Memories of Jerusalem (part 1)

Last Friday, March 6th, the École Biblique was in the spotlight at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: the colloquium “Le goût de l’Orient” brought together members of both institutions at the Institut de France to celebrate the centenary of the recognition of the EBAF as an École archéologique française. Previous Orientalists included six former AIBL scholarship holders who came to testify about their academic year(s) spent at EBAF.

Find in this first article the speeches of Claire Balandier, archaeologist, lecturer in Ancient Greek World History at the University of Avignon, archaeologist, member of UMR 8210 AnHiMA (Anthropologie et histoire des mondes antiques), and director of the French Archaeological Mission in Paphos (Cyprus), and of Guillaume Bady, patrologist, research fellow at the CNRS, member of UMR 5189 HiSoMA (Histoire et Sources des Mondes Antiques), and director of the Institut des Sources Chrétiennes.

Speech of Mme Claire Balandier

Mr. Perpetual Secretary, Mr. President, Mr. Director, dear colleagues, dear friends,

It is a real honor for me to represent all the scholarship holders of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres at the École Biblique et Archéologique française of Jerusalem in the field of archaeology.

While the majority of the fellows came to Jerusalem to complete their doctoral thesis, I was already a doctor when I had the privilege of being chosen by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to come and do post-doctoral research at the EBAF in 2002/2003. I had already had a foretaste of the Orient in Cyprus where I had been an assistant excavation worker since 1990 on the site of the École biblique of Athens on the walls of the kingdom-city of Amathonte and where I had completed my thesis on the fortifications and the defence of the territories of the island from the archaic period to the Arab invasions (8th century BC – 7th century AD). As a continuation of this research, it was logical to focus then on the neighbouring Levant, Herodotus’ Syria-Palestine, the Transeuphratene of the Achaemenid Persians and Syria-Phenicia of the Ptolemies.

I arrived in Jerusalem in October 2002. I still remember the light, sounds and perfumes that intoxicated me on the first morning when I passed the gate of the École to go to the Damascus Gate to discover the old city of Jerusalem. The impression that seized me was indescribable: although I had lived for more than two years in the Old City of Nicosia, which had accustomed me to the shouting and bustle of an eastern market, to the calls to prayer of the muezzins with whom the bells of churches of all denominations rivaled, to the political graffiti on the ancient walls concealed by jasmine and bougainvillea, to the passing of armed soldiers and groups of tourists unconcerned about passing through a city cut in two… everything, in Jerusalem, was more accentuated… and the same was true of the emotions felt, be it enthusiasm in the discovery of mythical and historical places or moral discouragement in the face of the daily difficulties that the Palestinians of the neighbourhood and the staff of the École, blocked at the “check-points” (there was not yet a separation wall between Israel and the West Bank), were experiencing. Indeed, very quickly, reality took over from wonder; we were in the middle of the second Intifada, the tension was palpable. Apart from the possibility of supporting the “women in black”, and also a few men, secular and religious of all religions, who demonstrated every Friday at noon, in the Place de France, in their desire for peace and their opposition to the colonisation and occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the painful feeling of powerlessness, the potential risk of attacks, and the impossibility of moving freely forced us to remain more than we would have liked within the secure walls of the EBAF. Selfishly, we have to admit that there were worse places to be confined and that it was far from unpleasant…

