Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Part 1: Biblical Interpretation through the Centuries

Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church
Biblical Interpretation in the Middle Ages
Biblical Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Biblical Interpretation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Biblical Interpretation in Europe in the Twentieth Century
Biblical Interpretation in North America in the Twentieth Century

Part 2: Major Biblical Interpreters

Dictionary Articles
Index of Persons
Index of Subjects
Index of Articles

Extract from Preface to the Second Edition

It is a pleasure to present a new and expanded edition of the Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (1998) as the Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters. This new work features fresh contributions from more than one hundred scholars. These contributions have been added to the entries in the former book to form a dictionary with more than two hundred entries on major biblical interpreters plus interpretive essays on biblical interpretation in the major periods of the Christian church.

The new edition has given an opportunity to provide a more wide-ranging resource for the study of the history of biblical interpretation through the work of important scholars from all periods. Once again, the list of those to be included in such a volume has been my decision, in consultation with others. Even in this expanded edition, there are names that could have or “should have” been included but are missing. Treatment of these figures will have to await yet another book!

The same general criteria for inclusion have been used here as in the Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, as explained in the preface to that work. Nearly all the new entries are for figures who have died, leaving still the task of a book on contemporary biblical interpreters that can function the same way as this volume but focus on those who have made most recent contributions to biblical interpretation.

Once again, as well, and in the total scope of this new dictionary, there is a lack of sufficient entries on women biblical interpreters and on those from outside the predominant areas of Western Europe and the United States. A wider volume, still, needs to turn attention to these interpreters. ...

Donald K. McKim
August 2006

Sample Entry

LUTHER, MARTIN (1483-1546)

Life.

Martin Luther, son of Hans Luther, a miner, and Margrete Lindermann, was born November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony. After early schooling he attended Erfurt University (1501-1505), earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. While he was returning to Erfurt in July 1505, Luther was thrown to the ground during a thunderstorm; frightened, he declared, “I will become a monk,” a promise he honored by entering the Black Cloister of the Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt (July 7, 1505). Ordained February 27, 1507, he was assigned to study theology and was transferred to Wittenberg to study and lecture on moral philosophy in the arts faculty. He received the degree of bachelor of biblical studies in March 1509 from the theological faculty of Wittenberg; he also became a lecturer on Peter Lombard’s Sentences that year (his notes from 1509 to 1511 on the Sentences are extant). In 1512 Luther received his doctorate in theology and was appointed professor of Bible. In 1513 Luther began lecturing in Wittenberg on the Bible and did so for more than thirty years.

Context.

Luther’s reformation was theological and pastoral. A basic presupposition of his reform program is the conviction that external behavior reflects internal attitude. A favorite image for Luther is that a good tree bears good fruit and, conversely, a bad tree, bad fruit. The bad fruits in Christendom could be reformed only by rooting out the bad tree that produced them. Too many reformers had come no further than attacking the bad fruit. A good tree can grow only in the soil of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith expressed in the Scriptures, and therefore a reform of the church’s life (fruit) could effectively come about only through a reformation of the church’s faith (tree).

Luther’s theological effort for reformation could be described as his effort to catholicize the church, feeling as he did that the church had ceased to be that one, holy, catholic and apostolic church it confessed to be. The church that Luther sought to bring about by his theological efforts was a church unified by the universal faith of the forebears, rooted in the holy gospel of Jesus Christ.

Luther’s self-understanding revolved around his being a doctor of the church, a theologian responsible for the church’s faith. Throughout his life, his professorial, pastoral and personal activities reflected his training as a doctor of sacred Scripture and the effort on his part to allow the Word of God to interact with faith and life. Theology must be biblical and vernacular.

The historical context for Luther’s thought included his reaction to late medieval currents of thought. His response was both negative and positive.

First, Luther was negative toward nominalism, the philosophy that reality (universals) exists in name only. He had experience with nominalist currents of thought through his education. Because he was antagonistic toward nominalism does not mean that he favored scholasticism (academic theology), nominalism’s opponent. Luther rejected scholasticism in general because of its speculative bent (theology of glory), seeking to penetrate into the nature and necessity of divine essence; for the same reason nominalism also rejected scholasticism. Luther was negative toward nominalism because of its optimistic and nonbiblical view of human, natural powers—that one is able and responsible to initiate and build up good works for salvation. The covenantal model of nominalism placed responsibility on both parties to carry out the obligations of their pact.

