The Critical Exegesis of Marid-Joseph Lagrange, OP and Alfred Loisy. An Initial Study

Marie-Joseph Lagrange, OP, was a prominent Roman Catholic biblical exegete at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. A member of the Dominican order he was the founder of the École biblique in Jerusalem. He engaged with modern methods of biblical critical exegesis, but although he was under suspicion, he was never excommunicated. Alfred Loisy, who was at the heart of the modernist controversy, was another prominent Catholic exegete who was a contemporary of Lagrange. This paper will thus examine their work in critical exegesis highlighting similarities and differences between their engagement with modern critical methods.