Like all the fellows, I followed a series of courses, each one more exciting than the last. Arriving with a background as a historian and archaeologist, I was particularly appreciative of the invaluable multidisciplinary teaching given at EBAF by Dominican biblical, historical, philological and archaeological teacher-researchers, who allowed me to refine the historical method I had learned at the university. In particular there were Francolino Gonçalvès’ courses in biblical exegesis on the books of the Kings, those of Étienne Nodet on the books of the Maccabees, Paolo Garuti’s courses in rhetoric, my introduction to Assyriology thanks to Marcel Sigrist, Emile Puech’s Qumranic studies, and literary Arabic taught by Krzysztof Modras. Above all, this study of texts, which could have been carried out anywhere, took on another dimension when supplemented by a study of archaeological sources, on the very material resulting from the excavations carried out by the École or in the Jerusalem museums at the Palestine Museum (Rockefeller) or the Israel Museum, and finally by the topographical approach to historical sites. I thus have exceptional memories of Jerry Murphy O’Connor’s courses in urban topography in the Old City of Jerusalem and those of Jean-Baptiste Humbert, and of the fascinating discussions held in the “Museum”, the building which, at the back of the École’s garden, serves as his research laboratory. Most of the archaeology fellows have had the opportunity to participate in the archaeological research conducted by the École, for a long time at Tell Keisan, the Citadel of Amman or Khirbet es-Samra in Jordan, in Gaza. When I arrived in the autumn of 2002, Jean-Baptiste Humbert was working in the Gaza Strip, on the site of Chati, rescuing a Hellenistic house whose lower walls, spared by bulldozers, were decorated with plaster painted in contrasting colours, yellow, black and red. The closure of the Gaza checkpoint abruptly interrupted this work and aborted the project to locate the route of the classic enclosure of the ancient city that Jean-Baptiste Humbert wanted us to carry out: I have a particular memory of the morning we spent walking along the dunes that covered the remains, caught between the increase in refugee camps and marine erosion. I regret that I was not able to be present when, in 2005, when work resumed, a gate from the Roman city walls was uncovered, and below that level, a gate from the Hellenistic period.

Travelling through the region is another fundamental part of the training offered by the École to the fellows. They last from one to several days and their objective is to discover the landscapes and sites evoked by biblical and historical texts. Following in the footsteps of the travellers who made us dream of the East, such as Chateaubriand, Renan, Lamartine and Pierre Loti, but above all in the footsteps of Fathers Jaussen and Savignac, Abel, but also Marcel Baudry (whom we did not have the honour of knowing, due to his premature and painful death, but whose memory was constantly evoked by his fathers and former students), these are unique experiences: despite the difficult political situation, it had thus been possible to visit the sites of Arad, Beersheba, and see the Byzantine cities of the Negeb desert and the crater of Ramon, on the Dead Sea, in Qumran, Ain Feshkha and Masada, on the coast, in Dor, Caesarea, St. John of Acre, in the Jordan Valley at Scythopolis and in Idumea at Lakish (Tell ed-Duweir). I retain a particular emotion from hiking in Wadi Qelt, from St. George’s Monastery to Jericho and in the Judean desert: walking and sleeping under the stars, like our illustrious predecessors, in the heart of an extraordinary nature, facing the elements, let us imagine the expeditions they had led in these long remote places, which allowed us to forget both contemporary civilization which is inexorably transforming the traditional life of the Bedouins, as well as the political and military tensions.

On the other hand, it was not possible for us to go to the West Bank because of the closure of the Territories under Palestinian Authority by the Israeli army. This seemed to jeopardize the research I had to conduct on the fortifications in this region, as field studies had become impossible. So it was mainly in the library that I spent my first year of research, relieved to find there all the archaeological journals and large collections that I could not consult in France, in particular all the reports of Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli excavations, etc. During the second year, I was able to work more easily in the field for my research conducted further east, on the other side of the Jordan River, which, for the periods that interested me, was not a border but an artery of circulation and communication.

I was thus fortunate that both the Scientific Council of the École and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres were willing to accept my project to write a second year dissertation on the fortifications of Transjordan, which led me to spend a second year at the EBAF in 2003/2004. This also confirmed my desire to teach, to transmit a taste for the Orient and for research. Indeed, as I had guided trips to Greece in previous years, the then Director of the École, Jean-Michel Poffet, offered to take charge of the École’s trips and willingly accepted that I should precede them with courses in the historical and archaeological presentation of the sites we were going to visit, so that those who were discovering them for the first time could benefit from them. I greatly appreciated these rich moments of encounters, cultural and human exchanges.

