Biblical interpretation in 'Dei Verbum'

Abstract

This is one of the four Dogmatic Constitutions promulgated by the Council. Its importance is shown by its stormy passage through the Council's deliberations: it was one of the very first to be put on the table of the Council and one of the last to be finally approved in its final form. No less than five drafts were presented for the study of the Council Fathers, each one with substantial changes in such a way as to produce a text which would gain the assent of an almost unanimous vote. The history of this document - which, one might say, is the history of the council itself - is important to understand the whole text of the Constitution: one notes the gradual progress of the Council. in extricating itself from the straight jacket of formal static abstract conceptual theology of the schools into the liberty of the Biblical and patristic tradition. It is the outcome of two different mentalities, the one bent on preserving the old formulae and condemning anything which smacks of novelty and the other one conscious of the change through which human thinking is passing and of the progress done in the last fifty years or so in positive theology, especially Biblical Interpretation. We limit ourselves to notical interpretation, in chapter three. But first we give an outline of the history of the Constitution.