Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 166:663 (Jul 2009)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Jefferson P. Webster

BibSac 166:663 (Jul 2009) p. 366

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of

Dallas Theological Seminary

Jefferson P. Webster

Editor

“From Erasmus to Calvin: Exploring the Roots of Reformed Hermeneutics,” James Brashler, Interpretation 63 (April 2009): 154-66.

In view of the five-hundreth anniversary of John Calvin’s birth (in 1509), it is fitting that numerous publications will appear that put the great Reformer’s labors in context and perspective. One such offering is Brashler’s excellent survey of Calvin’s hermeneutical development, an account that corrects some of the common misconceptions about the Reformer’s intellectual inheritance. Calvin was heavily influenced by the works of Zwingli, Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer. But he also “inherited a rich and varied stream of academic and ecclesiastical traditions from less well-known first-generation reformers” (p. 154). Less emphasized in more popular accounts, as well, are the “humanistic methods of interpreting and teaching” classical texts that had been developed by Erasmus of Rotterdam and that “decisively shaped Calvin’s biblical hermeneutic” (p. 155).

Brashler recounts how Calvin’s early trajectory as a literary scholar was diverted by what Calvin himself described as the “secret leading” of God’s providence, thus turning him from a life of placid study to “the dangerous and arduous” one of a Reformer (p. 156). Because of Calvin’s reticence to discuss his background, scholars have tried to discern his intellectual influences through various clues, though it is clear that there were two streams of theological influence at the Collège du Montaigu where he studied: a “late medieval theology with scholastic roots,” going back to William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, and a “new Augustinian school of thought,” marked by an emphasis on original sin and a strong conviction about the “priority of God in justification” (p. 157). Thus, Brashler notes, Calvin’s worldview was formed from a young age by a “complex mixture of both humanistic and scholastic tradition” (p. 158).

Scholars have paid less attention, however, to a “lively reformist evangelical tradition of humanists” in France who had a profound influence on Calvin, especially Jacques Lefevre and Gerard Roussel. Shortly after meeting Lefevre, Calvin “renounced his ecclesiastical benefices,” though a direct causal link between these two events can only be surmised (p. 158). Nonetheless these like-minded humanists contributed to a “simmering climate of reform that ultimately came to a boil,” leading Calvin, Farel, and others to “oppose the church hierarchy as well as the authority

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