We were asked whether the EBAF had a role in our professional career. It is undeniable. My entry into academia was made easier (it was clearly expressed to me that several members of the recruitment commission of the University of Avignon, where I was recruited as a Lecturer in Ancient Greek World History, appreciated that I was an EBAF graduate, thanks to the two dissertations that I had been able to write there and which had been presented to the Scientific Council of the École as well as to the Academy). A one-month stay at the École in January 2011 allowed me to visit the sites in the West Bank that were now accessible, despite the wall that had been erected since I left the École in July 2004.

I am very grateful to Francolino Goncalvès, then Head of Publications, for hosting this study in the new series of the Biblical Studies collection. The latter, whose recent death has caused us great sorrow, had responded positively to my invitation to come and speak about his work of exegesis at the research seminar of the University of Avignon. I still remember his enthusiasm in explaining his method about the Neo-Babylonian conquest of Judah and the bright eyes of the audience. A priori, the French archaeological mission that I was able to found in Paphos in 2008 thanks to the support of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and the Advisory Commission for Archaeological Research Abroad of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs had no connection with the EBAF. And yet, former scholarship holders have participated as excavators or are now our partners, Polish, in the framework of a four-year project funded by a European programme (Horizon 2020) and professors from the École have come to visit us there and participate in the first two international colloquia devoted to this site in Avignon in 2012, and then in Paphos itself in 2017. We also met again at recent scientific meetings organised by the Cyprus Research Institute in Nicosia, bringing together representatives of the French Archaeological Écoles and Institutes working in the Eastern Mediterranean. In fact, being a fellow at the École allowed me to establish intellectual and friendly links that are second to none, and to have the chance to rub shoulders with researchers from all horizons and especially with the older Dominicans, such as Father Emile Boismard or François Langlamet, grandees of the École, who had the pleasure of sharing with us, at table, their passion for their research, at times their doubts, their memories of “their” Palestine and “their” Orient, their enthusiasm, their disillusionment, and their hopes.

To conclude, in short, I will say that to be a former fellow of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem is to belong, in the final analysis, to a true scientific and human brotherhood.

Claire Balandier

Speech of M. Guillaume Bady

Mr. Perpetual Secretary,

Mr. Speaker,

Mr. Director,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour for me to be called to represent, in some way, the fellows of the École Biblique in patristics—that is, the study of the Fathers of the Church or the Christian authors of the first centuries—in this place where I have maintained a vivid memory of the way in which Mr Jean Leclant received me at that time. I would also like to mention here Mr Antoine Guillaumont, who had written a report, which was very important to me, on the memoir I had written.

I was a scholarship holder at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1997-1998 and a student at the École Biblique when Fr. Claude Geffré was its director. As a student of Classics, I worked on some Greek Fathers. Not being an archaeologist at all, I was not at all good at gluing together shards, but the decalque, in ink, of mosaics for Jean-Baptiste Humbert allowed me to see that an ancient mosaicist could create a masterpiece without understanding anything of the Greek letters that he was copying – or rather that he was imitating them as if they were exotic animals. But that is the least of this year’s achievements. Gregory of Nyssa asked in the fourth century[1]: “What more shall he do who has gone” to Jerusalem?”  The Cappadocian, even if he was shocked by the morals of Jerusalem and disillusioned after his setbacks there, nevertheless asked a good question.

For me this year has been very positive, and even decisive, I have made many friends there—and yet I have never returned. On the one hand, the moments spent in the company of people in uniform at the airport or elsewhere, as well as the repeated attacks on civilians, made me want to never go through that again; on the other hand, I discovered, on my return to France, how much peace, being able to breathe in a country that is not continually at war, can be an absolutely priceless physical sensation. The first thing that this year at the École Biblique taught me was the concrete meaning of peace, seen in a Jerusalem that both crystallizes many conflicts and also shelters great diversity, the most astonishing religious coexistence that I have ever seen.

