In his nineties, Dom Bernard switched his
unflagging energies to an equally passionate campaign to establish that Mark stemmed from five conferences delivered by Peter in Rome. With his tall and benign Benedictine figure (and his financial backing), he was such a beloved presence at the most distinguished international biblical levels that no one could bring themselves to contradict him. Admired and revered, but never taken quite seriously, he was delighted that a German scholar described a lecture on his theory as ganz fan- tastisch (“absolutely fantastic” – or was it “pure fantasy”?). The first project of the newly formed Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) of Great Britain, already tabled by Dom Bernard in 1942, was a single-volume commentary on Scripture. No such Catholic publication existed in English, and the only non-Catholic single- volume commentary was Peake (first published in 1919), already antiquated. Dom Bernard’s ambitious project came to fruition in 1953 and, until the publication of the Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1969, was a unique and invaluable tool on both sides of the Atlantic, hampered though it was by the anti- Modernist responsa of the Biblical Commission, withdrawn only two years after its publication. Publication of the second, revised edition was so long delayed – partly through Dom Bernard’s appointment to a second stint as headmaster of St Benedict’s School, Ealing – that it was pipped to the post by the Jeromeand quickly died a natural death. Another initiative of Dom Bernard’s was the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible. At this time English-speaking Catholics, forbidden to use a non-Catholic text, had a choice between the antiquated and excessively literal Rheims- Douay-Challoner version and Ronald Knox’s brilliant but idiosyncratic translation. Dom Bernard was in his managerial ele- ment in the complicated negotiations with the copyright-holders of the RSV – the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA – and secured permission to pub- lish a Catholic edition for which the Apocryphal (Protestant) or Deuterocanonical (Catholic) passages of the Old Testament were printed in their due place. A minimum of notes for Catholic doctrine was also included. By his patient skill, Dom Bernard tran- scended the Lutheran biblical Canon, according to which only the books originally written in Hebrew were wholly accepted. The importance of this achievement was not only in itself (the RSV was soon to be replaced by the much superior New Revised Standard Version) but also in paving the way towards the aim of a Common Bible, shared by all English-speaking Christians.
At the same time, and not without an occa- sional frisson of rivalry, Alexander Jones had been working at St Joseph’s seminary, Upholland, on an English edition of the Jerusalem Bible. The original purpose was to make accessible the invaluable biblical scholar - ship of the French Bible de Jérusalem, published in 1956. Jones soon realised that neither of the two translations then available
would support the notes, and set about assem- bling a team of distinguished literary figures (including such legends as J.R.R. Tolkien and Edward Sackville-West), who would translate the biblical text from the French. The resultant edition, both translation and ample notes, has become a widespread success and a much-loved resource for Catholics and non-Catholics alike all over the world. It was published in 1966 and has never entirely been superseded – partly through deliberate pub- lishers’ policy – by the more accurate translation from the originals and the revised notes provided in the New Jerusalem Bible of 1985.
Such were the great years of the English
CBA. Since then, two important changes have taken place. The first is the rise of a distin- guished band of American Catholic biblical scholars, such as Raymond E. Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer and John P. Meier, to whom the scholarly initiative has largely passed. Their achievement is symbolised by the great one- volume commentaries, the Jerome and now The New Jerome, the important series of pub- lications from the Collegeville Liturgical Press, and the massive project of the Anchor Bible, now directed by John J. Collins. Only in the matter of translations do these English Catholic versions hold their own against the fiercely criticised New American Bible. Initiatives set afoot by the two great docu - ments of Vatican II have begun to take hold.
Lumen Gentiumhas increased the awareness of the People of God, both laity and clergy, of the vocation to holiness of the whole people, and of the prophetic office of the laity in con- serving and developing understanding of the Christian faith. At the same time, from its very opening paragraphs, Dei Verbum has brought home that the Scriptures are God’s revelation of himself to us, and the way to the believer’s response in faith, love and friendship. These two advances, put into practice in the immensely wider knowledge of the Bible brought about by the three-year cycle of read- ings and by the increasing participation of the laity in the Prayer of the Church, have, in their turn, led to a thirst for study of the Bible. In recent years, the 1940 objectives of the CBA have been fulfilled most widely by a range of teaching opportunities in response to this thirst, whether by written commentaries at every level or by live teaching to respond to demands at university, parish, study-group or private lectio divina.
■Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB is a monk of Ampleforth and biblical scholar. His latest book is The Use and Abuse of the Bible: a brief history of biblical interpretation (T & T Clark). This article is an edited version of a lecture given at the Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge, to mark the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain.
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