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RAYMOND E. BROWN, S.S., The Death of the Messiah, from Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (2 vols.; AB Reference Library; New York/London/Toronto: Doubleday, 1994). Pp. xviii + 877, xix + 878-1608. $37.50 per vol.
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The stated intent of this magistral work by Raymond Brown is "to explain in detail what the evangelists intended and conveyed to their audiences by their narratives of the passion and death of Jesus"(p. 4). It is a goal that the author pursues with erronous erudition and clarity over nearly 2,000 pages. As B. emphasizes from the beginning, his stated purpose represents deliberate decisions about the methodologies undertaken and those left to the side. Thus, while he is concerned with historical and source-critical issues, his primary interest is the canonical text as it stands; while aware of the contributions of methodologies that draw on structuralism, the social sciences, feminist criticism, and various forms of literary criticism, his guiding method is that of redaction criticism. In using the phrase "what the evangelists intended" he is aware that confidence in deducing this from the written text runs counter to the attitude of some proponents of literary criticism who believe that auctorial intent is irretrievable and, to some extent, irrelevant. The subtitle is to be taken seriously: this is a "commentary on the passion narratives in the Four Gospels," and Brown did not write it as another contribution to the quest, old or new, for the historical Jesus.
The target audience is wide: "scholars, preaching clergy, students of religion or theology and of the Bible, interested Christians, and those of any persuasion who seek knowledge about the passion and death of Jesus"(1. viii). B.'s interaction with virtually every significant scholarly position to date on these parts of the Gospels and the range of his bibliography will surely please the first few categories of this intended audience, and the clarity of his prose and, in particular, his summations will encourage the "interested Christians and those of any persuasion."
The design of the work is comparable to B.'s Anchor Bible commentaries on the Johannine literature and his parallel volume to this one, the Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1977). In a substantial...