Apart from geopolitics, which was not on the program as such, the École Biblique helped me to discover biblical geography in a critical and lively way, with Marcel Beaudry as my guide. Thence it was impossible to read the Bible as before, without images, smells, a thousand impressions appearing in the pages.

Since the Bible is at the heart of patristics, Monique Alexandre at the Sorbonne strongly advised me, as she regularly did her students, to go to the École Biblique. And I liked it so much that at the end of the year, encouraged by Émile Puech, I even thought of going to Qumran – before the Fathers caught up with me and I was recruited as a researcher at the CNRS, assigned to the UMR HiSoMA, History and Sources of Ancient Worlds, more precisely to the Sources Chrétiennes, in Lyon, where I still work. Nevertheless, I have kept a kind of biblical bent. Recently a colleague pointed out to me – I hadn’t noticed it myself – that all my research revolves around the Bible. The Commentary on Proverbs attributed to John Chrysostom, the Lucian text of the Septuagint, the teaching, for more than 15 years, at the Institut Catholique de Paris on the Greek Bible – unfortunately the only introductory course that exists on this subject in France -, the introduction and annotated translation of 3rd Ezra in the New Ecumenical Translation of the Bible, some research on the ancient divisions of the Old Testament text… And I cannot fail to mention the Biblindex project, directed by my colleague Laurence Mellerin : this online index of biblical references among Christian authors of the first centuries, inherited from the Centre d’Analyse et de Documentation Patristique in Strasbourg. The database contains – a significant fact coming from patrologists – a fine concordance of 12 Bibles. Biblindex has also facilitated the monthly holding of a seminar for almost 10 years, whose papers are published in the Cahiers de Biblindex within the Cahiers de Biblia Patristica; Olivier-Thomas Venard has come to speak there and, since last year, he has been meeting regularly with the precise aim of providing the patristic annotation of the Ecclesiastes for the Bible In its Traditions.

For me, the notion that this way of studying the Bible, not by reading it simply as it appears today, nor by looking for a hypothetical original, but by taking an interest in its meaning in history, from ancient times, is more legitimate than ever. The success of the Lectures de la Bible du Ier au XVe siècle, a collective work published in 2017 under the direction of Laurence Mellerin, demonstrates this well. And this anchoring in history – not to mention the invaluable testimonies for the history of the text – is not the only interest of patristic and medieval writings on the Bible. In my opinion, patristic traditions also make it possible to rebalance and reorient: a rebalancing on the side of Judaism and the Old Testament, which in relation to our times was much more cited by the Fathers than the New (even today, if ambitious projects are still underway for an exhaustive survey of the patristic lessons of the New Testament text, only a handful of courageous people set about editing the Septuagint), and a more uncomplicated reorientation towards an updated meaning of the Scriptures, that is, no longer just from a more or less fantastical Urtext, but because updating has always been part of the text itself.

Is not this centenary of the École biblique a perfect opportunity to make more topical than ever the study of the Bible, which is the origin and the very aim of its creation? For I say it today with immense gratitude: the École Biblique has contributed to making the Bible current, and even, in a way, without end.

Guillaume Bady

[1] French source: Lettre 2, 8, trad. P. Maraval, SC 363, p. 115.


BACK TO THE SOURCE: THE ÉCOLE BIBLIQUE

From September 9th to 19th, 2019, the École hosted the very first Qumran Residency [Read the article ”News from the Qumran residency 2019 at the École biblique”]. Jean-Sébastien Rey, Professor of Old and New Testament at the Université de Lorraine, Metz (France), was among those invited to take part. It was an opportunity for the researcher and former student of the École Biblique to recall his time he spent there 16 years ago, in 2003-2004, and the way it influenced the rest of his university career.

