Joseph Fitzmyer

Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J.
Orders
Ordination August 15, 1951
Personal details
Birth name Joseph Augustine Fitzmyer
Born November 4, 1920
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Died December 24, 2016(2016-12-24) (aged 96)
Merion Station, Pennsylvania, United States
Nationality American
Denomination Roman Catholic
Occupation Jesuit priest, Biblical scholar, theologian
Alma mater Loyola University Chicago
Catholic University of Leuven
Johns Hopkins University
Pontifical Biblical Institute

Joseph Augustine Fitzmyer, S.J. (November 4, 1920 – December 24, 2016), was an American Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus and professor emeritus at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.. He specialized in biblical studies, particularly the New Testament, though he also made contributions to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Jewish literature.[1]

Life

Fitzmyer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1920. On July 30, 1938, he was admitted to the novitiate of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. After completing this stage of his formation in the summer of 1940, he was sent to study at Loyola University of Chicago, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree, then in 1945 a Master of Arts degree in Greek. He then studied theology in the Facultés Saint-Albert (Eegenhoven-Louvain), Belgium, and was ordained a Catholic priest on August 15, 1951. He was granted a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) by the Catholic University of Leuven in 1952, a doctorate in Semitics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1956, and a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture (S.S.L.) from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 1957.

From 19581969, Fitzmyer taught New Testament and biblical languages at Woodstock College. Between 1969 and 1971 he taught Aramaic and Hebrew at the University of Chicago, then New Testament and biblical languages at Fordham University (19711974), at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts (19741976), and finally in the Department of Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America (19761986) as Professor of New Testament until his retirement in 1986. His publications cover Scripture, theology, Christology, catechesis, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was a co-editor of the New Jerome Biblical Commentary and also served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (19691970), of the Society of Biblical Literature (1979), and of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (19921993). Fitzmyer was Speaker's Lecturer at the University of Oxford in 19741975, was the 1984 recipient of the Burkitt Medal of the British Academy, and served on the Pontifical Biblical Commission from 19841995.[2][3]

Fitzmyer was also part of the Jesuit community at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. He died on December 24, 2016.[4]

Scholarship

Fitzmyer has published a large collection of works mostly of biblical commentary, including within the Jerome Biblical Commentary,[5] the New Jerome Biblical Commentary,[6] and the Anchor Bible Commentary.[7] His contribution to the Anchor Bible Commentary includes work on The Gospel of Luke (in two volumes), Acts of the Apostles, 1 Corinthians, Romans and Philemon. Fitzmyer has been a large contributor to the scholarship of the New Testament and to the scripture scholar's understanding of the writings of St. Paul.

Fitzmyer has published three commentaries on Romans: The Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1989), and the Anchor Bible Commentary (1993). This last work runs over 800 pages, and from it came a very practical and spiritually accessible work, Spiritual Exercises Based on Paul's Epistle to the Romans.[8] This is a creative endeavor to link biblical commentary and exegeses with modern spirituality. In it Fitzmyer lays out his interpretation of Romans in a more condensed form. Largely through historical and rhetorical criticism, in spite of Paul's Jewish background and Greco-Roman setting, Fitzmyer finds a coherency in Paul's message. While some scholars argue that Paul's theology is largely dependent on context, such as the crisis in the Corinthian community, Fitzmyer argues for a vital application of Romans to our modern context.

Fitzmyer saw the essence of Paul's gospel as summed up in Romans 3:21,24: "But now...all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption which comes in Christ Jesus." Though this clearly has shortcomings and misses the many nuances of what Paul has to say in Romans, one can see it as a sort of epicenter to Paul's writings. God's grace is given to all gratuitously, if one accepts it through faith in Christ Jesus. Furthermore, Paul uses the phrase "but now" in an eschatological fashion. Paul does not see the time of this gratuitous grace to be a future event, but already present in the Christ-event.

Select publications

Books

Articles & Chapters

Festschriften

References

  1. "The Dead Sea Scrolls". Alba House.
  2. Schiffman, Lawrence. "Joseph Fitzmyer: An Appreciation".
  3. Donahue, John (2013). "Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.: Scholar and Teacher of the Word of God". US Catholic Historian. 31 (4): 63–83.
  4. Remembering Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J.
  5. Brown, Raymond, S.S.; Fitzmyer, Joseph, S.J.; Murphy, Roland, O.Carm. (1969). The Jerome Biblical Commentary. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.
  6. Brown, Raymond, S.S.; Fitzmyer, Joseph, S.J.; Murphy, Roland, O.Carm (1989). The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Pearson.
  7. Fitzmyer, Joseph (1993). Romans: The Anchor Bible Commentary. Connecticut: Yale University Press.
  8. Fitzmyer, Joseph (1995). Spiritual Exercises Based on Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Maryland: Paulist Press.
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