorbed into more
globally-based publishing initiatives. As the electronic media took over, publishing
itself was moving rapidly into a completely new modus agendi. The blog
you are reading is a case in point.
My
work was sought by Catholic publishers in the United States, and in the late
1990s I assumed the role of the Professor of New Testament at the Catholic
University of America, Washington, DC, and eventually the Dean of the School of
Theology and Religious Studies (1999-2005). This was a graced period for me,
given the wonderful opportunities for research, rich resources, and the strong
scholarly community across the USA university system.
My
concerns over the interface between the Word of God in the Scriptures and the
life of the Church had not faded, even though much of my publishing had been
the fruit of detailed scholarly research. In 2006 I returned to Australia to
take up a leadership role in my Religious congregation, facing challenges that
were not even on the horizon in 1980 (Disciples and Prophets)!
Pope
Francis’s calling of the Episcopal Synod on Marriage and the Family led me to
return to a long-standing interest in the New Testament material on the
Eucharist, leading necessarily to a study of the issue of remarriage and
divorce. I was delighted, after many years, that the subsequent book was
published in the UK by Darton, Longman and Todd (A Body Broken for a Broken
People: Divorce, Remarriage, and the Eucharist [2015]). Under the
leadership of David Moloney (no family favours there – we are not related!) I
had been brought back into the DLT fold. Now in my eighties, forty years since Disciples
and Prophets, I had come full circle.
Then
came the request from David that I work with Dom Henry Wansbrough in the
production of DLT’s Revised New Jerusalem Bible. I was privileged to
work through the whole of Don Henry’s translation of the New Testament and the
accompanying notes. My long association with DLT had focused upon the light a
careful and informed reading of the New Testament can bring to contemporary
Christian issues. Now I was able to support an important DLT initiative with my
scholarly expertise. I close this blog with an example of what I mean by that
statement.
Readers
may be aware of the discussion of ‘the Jews’ in the Fourth Gospel in The
Tablet magazine. It was initiated by Margaret Hebblethwaite after the
Oxford launch of the Revised New Jerusalem Bible. Several protagonists are
critical of Dom Henry’s consistent use of the English expression ‘the Jews’ in the
translation of the Gospel of John. Majority opinion seeks to abandon the use of
the ethnically identifiable ‘Jews’, preferring ‘the Judeans’, a vaguer
expression that has geographical connotations.
Dom
Henry and I agreed that rendering
the Greek hoi Ioudaioi as ‘the Jews’ was the only way to
respect the original. Malcolm Lowe's 1976 suggestion that it be rendered ‘the
Judeans’ has been roundly rejected by Johannine scholars for many years. It
should not be reintroduced ‘for pastoral reasons.’ There are several places in
the Gospel where the expression is neutral. In John 4:22 the expression is used
positively. Except for the Romans and the advent of the Greeks in 12:20-22, all
the characters in the narrative are ethnic Jews: Jesus himself, his Mother, and
the larger-than-life Johannine characters. But the vast majority of uses of hoi
Ioudaioi are negative.
Historically, those who initially opposed emerging
Christianity, a tension that quickly became mutual, were ethnic Jews. Both the ‘goodies’
and the ‘baddies’ in the Gospel of John were ethnic Jews. The British scholar,
John Ashton, describes the situation well: one must ‘recognise in these
hot-tempered exchanges the type of family row in which the participants face
one another across the room of a house that all have shared and all call home’
(Understanding the Fourth Gospel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1991] 151).
One must translate John's Greek hoi Ioudaioi into English as ‘the Jews’,
and make clear why.
This example indicates the possibility that critical
readings of the New Testament, stated simply and clearly, might guide Christian
pastoral practice. Thanks to DLT, I attempted to do so in 1980. From those
beginnings, I have done so for 40 years. Our lack of awareness that John (whoever
he might have been) describes Jesus’ opponents as ‘the Jews’ because his experience
reached back to the Jewish Synagogue’s rejection of emerging Christianity (see
9:22; 12:42; 16:2) points to a serious contemporary problem. Our difficulties
are not the result of a correct or incorrect translation of a Greek word, but the
poor state of our biblical culture. I trust that DLT will continue to support a
publication agenda that bridges the gap between the Word of God and Christian
life and practice. Ad multos annos!
Francis J. Moloney, SDB, AM, D. Phil. (Oxon),
FAHA
Senior Professorial Fellow
Catholic Theological College
University of Divinity
Melbourne, Victoria
AUSTRALIA
***
Each
day, we will post a short article by one of Darton, Longman and Todd’s amazing
authors, offering a personal reflection on our current situation in life.
Sometimes this will be written with reference to one of their books, and
sometimes about how they are living in response to the coronavirus and our
current world situation. We hope it will give you a taste of the depth and
diversity of DLT’s list – books for heart, mind and soul that aim to meet the
needs and interests of all.
Today’s
post is by Francis J. Moloney, author of A Broken Body for a Broken People: Divorce, Remarriage and
the Eucharist. You can buy a copy of
the book here.
No comments:
Post a Comment