“The first time I came to the École biblique was as part of a scholarship from the École. I remember very well: it was the end of May, I was finishing my master’s degree in theology, and I had heard the news of this scholarship, sudden and unexpected due to a last minute withdrawal. I didn’t really have the financial means to afford expenses not covered by the scholarship, but by doing some calculations, by eliminating a few trips, and with the dollar’s exchange rate very low that year, it could work… I had three days to answer and prepare the application file. It was a unique opportunity for my professional future.

“This time at the École radically changed my life. Looking back, I realize that during that year, I had moved, without realizing it, from being a somewhat fearful student to a junior researcher. I did my DEA at the École biblique (Master 2). I worked like a madman, day and night, in the library. If you come here to work, had better follow through. I remember that my friend Jan Dusek (now at Charles University in Prague) and I often stayed at work until three, four or five in the morning. We would take regular breaks to smoke a cigarette out behind of the library.

“My objective was to be able to obtain a doctoral offer at the end of the year that would allow me to do a thesis. At the time of the interviews for the doctoral position, I had just spent a year completely immersed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So I knew my subject better than anyone else on the jury and it clearly made a difference. Spending a year with the best specialists in the field (Émile Puech, Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Étienne Nodet) was an incredible opportunity and a real gift. Differences of opinion among researchers help to keep us open-minded and show that research is done through discussion and contradictions.

“I won the doctoral position, enrolled in a joint thesis between Strasbourg, with Eberhard Bons, and Leuven, with Florentino Garcia Martinez. At the same time, Émile Puech has always accompanied, supported and encouraged me throughout the journey. He read, re-read and corrected the thesis so carefully. Finally, once the thesis I had defended, I applied for and obtained a position as a lecturer, then as a professor, in the theology department of the Université de Lorraine. It is quite clear to me that I would never have had the same academic background without this year’s experience at the École.

“Coming back to the École biblique is always a very moving moment for me. I studied hard there, and I have unforgettable memories. I have good friends there. Unfortunately, some of them have left: Marie-Émile Boismard, François Langlamet, Jerome Murphy O’Connor, and Francolino Goncalvez, whose laughter I will never forget. I like coming back to work in the library. Nothing has changed. It’s like a timeless place: the sound of the front door, the smell of books, the tables. I like to work there at night. I like to turn off all the lights at night and go out when there is no one left, in the dark, in silence in the middle of all these books. When I come back to the École, I feel like I’m coming back to a childhood home, that old family home where nothing has changed. The École is a bit like my Proust’s madeleine.”


Aquinas in Ecstasy

I would like to begin with a very general dilation on the theological achievement of the Dominican Oliver-Thomas Venard, rendered in his trilogy of Pagina Sacra, La Langue de L’Ineffable, and Littérature et Théologie, and brought to the attention of Anglophone theology by the translation efforts of Francesca Murphy and Kenneth Oakes in their A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language and Reality (Bloomsbury, 2019). The substantial 500 page anthology still represents only a third of the trilogy. Yet, even in translation, the trilogy comes across as breathtakingly beautiful, not only because in large part it manifests the capacity to bear with and to bear the effects of glory rendered by the biblical text, but also repeats at a distance a particular style of theology which, despite its theoretical sophistication, or precisely because of it, remains constantly in conversation with scripture. For Venard, the figure of figures is none other than Thomas Aquinas. I will shortly provide a sketch of Venard’s unusual figuration of Aquinas, but before I do, it is important to note that while it is true that Venard is anxious to establish the aesthetic register of scripture and the copious theological production of Aquinas, he wishes to go a step further in speaking to both as forms of poetics: scripture and the theology of Aquinas bear an analogy to each other in that both are forms of enunciation that brazenly deploy all available linguistic and rhetorical resources to render the Word which by definition represents the coincidence of the act of enunciation and the content.

