Biblical Exegesis and Mystical Theology in the Venerable Bede

Biblical Exegesis and Mystical Theology in the Venerable Bede brings together 17 essays by Arthur Holder exploring the theology and spirituality found in Bede’s biblical commentaries and homilies. The volume shows that Bede was both a masterful student of received tradition and a creative thinker concerned to address the needs and interests of his audience of Christian pastors and teachers in the eighth-century Northumbrian church.Although Bede is best known as the author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the last half-century of scholarship has demonstrated the sophistication and vast influence of his work in the fields of grammar, biblical interpretation, hagiography, poetry, computus, natural science, and theology. The chapters in this volume show how Bede’s exegesis was integrally connected with his work in all those genres and with the monumental artistic productions of his monastery such as the illuminated bible manuscript known as the Codex Amiatinus. The five parts of the book deal with Bede as teacher and biblical scholar, his interpretations of the tabernacle and the temple, his commentary on the Song of Songs, his attitudes toward philosophy and heresy, and his mystical theology.This book will be of interest to students of Christian theology, mysticism, the development of biblical interpretation, and the history of early medieval England.

About the Author

Arthur Holder is Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, where he served as Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs from 2002 until 2016. He has published translations of Bede’s biblical exegesis, including Bede: On the Tabernacle (1994), Bede: A Biblical Miscellany (with W. Trent Foley, 1999), and The Venerable Bede: On the Song of Songs and Selected Writings (2011). He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.