" Ecclesial Exegesis is a joy to read... so well-written, so engaging, and so insightful. The sheer scope of the topic is impressive. In his effort to take up Benedict’s challenge, Vall offers a fair-minded and nuanced critique of Catholic exegesis since Vatican II and Dei Verbum, a substantive discussion of Benedict’s Method C, and, in essence, an erudite primer on how to read the whole of Scripture as a Catholic."
~Jody V. Lewis, Dominican House of Studies
"In this magisterial study, Gregory Vall offers not only advanced insights on the method of scriptural exegesis, but he combines this with careful and illustrative examples showing how the text can be handled responsibly by people of faith. This book rejects sharp and dichotomizing binaries of either modern scholarship or ancient faith-based exegesis. Instead, Vall shows how, both in theory and in practice, the two can operate together in a creative synthesis that enriches and enlarges one’s understanding of the biblical text."
~Paul Foster, University of Edinburgh
"Can historical-critical tools really serve to tell us not only what Scripture meant, but what it means now? Can they serve to restore Scripture as a present locutio Dei to the Church? They can, but only once they are inserted into a more self-consciously appropriated framework of philosophical and theological presuppositions that break the positivist prison within which the Enlightenment confined the Book. Ecclesial Exegesis is an exemplary instance of how this program is no mere theoretical dream of Cardinal Ratzinger but can be practically implemented. That being said, Vall's exposition of the theory is also very welcome."
~Guy Mansini, OSB, Saint Meinrad Seminary
"Gregory Vall’s exegetical studies offer valuable enrichments to fundamental and systematic theology. His approach to Scripture takes seriously how Vatican II placed the principles of Catholic biblical interpretation in Dei Verbum, Chapter III, after the profound account in Chapter I of God’s revelatory and saving economy in Christ."
~Jared Wicks, SJ, Gregorian University, Rome
"Those….who hunger for a deeper analysis of biblical exegesis, and are open to spiritual insights for personal and ecclesial renewal can expect rich rewards if they read and study Ecclesial Exegesis."
~Catholic Books Review
"For those who are dissatisfied with the current dichotomy found in biblical studies between a Method A exegesis and a Method B, this book will find an important place in one’s library. One should not expect this book to solve all exegetical problems, especially because of its inductive approach. But one will find several examples of an increasingly precise approach to Method C exegesis: an exegesis that is faithful both to the church in its ecclesial context and to the data given through modern and ancient methods."
~Homiletic and Pastoral Review
"Vall’s book is a valuable contribution to the ongoing project, set forth in Ratzinger’s Erasmus Lecture, of integrating the good in ancient and modern biblical interpretation for the Church today. Vall critically engages select premodern interpreters, drawing at times on the substance of their readings and at other times on the principles which inform them. His historical-critical analyses of biblical texts are learned and sensitive to literary technique and philological detail. Many of his case studies concern Old Testament texts, and throughout he commendably seeks to preserve the abiding sense and value of Old Testament texts in their own right as well as in relation to the New."
~Thomist