The newly published translation makes us appreciate, even more than we did in the French trilogy, the level of sophistication displayed in Venard’s hermeneutics. With regard to scripture, the philological performance is a match for the very best that one can find in German, while being vastly more knowledgeable in the history of interpretation, Patristic and medieval as well as modern, as well as being considerably more theoretically adept in its mastery of semiotics, ancient, medieval and post-Saussurean. Yet beyond its singularity, Venard never forgets that the finality of scripture is transformation, and he dares to think that this is also the aim of the most intellectually rigorous forms of Christian theology of which Aquinas represents an exemplary instance. Venard is not remotely interested in coming across as an original. Thus, when we read him on either Aquinas or scripture, he will also acquaint us in the notes, without burdening his main text, with all the available scholarship in all the main languages of commentary. Venard does the Anglo intellectual world a particular service, however, by drawing attention to the marvelous French scholarship on both. He introduces us to marvelous biblical commentators such as François Martin, Jean Grosjean, Oswald Ducrot among a host of others. With regard to French scholarship on the Bible he draws particular attention to discussions on the relation between the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels, which appear to be on an entirely different level than similar discussions in the German and English literature in terms of the theoretical apparatus deployed.

Read the entire article


Exploring the Future of Biblical Studies April 1-3, 2019 at the Notre Dame Conference Center, University of Notre Dame

The conference honors the 2019 publication of Olivier-Thomas Venard’s
A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language and
Reality, translated by Francesca Murphy and Kenneth Oakes. The
imminent publication of this text has inspired us to reflect on the
project of the future of biblical studies. Venard has given us an
example of what it might mean to reclaim learned study of the Word of
God, of inspired Scripture, as such. If we follow Venard’s lead,
recovering the learned study of the Word as Word would mean recovering
the study of the Word as Wisdom. It would mean recovering biblical
studies as a sapiential discipline intimately connected to history and
philology yet not constitutively so. It would mean a recovery of other
connections: to literature and literary theory, for example, and above
all to philosophy and theology. What are the philosophical
preconditions or presuppositions for a project ordered toward
understanding of God’s Word? Especially where God’s Word is understood
as Dei Verbum presents it, as truly having God as its author as well
as, in each case, a true human author. An approach from the liberal
arts, especially history and literature, suffices if biblical studies
brackets our consideration of the divine author. But then it is no
longer study of the Word as such. How can we unlock the mostly
untapped potential of Dei Verbum for the study of Scripture? How can
we reconnect Word and Wisdom? If biblical studies cannot survive in
its present form, could a sophisticated synthesis of history,
contemporary philosophy of language, theology of culture, and
traditional exegetical resources guide Biblical studies toward a
better future?


Interview – Père Maurice Gilbert, professeur de théologie biblique du mariage

Jésuite belge, le père Maurice Gilbert, s.j. fit ses études à Louvain : après son Troisième-An de spiritualité, il découvre Jérusalem au cours de l’été 1967. Son doctorat achevé, il devient pour quatre ans professeur à l’Université de Louvain, avant d’être nommé à l’Institut Biblique de Rome, poste qu’il occupera jusqu’en 2011. Après six ans de rectorat au Biblique, il passe à Jérusalem en 1984 et commence à enseigner à l’École biblique. Interview :

Professeur à l’École biblique depuis 34 ans, quel chemin vous a mené ici ?

Mes premiers contacts avec l’École biblique datent d’août 1967. Ce réfectoire où nous sommes était la bibliothèque. Il y avait ici la table où travaillait le père Langlamet, qui fumait comme un Turc. Les fichiers étaient là, à l’entrée du réfectoire. Je me rappelle avoir vu le père de Vaux qui arrosait le jardin. Le père Benoit nous a fait visiter l’esplanade des mosquées. Après la guerre des Six-Jours, on entrait partout : dans le dôme du roc, dans ce qu’on appelait à l’époque « les stalles de Salomon », l’actuelle mosquée pour les femmes ; la Porte Dorée était ouverte. La paix était impressionnante.

