Spanish Scholarship (1970s)

Overview

In addition to the subjects prevalent in the 1960s, i.e., Qumran (on which Antonio González Lamadrid, José O'Callaghan Martínez and Manuel Jiménez F. Bonhomme wrote in 1971, 1974 and 1976, respectively) and the Targum (Alejandro Díez Macho continued publishing his edition of Targum Neophyti 1 between 1970 and 1979 and wrote an introduction to Targumic literature in 1972, whereas Domingo Muñoz León wrote in 1974 and 1977 two complementary studies on the Targumim to the Pentateuch), two new topics diversely related to the history of the Second Temple period attracted the attention of Spanish scholarship and editorship in the 1970s, namely the Greek Bible (to which Natalio Fernández Marcos devoted two important studies in 1972, with Ángel Sáenz-Badillos Pérez, and 1979) and apocalyptic literature (on which a collection of essays by Mathias Delcor was published in 1977). These two subjects were to grow in importance over the next decades with new studies by Fernández Marcos and María Victoria Spottorno Díaz-Caro amidst other scholars in the 1980s and the 2000s, and the publication of an extensive collection of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Spanish version edited by Alejandro Díez Macho and Antonio Piñero Sáenz between 1984 and 2009, respectively.

A separate comment must be made regarding O'Callaghan's 1974 essay on the Greek papyri from Qumran Cave 7, where he tentatively identified several extant fragments with various verses of the Gospels (especially 7Q5 with Mark 6:52-53). O'Callaghan had advanced this groundbreaking hypothesis in an article published in 1972 ("¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrán",Biblica 53 [1972] 91-100; translated by L. W. Holladay as "New Testament Papyri in Qumran Cave 7?," Journal of Biblical Literature 91/2 [1972] 1-14), yet his insights on this subject have been widely disputed by most scholars on both philological and statistic grounds (see, e.g., Die älteste Evangelien-handschrift?: Der Fund des Markus- Fragments von Qumran un die Anfange der schriftlichen Uberlieferung des Neuen Testaments (1986 Thiede), book; Christen und Christliches in Qumran? (1992 Mayer), edited volume). Nonetheless, O'Callaghan largely contributed with his insights to the comparative study of the literature from Qumran and the New Testament both in the Spanish-speaking world and beyond.

To end with mention must be made of Enric Cortès’ 1976 study on the "departing discourses" in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and their narrative framework, Xabier Pikaza's 1976 essay on the historical Jesus, Santos Sabugal's 1976 studies on Paul's conversion in Galatians, and Marcelino Legido López's 1978 volume on Pauline ecclesiology.

As for the Spanish edition of foreign works, most of the volumes translated into Spanish in the 1970s dealt with the historical Jesus, the New Testament (especially Paul and the Fourth Gospel) and the rise of Christianity, although some, albeit scarcely, attention was also payed by Spanish editors to Biblical archaeology and the history and literature of the Second Temple period. Thus George Ernest Wright’s Biblical Archaeology was translated in 1975, André Paul's Intertestament in 1978, and Frederick Fyvie Bruce's Israel and the Nations: From the Exodus to the Fall of the Second Temple in 1979, whereas several works by Josef Blank, Günter Bornkamm, Raymond E. Brown, Rudolf Karl Bultmann, Oscar Cullmann, Charles Harol Dodd, Xavier Léon-Dufour, Georg Eichholz, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, David Flusser, Martin Hengel, Joachim Jeremias, Ernst Käsemann, Sigmund Mowinckel, Heinrich Schlier, Gerd Theissen, Étienne Trocmé, and Geza Vermes were also published within this period. The political situation in Spain (1975 marked the end of General Franco's dictatorial regime) may perhaps explain the wide success of such books as Oscar Cullmann's Jesus und die Revolutionären seiner Zeit and Martin Hengel's Gewalt und Gewaltlosigkeit.

23 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Historical Jesus, New Testament, and Christian Origins
2 ■■ Second Temple History and Literature

27 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Historical Jesus, New Testament, and Christian Origins
8 ■■■■■■■■ Targumic Literature
4 ■■■■ Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran
2 ■■ Greek Bible
2 ■■ Second Temple History and Literature
1 ■ Apocalyptic Literature