Distinguished biblical scholar Donald Senior has written a comprehensive, analytical and critical, and deeply appreciative biography of one of greatest biblical scholars of the 20th century that locates him within the sweep and drama of the Catholic biblical renewal, especially in the United States. Exploring the life of Raymond Brown is also to be plunged into one of the most remarkable periods in the history of the Catholic Church. Brown’s exceptional personal gifts and his formative experiences explain a lot about his future professional life and the impact it had on the Catholic Church in the United States. At the same time, tracking the evolution of his publications and his reflections on his methodology illumines the struggle within Roman Catholicism to absorb historical critical methods of studying the Bible, while attempting at the same time to maintain Catholic tradition and doctrine. Brown stood at the very epicenter of that struggle, a struggle whose reverberations are still part of the atmosphere of Catholicism today. †

Donald Senior, CP, is president emeritus of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, IL, and a leading scholar of the New Testament. His Paulist Press books include Jesus: A Gospel Portrait and the coauthored Invitation to the Gospels.