Puis en 1982, durant mon rectorat au Biblique, de passage à Jérusalem, les Pères de l’École m’ont invités à déjeuner ; à table, se trouvaient les maîtres de l’époque, Benoit, Tournay, Boismard, Murphy O’Connor. Ils étaient très préoccupés, car ils n’avaient plus que sept étudiants. À Rome, nous en avions 350. Je ne sais pas ce qui m’a pris mais je leur ai dit “C’est de votre faute. Vous n’offrez à vos étudiants aucun diplôme reconnu internationalement”. Une proposition fut lancée : obtenir du Saint-Siège que l’École puisse donner le doctorat en sciences bibliques, titre réservé à l’Institut biblique et à la Commission biblique pontificale. L’année suivante, c’était chose faite.

En 84, après mon rectorat à Rome, je suis venu à Jérusalem pour six mois et j’y suis resté huit ans ! L’École m’a de suite invité à donner cours : cela fait 34 ans ! Je n’ai jamais arrêté, sauf entre 93 et 99, mais j’y étais encore membre du Conseil scientifique.

Quelle est votre spécialité d’étude et d’enseignement ?

Quand je suis arrivé à Rome, on m’a demandé de prendre en charge les livres de Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament, c’est-à-dire Job, Proverbes, etc. J’avais déjà publié sur ces textes ; cela m’intéressait, d’autant plus que ces livres de Sagesse étaient peu étudiés jusqu’à la découverte en 1964 à Masada d’un manuscrit de Ben Sira du Ier siècle avant notre ère.

J’ai toujours donné des cours sur les livres de Sagesse. Je changeais chaque année, car on ne reprend jamais un même cours ni à l’École ni à l’Institut. On choisit toujours selon ce que l’on est en train de travailler. Je me souviens d’avoir donné ici un cours d’introduction scientifique au Siracide. Émile Puech y était !

Et pourquoi ce cours de théologie du mariage cette année ?

C’est la première fois que je donne ce cours. À Luxembourg depuis 2011, j’ai préparé des fiancés au mariage. Me rendant compte que ce pouvait être utile, j’ai proposé ce sujet à l’École, et c’est utile manifestement.

Et le corpus sur lequel vous vous fondez, est-ce aussi celui des Livres de la Sagesse ?

Non, c’est l’ensemble de la Bible, parce qu’il est très important de ne pas se cantonner à un seul domaine. Il arrive que des spécialistes du Nouveau Testament ne connaissent pas assez l’Ancien, tandis que les exégètes chrétiens de l’Ancien connaissent aussi le Nouveau.

Quels textes avez-vous choisi pour votre cours ?

Je pars du texte de Matthieu où Jésus se positionne contre le divorce : “ce que Dieu à unit l’homme ne le sépare pas”, et Jésus renvoie à Genèse 1 et 2. Allons donc voir ! Puis le chapitre 3, avec le serpent et la chute : ce chapitre marque des tensions à l’intérieur du couple. Nous avons vu ensuite ce qu’en dit le prophète Osée : il montre que le couple en difficulté reproduit celle qu’Israël vit dans sa relation d’alliance avec le Seigneur. Le Cantique, lui aussi, voit dans l’amour d’un garçon et d’une fille le symbole de l’amour du Seigneur pour son peuple. De même saint Paul dans son épître aux Éphésiens.

Je montre aussi qu’il y a différentes façons de considérer la vie en couple ; la grande bénédiction du mariage, comme, par exemple, dans le Psaume 128, compte trois dimensions : vie heureuse, nombreuse descendance et longue vie. Mais le livre de la Sagesse et l’expérience humaine montrent que la béatitude est promise aux “persécutés pour la justice”, que le Seigneur peut bénir un couple sans enfant ou qu’il accueille le juste dont la vie fut courte : dans l’Église, le nombre de jeunes saints ne cesse de croître. La chasteté est aussi abordée dans ces textes, ainsi qu’en Matthieu 19, ce sur quoi je reviens aussi à la lumière du chapitre 7 de la première épître de saint Paul aux Corinthiens. Voici brossée en grands traits la trame du cours.