Luther later accused humanism of the same anthropological optimism. Humanism and nominalism held to the dignity and freedom of human will and reason. By opposing these two movements Luther was being critical of human, natural abilities to initiate and cooperate with God. In his response to these movements Luther emphasized that human will and reason are in bondage until they are liberated by God’s grace.

Second, Luther was positive toward certain late medieval movements. For example, he was impressed with the genuine piety of various mystical treatises, so much so that he edited and published some of them. Luther was a part of the movement of spiritual renewal. He was also inclined to mysticism because of its strong emphasis on the personal (non-institutional,
non-academic) relationship with God. Like many mystics, Luther felt that pilgrims had been beset with too many roadblocks on their way up the mountain, whereas Christ had come to clear away the many roadblocks of legalism and speculation.

Luther also favored Augustinianism, the revival of Augustinian thought, because he held to the authority of that doctor of the church,

• Augustine. Luther often appealed to the great doctor in his quarrels with scholasticism and nominalism and in his opposition to late medieval Pelagianism (works righteousness). What attracted Luther in Augustine was the theology of grace that made humans incapable of earning it and God totally able to give it. Luther was impressed with Augustine’s christological interpretation of Scripture: the unity of Scripture in Jesus Christ expressed in one testament of justification. Humans are concupiscent; God is grace. Luther inclined toward conciliarism, at least through the 1520s, because like other (pre-)reformers he felt that Christendom was encumbered with corrupted and corrupting power that would not bring about the necessary reformation. Politically and ecclesiastically Luther felt the best chances for the reform of Christendom lay with a council; but as his and other calls for a council were aborted, he became disillusioned with conciliar possibilities as the 1520s wore on.

The historical context of Luther’s thought was to carry on in the doctoral tradition of Augustine and the Fathers, monasticism and mysticism (Benedictinism to

• Bernard), seeking theological renewal of his one, holy, catholic and apostolic church based on Scripture.

Major Writings.

Early exegetical writings were Lectures on the Psalms (1513-1515), preceded by the Preface of Jesus Christ and lectures on Romans (1515-1516), Galatians (1516-1517) and Hebrews (1517-1518). The first writing in German was The Seven Penitential Psalms (1517). Here the major Augustinian themes are present throughout as in all of his work: grace, faith, Christ, the testament of Christ, Scripture interpreting itself and the centrality of the Word.

The Heidelberg Disputation (1518) is the major source for Luther’s theology of the cross. He issued several polemics on indulgences (1517-1518), including the Ninety-five Theses (October 31, 1517). Important instructional treatises appeared in 1519 and 1520: penance, baptism, Lord’s Supper, death, good works and the Lord’s Prayer. Famous Reformation treatises were issued in 1520: To the Christian Nobility (on social reform), Babylonian Captivity (on sacraments) and Freedom of the Christian (Christian life). The Magnificat (1521) shows Luther as a medieval theologian whose Mariology, typical of the age, was lost in later Lutheranism.

Luther’s Bondage of the Will (1525), which along with his commentary on Galatians he regarded as his two most important works, is a fierce appeal for the freedom of God to save without any interference from will, reason or good intent. His sharp rhetoric sought to establish that before God we come with nothing; if we were to come with something, then God would not be totally free to save and totally Savior. It is a positive treatise on the power of the
electing will of God to save.

Beginning in 1519 Luther published more commentaries on Galatians and the Psalms. He had a lifelong attachment to the Psalms, Paul and John. The prefaces to the Old Testament (1523) and New Testament (1522), continuing into the 1530s and 1540s, provide excellent entry into Luther’s view of individual books of the Bible. An excellent overview of Luther’s theology for church and home are his Small and Large Catechisms of 1529. Luther’s major writing on the history of the church and the marks of the church is his 1539 treatise On the Councils and the Church. Luther’s last major exegetical course was on Genesis (1535-1545).

Approaches and Methods of Biblical Interpretation.

From early times through the Reformation, theology was practiced as the discipline of the sacred page (sacra pagina). The monastery became the place and the monks’ daily liturgy was the context for the practice of theology. Holy Writ was the sacred page; the canon of Scripture was the rule of faith. The goal of life for the medieval pilgrim (viator) as well as the final goal of theology was to go home, home to God, home to the Trinity (in Augustine’s words).

The sacred page was seen as coming directly from God, about God and for the pilgrim’s journey to God. Theology, whether expressed in doctrine, liturgy or catechesis, was the discipline of the sacred page. The sacred page was the record of God’s creation and redemption. Theology, Scripture, commentary and God were bound up in one world and were focused on the sacred page.

