'midrashic' senses on which both Judaism and Christianity are, each in its own way, based."51

One might object to my inclusion of Dei Verbum within the long dialectic on the literal sense. After all, Joseph Ratzinger considers one of the three formative forces in Dei Verbum to be the Church's unresolved response to scientific methods of biblical criticism, as if Dei Verbum fits better in the narrative of the Church's negotiations with modern methods of biblical criticism.52 But careful reading of Dei Verbum and Ratzinger's account of its origin and background reveals that this objection is not completely to the point. Yes, more is going on in Dei Verbum than the questions of the definition and priority of the literal sense of Scripture, and the objection is useful in calling attention to this. For Dei Verbum concerns how Scripture and tradition relate,53 and this is a larger, more all-encompassing concern than the contours and relative value of the literal sense. But the literal sense questions remain in play in order that the meaning and contribution of Scripture can be clarified. As to this objection's alternative model, that Dei Verbum arose out of unresolved questions regarding what to do with scientific criticism, Ratzinger himself notes that Church councils are not the Church's instruments for deciding on academic questions.54 He thus implies that the revisers of Dei Verbum chose not to weigh in on the methods of study so pointedly referenced in Providentissimus Deus and Divino Afflante Spiritu.

We may summarize by saying that: in Providentissimus Deus, the literal sense is advocated in order to protect the text from being marginalized by scholars' reconstructions of the world behind the text; in Divino Afflante Spiritu, the literal sense is advocated to protect the text from the spiritualizing exegesis in a world in front of the text; and in Dei Verbum, there are no direct references to the literal sense. The last is wisely modest in calling attention to the literary forms in the context of their composition, as well as the unity of all of Scripture and the Church's role as final arbiter of Scripture's meaning. No mention is made of new research or new methods as necessary for increasing our understanding of Scripture. In that

51 Jon D. Levenson, "Can Roman Catholicism Validate Jewish Biblical Interpretation?" Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 1 (2005-2006): 173n6.52 Joseph Ratzinger, "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Origin and Background," in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 3, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (London/New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 157-58.53 Ibid., 161, 190-196.54 Ibid., 160.

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Dei Verbum and the Twentieth-Century Drama of Scripture’s Literal Sense

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