Pouvez-vous enfin nous dire quelques mots de votre collaboration au projet de béatification du père Lagrange ?

En 1989, l’évêque de Toulon m’a demandé un dossier théologique sur les écrits du père Lagrange en vue d’une éventuelle béatification : je pense être le seul avec lui à avoir lu tout ce qu’il a écrit, 16000 pages ! J’ai même retrouvé environ 70 articles perdus ici dans la bibliothèque ; personne ne savait que c’était Lagrange qui les avait écrits. Le dossier, remis à Toulon en 91, arriva à Rome vers 98, voici 20 ans. Quand donc l’Église reconnaîtra-t-elle la sainteté du fondateur de l’École ? Espérons !

Propos recueillis par Aziliz Le Roux


The École Biblique Today

The founding purpose of the École biblique was to renew biblical studies at a time when modern criticism (history, philology, etc.) was challenging the traditional understanding of the sacred text and unsettling the faith of many Christians. For that reason, Father Lagrange wished to advance a faithful yet scientific study of the Bible in the geographic, historical, and cultural context of the land where it was born. The first team of professors was made up of specialists from the various disciplines necessary for such study. Their competence and the quality of their work soon merited official recognition for the École biblique: in 1920, it was recognized as the École archéologique française by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Ever since, the École has thus been named the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem.

The École is situated close to the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, on the site of a 5th-century Byzantine basilica, built where Christian tradition venerated the martyrdom of St Stephen the protomartyr: hence the name of the convent, Saint-Etienne (St Stephen), given to the religious community of Dominicans who run the École biblique.

Since its creation, the École biblique has helped to pioneer biblical exegesis and archaeological research in Israel and the neighboring regions. It has acquired great scholarly renown in the fields of epigraphy, Semitic linguistics, Assyriology, Egyptology, as well as in ancient history, geography, and ethnography.

The École biblique welcomes students with the pontifical license in biblical studies who desire to prepare for a doctoral degree (SSD). The school also receives students at masters level, who wish to specialize in archaeology or the history and geography of the Near East. Beyond the courses themselves, students have the opportunity each week to visit, with a professor, the main biblical sites in Palestine and Israel. The École has partnerships with various universities abroad, and in Jerusalem it collaborates closely with the Studium biblicum franciscanum.

The École manages the Revue Biblique and various other specialized publications in its fields of expertise, as well as works addressed to a broader public. Among the latter is the celebrated translation of the Bible known as the Jerusalem Bible (1956, 1973, 1998), which combines attention to the literary quality of the translations with an exacting scholarly rigor.

The École biblique can boast of many illustrious members. Alongside Father Lagrange, and Fathers Abel and Vincent, who along with him conducted very important surveys of the Holy Land, one might mention: Roland de Vaux OP, who directed the excavations at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947; Pierre Benoit OP, whose Inspiration and the Bible remains a seminal text; Raymond Tournay OP, author of an important edition and translation of the Psalms; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor OP, author of a famous archaeological guide to the Holy Land and numerous works on St Paul; and Marie-Emile Boismard OP, author of important writings on the New Testament. Among the emeriti still present at the École, mention could be made of: Jean-Baptist Humbert OP, archaeologist in charge of multiple digs in Palestine et Jordan; Etienne Nodet OP, editor of the works of Flavius Josephus; Émile Puech, one of the major editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and Marcel Sigrist, assyriologist, among others.

A new generation has now arrived. Among its most recent activities, the École biblique has launched an innovative research program called The Bible in its Traditions. This project aims to use the extraordinary opportunities afforded by modern technology to construct an online comparative version of the biblical text, presenting its different textual traditions (MT, LXX, Vulgate, etc.), and developing multiple layers of annotation to bring to light the rich reception history of the sacred text in Christian theology and liturgy, in patristic tradition, the history of art, and so on: see https://scroll.bibletraditions.org/.

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