The rise of scholastic theology in the twelfth century was linked to the discipline of dialectic and its use of the question. The discipline of scholastic theology practiced in the schools (universities) was the discipline of faith seeking understanding. In the universities in the twelfth century, theology shifted to sacred doctrine (sacra doctrina). The schoolmen wrote Bible commentaries, and they wrote sacred theology.

Scholastic theology was based on the method of quaestio (question) and dialectic. By the later Middle Ages, a caricature of the scholastic question was, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Such a question cannot be found in scholastic sources, although scholasticism, described as decadent by sixteenth-century Reformers, may have become too abstract by the eve of the Reformation. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the final goal of theology was still the Beatific Vision. The shift from sacred page to sacred doctrine was the shift from locating the substance of theology in Scripture to locating the substance in doctrine.

The scholarship of Christian humanists and the invention of the printing press in the latter part of the fifteenth century contributed to a shift within theology: the sacred letter as literature. Theology was seen not as the monk’s work of prayer and praise or as the professor’s academic questions and propositions but as the educative task of reviving the pagan and Christian classics. The study of the sacred letter of Scripture was intended to lead men and women not so much to God as to a better society, church, education and government. Theology as the study of the philosophy of Christ (Desiderius Erasmus) was to lead to piety, morality and justice.

The goal of the historical-critical method beginning with the sixteenth century is to understand the letter of the original text. The goal of sacred doctrine is to understand the faith of the church. The goal of the sacred page is to understand and reach God (the Trinity).

These approaches to the sacred page (monastery), sacred doctrine (university) and sacred letter (printing press) continued in the early and late Reformation. Luther continued the monastic discipline of the sacred page minus monastic rules. The Council of Trent and Lutheran orthodoxy continued the discipline of sacred doctrine. Philipp Melanchthon approached Scripture as sacred letter (literature).

It is often assumed that Luther ended the medieval approach to the Bible and started the modern methods, but Luther approached Scripture in a manner appropriate to what the document is (sacra pagina). Luther did not superimpose his agenda onto Scripture; he took out and applied the message of Scripture as he claimed to do and thus was consistent with the grammar and vocabulary of Scripture.

Major Themes.

Several major themes emerge in Luther’s works.

Bible and theology. Luther was concerned to place the Bible in the center of everything: church, theology and especially preaching. The main point of the Reformation was that the gospel must be proclaimed. Along with the important pamphlets, the pulpits of the evangelical cities (Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva) were the media for information. The Reformation was a movement of the Word: Christ, Scripture and preaching — in that order. They all are the Word of God. The Reformers used the printed Word, studied the Word, prayed the Word; but their concern was to bring preaching back into the Mass, preaching in the vernacular and preaching on the text of Scripture. When Luther said that the church is not a pen-house but a mouth-house, he meant that the good news cannot properly be put in (dead) letters but is to be proclaimed loudly (in German).

What the scholastics separated—theology and commentary on Scripture — Luther sought to bring together again along the lines of sacra pagina. Scripture alone is the sole authority for the church, the discipline of theology and the life of faith. Luther continued the call for the reform of the church on the basis of Scripture. Every office and activity in the church falls under the judgment of Scripture. All of theology is contained in Scripture. God has revealed all that we need to know about God in Christ. Theology must be biblical theology; any other kind is human invention.

Scripture is its own authority because it is clear. No other authority is needed to see through its meaning. Luther was not concerned about a theory of inspiration. That came later. In his view the Bible is the Word. The Reformers were aware of the critical discussions among the humanists about the text, authorship and language, and Luther engaged in some of this. The point of the Word is the presence of the Word in Scripture, church and preaching. The humanist sense of the distance of Scripture from the present was not accepted. The scholastic separation of theology from Scripture was attacked. The purpose of theology is to serve preaching, the main task of the church.

Interpretation of the Bible. Luther was premodern; he continued the general medieval understanding of interpretation as commentary, annotation and exposition. The modern interpreter continues to develop the humanist perspective of the historical past; thus interpretation in modern time is bridging the gulf between ancient literature and modern thinking. The early Reformers continued the monastic approach of total immersion into the thinking and language of Scripture so that there is only one language, one biblical theology. Luther emphasized that Scripture is its own interpreter. He argued that the papacy had built a wall of authoritative interpretation around itself so that Scripture could be read only as the papacy interpreted it. One late medieval synthesis maintained that Scripture is to tradition as foundation is to interpretation (Ockham). Strong in the sixteenth century was the question of an authoritative interpretation of Scripture. Summarizing the Roman position, the Council of Trent decreed later in the century: No one, relying on his or her own skill in matters of faith and morals, “wresting” the sacred Scriptures to his or her own senses, should presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to the sense that holy mother church, whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scripture, has held and does hold.

