Raymond E. Brown

In a detailed 1965 article in the journal Theological Studies examining whether Jesus was ever called "God" in the New Testament, Brown wrote, "Even the fourth Gospel never portrays Jesus as saying specifically that he is God" and "there is no reason to think that Jesus was called God in the earliest layers of New Testament tradition." He wrote that, "Gradually, in the development of Christian thought God was understood to be a broader term. It was seen that God had revealed so much of Himself in Jesus that God had to be able to include both Father and Son."[9]

Thirty years later, Brown revisited the issue in an introductory text for the general public, writing, "three reasonably clear instances in the NT (Hebrews 1:8–9, John 1:1, 20:28) and in five instances that have probability, Jesus is called God," a usage Brown regarded as a natural development of early references to Jesus as "Lord".[10]

Brown analyzed the Gospel of John and divided it into two sections, which he labelled the Book of Signs and the Book of Glory. The Book of Signs recounts Jesus' public miracles, which are called signs. The Book of Glory features Jesus' private teachings to his disciples, his crucifixion, and his resurrection.

Brown identified three layers of text in John: 1) an initial version Brown considers based on personal experience of Jesus; 2) a structured literary creation by the evangelist which draws upon additional sources; and 3) the edited version that readers of the Bible know today.[11]

Brown has been described as "the premier Johannine scholar in the English-speaking world."[12] Terrence T. Prendergast stated that “for nearly 40 years Father Brown caught the entire church up into the excitement and new possibilities of scriptural scholarship."[13] Much of Brown's work was given a nihil obstat and an imprimatur. The nihil obstat is a statement by an official reviewer, appointed by a bishop, that "nothing stands in the way" of a book being given an imprimatur; the imprimatur, which must normally be issued by a bishop of the diocese of publication, is the official endorsement "let it be printed" that a book contains nothing damaging to Catholic faith and morals.[14] Brown was the expert appointed to review and provide the nihil obstat for The Jerome Biblical Commentary and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, the standard basic reference book for Catholic Biblical studies, and he served as one of its editors and authors along with dozens of other Catholic scholars.[15]

Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, complimented Brown saying that he "would be very happy if we had many exegetes like Father Brown".[16] Later on however, Ratzinger would critique the overuse of historical criticism and parts of Brown's scholarship, saying that "we need a self-criticism of the historical method".[17][18]

Brown's scholarship was controversial for questioning the inerrancy of the whole of scripture and casting doubt on the historical accuracy of numerous articles of the Catholic faith.[19] He was regarded as occupying the center ground in the field of biblical studies,[20] opposing literalism found among many fundamentalist Christians but not carrying his conclusions as far as many other scholars. His critics included Cardinal Lawrence Shehan, Father Richard W. Gilsdorf, and George A. Kelly. Gilsdorf defined Brown's work as "a major contribution to the befogged wasteland of an 'American Church' progressively alienated from its divinely constituted center."[4] George A. Kelly found fault with Brown's questioning of whether the Virgin birth of Jesus could be proven historically.[19]

Other writers, critical of historical Christian claims about Jesus, criticized Brown for excessive caution, arguing that he was unwilling to acknowledge the radical implications of the critical methods he was using. Literary critic Frank Kermode, in his review of The Birth of the Messiah, accused Brown of being too eager to secure the imprimatur of the Catholic Church.[21] The Hebraic Jesus scholar Géza Vermes, speaking of the Nativity narratives, has described Brown's coverage as "the primary example of the position of having your cake and eating it."[22] In his obituary for The New York Times, Gustav Niebuhr wrote: "Father Brown was regarded as a centrist, with a reputation as a man of the church and a rigorous, exacting scholar whose work had to be reckoned with."[1]

• Brown, Raymond E. (1955). The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture (Ph.D.). Baltimore, MD: St. Mary's University. – This was his dissertation in partial fulfillment of his doctorate in Sacred Theology. Brown did much to define the term sensus plenior and had an enormous influence on the twentieth-century debate concerning the term.

His total of 25 books on biblical subjects include:

• ——— (1965). New Testament Essays. Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co. OCLC 6530571.
• ——— (1966). The Gospel According to John: Chapters 1-12: translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary. Anchor Bible. Vol. 29. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385015172. OCLC 350246.
• ——— (1970). The Gospel According to John: Chapters 13–21: translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary. Anchor Bible. Vol. 29A. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385037617. OCLC 350246.
• ——— (1977). The Birth of the Messiah: a commentary on the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385059077. OCLC 2967987.
• ——— (1979). The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0809121748. OCLC 4944691.
• ——— (1981). The Critical Meaning of the Bible. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0809124060. OCLC 8020578.
• ——— (1982). The Epistles of John: translated, with introduction, notes, and commentary. Anchor Bible. Vol. 30. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385056861. OCLC 7925227.
• ——— (1985). Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0809103683. OCLC 13076569.
• ——— (1990). Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0809104437. OCLC 21483229.[23]
• ——— (1993). The Birth of the Messiah: a commentary on the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. Anchor Bible Reference Library (Revised ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385494472. OCLC 1000840333. – with a reappraisal of the infancy gospels.
• ——— (1994). The Death of the Messiah: from Gethsemane to the grave : a commentary on the Passion narratives in the four Gospels - in 2 Vols. Anchor Bible Reference Library. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385193962. OCLC 27432279.
• ——— (1997). An Introduction to the New Testament. Anchor Bible Reference Library. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385247672. OCLC 35990175.[24][25][26][27]

• ———; Bea, Augustin Cardinal; Fitzmyer, Joseph A.; Murphy, Roland E., eds. (1968). Jerome Biblical Commentary – in 2 Vols. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0135096123. OCLC 355447.
• ———; Donfried, Karl P.; Reumann, John Henry Paul, eds. (1973). Peter in the New Testament : a collaborative assessment by Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Pub. House. ISBN 978-0806614014. OCLC 750095.
• ———; Achtemeier, Paul J., eds. (1978). Mary and the New Testament. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0800613457. OCLC 4004724.
• ———; Bea, Augustin; Fitzmyer, Joseph A.; Murphy, Roland E., eds. (1990). New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Revision of Jerome Biblical Commentary ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0136149347. OCLC 19388491.