The following videos introduce how the Catholic Church interprets the Bible and how scholars approach it using the available manuscript evidence. They also cover the background and themes of the Gospel of Mark. Use the links to the right to access pdf files of the slides shown in class. Two formats are available: 1 slide per page and three slides per page.
The videos often have a bit more information, and a few more slides, than I show in our class or include in the slide files above. That's because they were made for classes in the Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries at Santa Clara University. At the bottom of the page, I provide links to the video pages for those courses, in case you're interested in learning more about the New Testament.
The videos below are thumbnails; to enlarge the view, click the play button and select at the bottom of the frame either "YouTube" (to watch the video on YouTube, which in some cases will be clearer) or the full-screen icon ().
1
Catholic Approaches to the Bible, Part 1: The Impact of the Protestant Reformation
This video explains the challenge to Catholic biblical interpretation that the Protestant Reformation posed, and the initial response of the Catholic Church to these challenges. It provides background for the changes in Catholic interpretation that would take place in the mid-twentieth century, the subject of the next video.
6.55
2
Catholic Approaches to the Bible, Part 2: Principles of Catholic Biblical Interpretation
This video explores the principles of Catholic biblical interpretation that were developed in the mid-twentieth century, with Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) and with Vatican II's dogmatic constitution, Dei Verbum (1965).
11.39
3
How Scholars Build the Bible
This video discusses one aspect of the academic approach to the Bible by explaining what you're really looking at when you open a Bible. Far from being one book, it is of course many books—but you could have guessed that from looking at its table of contents. What you might not know from the table of contents is how ancient each of these books is. That is, how close are the versions you're reading (in English translation, of course) to the "autograph" or original text we imagine each ancient author wrote (in Hebrew or Aramaic, for the Jewish scriptures, in Greek for the Christian books)? How do scholars take the available manuscript evidence and get us to our modern translations?
22.00
4
What is a Gospel?
This video introduces the political context of the term ευαγγελιον or "gospel," summarizes the types of Christian books called by that name, and then describes in particular the one ancient genre that the gospels are most like—bioi or biographies. The symbol for the four gospels in Christian iconography, the tetramorph, is also introduced.
14.46
5
Pastoral Issues & Gospel Themes in Mark
This video identifies some of the key themes in the Gospel of Mark and connects these to the likely social, political and relgious circumstances of Mark's community.
10.43
6
Mark's Passion Narrative
This video describes the significance of the passion narrative in the gospels in general, and the Gospel of Mark in particular. It analyzes why Mark might have put so much emphasis on the crucifixion of Jesus and on the motif of the suffering messiah.
9.43
For additional videos about the gospels, see the "Lecture Videos" pages associated with my courses at Santa Clara University on The Synoptic Gospels and The New Testament.
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