For Luther, Scripture itself attests to its message and meaning. Christ and the Spirit are at work in the Word. The Reformers insisted that postapostolic claims of authoritative interpretation were precisely the reason the Word of God lost its central place in the life of the church.

The Reformation interpretation of Scripture was engaged in theological polemics. The humanists used Scripture to attack the church, but they were not so much interested in the pure doctrines of Scripture as they were in exposing the corruption and folly of the present situation in the light of the piety of Scripture. The early Reformers fought for pure doctrine on the basis of Scripture and the Fathers. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone was seen as the central doctrine of Scripture. The doctrine of justification by faith is the criterion by which all other doctrines, offices and practices in the church are judged. The criteriological priority of justification by faith is established in Scripture. The church stands or falls, said Luther, on the scriptural teaching of justification. There were other issues, other polemics, but the procedure was the same. Doctrinal reform was forged and pleaded on the basis of Scripture.

Law and gospel. Basic for Luther’s understanding of Scripture was his distinction between law and gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment and end of the Mosaic law. Law and gospel are in all books of the Bible. The gospel is the good news that salvation is in Christ alone. Abraham and others saw that gospel in the promises; they believed and were justified. Luther transposes Augustine’s distinction between Old Testament and New Testament as ways of salvation to law and gospel. The way of the law is do this, and do not do that. The way of the gospel is believe, and it has already been done for a person in Christ. The law is command; the gospel is gift, the gift of forgiveness. When the law commands, failure results because one cannot fulfill the law on one’s own power (“The good I would, I do not”). The law humbles; the gospel picks up. One cannot be picked up unless one is put down to size. Being brought low (law) and being raised up (gospel) are the downs and ups of the Christian life, the experience of sin (brought by the law) and the experience of forgiveness (brought by Christ). The distinction between law and gospel, the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works and the understanding of the core of Scripture are all the same for Luther.

Christ the center of Scripture. The center of Scripture for Luther is Christ, present in both the Old and New Testaments. Christ is the eternal Word of God, present in Old Testament times in the form of promise, present in New Testament times in the person of Jesus and present in the church through Word and sacrament. In all cases Christ the Word is the effective means of grace. The center or core of Scripture is “what drives Christ” (was Christum treibet), that is, what preaches Christ, what promotes or points to Christ. Christ is at the core of God’s plan of salvation. God promises through prophets; God delivers in person. All of Scripture leads to Christ, and Christ leads to salvation.

The simple sense. Luther’s response to the various senses of meaning in the Middle Ages (fourfold, double-literal) was that Scripture has one simple sense (most often, Christ). Or Luther will talk about the grammatical sense as the meaning of the text, that the grammatical meaning and theological meaning are the same. Luther availed himself of humanist scholarship and was a part of a late medieval trend to highlight (once again) the christological meaning of a text. Luther also used allegory, not to establish a doctrine but to embellish it. He also used the other spiritual senses. Luther on Scripture is often presented as a total break from the medieval world. That came later. In the area of the senses of meaning, Luther is a part of the medieval trend to call for a return to the letter of the text and then in practice to go on and find other senses of meaning. After all, and medieval scholars knew this, the New Testament uses allegory.

Theology of testament. Luther’s distinction is his construction of Scripture as containing a single testament (will, promise) of Christ. God’s last and only will and testament is that he would die for our salvation. The promise is the declaration of the will and testament. The death of the God-man validates his testament. The inheritance is the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The (new) testament of Christ is eternal. It is played out in time, but there is no development in the eternal. Augustine and medieval theologians generally saw a development and transformation within and between the Old and New Testament. Luther held that the New Testament is older than the Old because it is the oldest (eternal). The Old Testament begins and ends in time.

Luther’s response to his contemporary situation was the response of a theology of testament. Testament or will is the model that accounts for most of the pieces in Luther’s supposedly non-systematic theology. The word testament is a short summary of all God’s grace fulfilled in Christ. Testament or will is the testament of God promised throughout the Old Testament era and books that he would send a testator (Christ) to bring the inheritance of forgiveness of sins and eternal life, which is received in faith. The death and resurrection of the testator, God in flesh, validates the testament.

Promise, one ingredient in the category of testament, is God’s announcement of redemption. Redemption as well as creation is ex nihilo. The totality of the testament from promise through inheritance is a reality present from the beginning to the end of time. The New Testament is the eternal testament of Christ.

The second ingredient in testament is Luther’s theology of Word. The Word is the dynamic manifestation of the person of God. Important for Luther is the passage in Isaiah that God’s Word will not return void, which means that the Word will accomplish that which it sets out to do. The Word accomplishes a faithful response that brings about the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The promise is God’s Word that he will one day die and rise and validate his testament.

The third part of Luther’s testament theology is a theology of the cross. The theology of the cross has an antispeculative force to it which is directed against a theology of glory. The theology of the cross is contextual, working within what God did in Christ on the cross. Rather than using philosophical terms, Luther talks about the wounds of Christ on the cross and Christ as a worm on the cross, thus emphasizing the total humiliation of the God-man. The humiliation of the cross is God’s total identification with the human situation in order to redeem that situation so that we can live by faith.

The fourth aspect of Luther’s theology of testament is grace. Grace for Luther is a unilateral gift. One of the primary functions of testament is that the testator makes out his will without the recipient having done anything to deserve the inheritance. Testament, at least God’s way, is gratuitous. The heir in no way merits the inheritance. Testament for Luther stands in contrast with covenant. Often Luther will use covenant as a synonym for testament and understand it as unilateral gift. In late medieval covenant theologies, the covenant is a bilateral, two-way pact, bond or agreement. These various covenant theologians were at least semi-Pelagian because they called for some human action as a necessary part of the pact. The grace of the unilateral testament, however, is the cross and resurrection. A covenant does not require death. The unilateral act of grace proves that God’s promise is true. The cross is final proof that God’s testament is valid. The resurrection completes God’s action. For Luther, then, grace is God’s self-actualizing Word that accomplishes its purpose without requiring any act on our part.

The fifth aspect of testament is faith or trust in the inheritance. One receives faith through the Word accomplishing its purpose. Faith is a gift of grace. Trust is confidence that Christ not only died for the sins of humankind but also he died for me. Trust is intimately bound up with Luther’s notion of the certitude of salvation. Christians are certain of their salvation because their salvation is in Christ, and Christ is for me and for us. If salvation were dependent on something that we were to do, free will, free reason, then Luther in no way could have any confidence. Confidence rests in Christ alone.

Principles of Biblical Interpretation.

Technically Luther did not have a hermeneutic because hermeneutics is a nineteenth-century discipline that presupposes the distance of the biblical text and the need for the interpreter to bridge the gap and make any interpretative moves necessary to bring the text into modern linguistic jargon understandable in post-Enlightenment philosophy.

To be a theologian, the three rules (1539) of prayer (oratio), meditation (meditatio) and temptation or experience (tentatio) need to be practiced every day. These show Luther indebted to the sacred reading (lectio divina) of Scripture deep in the theological tradition of the church.

The core of Scripture is what drives, teaches and pronounces Christ (was Christum treibet). Treiben has to do with transportation; so that in Scripture, the important thing is to see that the sacred page drives us and brings us to Christ.

Canon within the canon is a principle often associated with Luther. The danger of this dictum for Luther would be that some subjective principle of selectivity would choose the inner canon and force everything into that mold. And yet several scholars feel that Luther did exactly that with his insistence that the first article, justification by faith, interprets the whole. Christ, not a doctrine or principle, is at the center of Scripture; Luther consistently maintains that Christ is the babe in the manger and Scripture is the manger that supports him.

Scripture alone means Scripture as the sole authority as opposed to the human traditions of the papacy. Scripture alone means Christ alone.

Scripture has a single, christological meaning. Luther recognized and used the biblical and medieval fourfold sense (literal, allegorical, tropological, anagogical) where it embellished the single simplest, that is, the grammatical sense.

Scripture is the living voice of the gospel (viva vox evangelii); it can never be contained in a writing, much less a law; nor can an interpretation take the place of the text itself (himself).

Scripture is it own interpreter (scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres) means Scripture is to be used to interpret itself based on the echo of Scripture within Scripture. The Old Testament is ruminating over the Psalter, exodus, covenant and law, as the New Testament interprets the Old Testament and its own articles of faith.

Scripture confirms (authenticates) itself (Die Schrift verbügt sich selbst) means no outside authority is needed to bring credibility to Scripture. Scripture attests to its own veracity. Scripture is clear because the message of salvation delivered by the Holy Spirit is overwhelmingly clear and persuasive.

Significance. Luther’s understanding of his discipline of theology was that it was the discipline of the sacred page (sacra pagina). The linkage of Luther with the tradition of sacra pagina goes counter to much of modern effort to see Luther as the first Enlightenment figure, the first rationalist, nationalist, romantic, liberal, historical critic or hermeneutician. The distinctive feature of this discipline is that it sees sacred matters as a page, which is a more logical approach to Holy Writ than are the efforts of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Enlightenment to interpret the Bible as ancient literature because it is consistent with the text of Scripture. The sacred page is the work of God directly and immediately; it bears the imprint of God, God’s will, God’s action, God’s Word.

The discipline of the sacred page, not new to Luther, assumes the unity of God’s Word. The view of God is thoroughly trinitarian. The Christian confession of faith is based on the sacred page. The form that the confession or creed or rule of faith takes is trinitarian. The unity of Scripture thus is trinitarian. The action of God as recorded from beginning to end is the action of Three-in-One.

Scripture has a unique grammar. Luther was concerned to promote that grammar, that faith. Faith is the shape or form that the words take. It is true that Luther clung only to the grammatical meaning (sensus) of the words. He did so to preserve the single and simple sense, which most often is Christ. But Christ is not a meaning or sense. Christ is the res, the very thing itself of God.

Luther frequently urged the reader to pay special attention to the peculiar phrase, idiom, example or expression that Scripture employed. The grammatical sense points to Christ. The vocabulary of the sacred page takes the form of the creed. The faith of the church based on the grammar of faith is trinitarian. Thus the unity of the grammar of faith is the unity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Luther was the doctor of faith.

When Luther used the word interpret, he attacked the idea and argued instead that Scripture is to be promoted and applied to the present age but not interpreted. Luther’s work of commenting on Scripture continued the medieval genre of enarratio, which means to narrate and apply the message of Scripture in public. The use of Scripture is not to provide evidence or proof for an interpretation. Rather,Scripture is used to promote God.

To work with Scripture as Luther did is to employ the discipline of the sacred page. Theology for Luther employs the discipline of prayer, meditation and temptation. Such a discipline comes from the Psalter. Luther was consistent to follow Scripture’s lead for the discipline of theology. The goal of this discipline is God.

Medieval commentators have been described as walking concordances. The same must be said for Luther. For Luther it was necessary that God’s Word be consistent in its grammar, rhetoric and theology. The importance of Luther for our time is his clear perception and practice of theology in the tradition of enarratio and sacra pagina.

BIBLIOGRAPHY....

K. Hagen

Reviews & Endorsements

"This volume provides a thorough introduction to the major figures in the history of exegesis. It is a useful resource both as a work of reference and as a guide to further reading."

— Anthony N. S. Lane, director of research and professor of historical theology, London School of Theology

"This is an instructive, thought-provoking, generous-minded, reliable, absorbing, illuminating and imaginative work, often elegant, entertaining, incisive and provocative. It covers a remarkable galaxy of names, and it is written by people from a wide range of backgrounds, many of them world experts on their subject. Why did no one think of writing it before?"

— John Goldingay, David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Reading through these evenhanded presentations of our predecessors in the work of biblical interpretation is both a humbling and at the same time energizing experience. By providing a judicious selection of leading interpreters throughout the history of the church, the DMBI has made me realize anew how much we owe to our predecessors, while their faithfulness, often in the face of considerable adversity, is an inspiring example which will drive me back to the text of Scripture with renewed vigor and determination."

— H. G. M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Oxford

"Ten years after the appearance of its well-received predecessor, the Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters joins the ranks of InterVarsity Press's flagship series of reference works. Here is an excellent selection of entries covering a greatly expanded sweep of influential commentators ancient and modern, Catholic and Protestant, 'conservative' and 'progressive,' often contextualized with illuminating biographical information. The well-documented, often substantive essays benefit from an impressive international team of authors, many of whom are themselves representative of the state of the art of contemporary biblical interpretation. Serious students of the story of biblical interpretation will do well to clear another four inches on their reference shelf for this latest InterVarsity Press dictionary."

— Markus Bockmuehl, Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Keble College, University of Oxford