Matthews (left) and Harrington (holding a copy of their publication).
Abstract artists By William Bole
Seventy-eight years on the New Testament beat
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n the fall of 1962, nearly a decade before he was ordained as a Jesuit priest, Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, professor of New Testament at the School of Theology and Ministry (STM), made his first contribution to New Testament Abstracts (NTA). It was the summary of an article published in Latin in the Italian theological journal Antonianum, and it dealt with Acts 15, which records the controversy over whether followers of Jesus needed to be circumcised and adhere to other Jewish laws. Published three times a year at book length, NTA is described by many scholars as the most widely consulted New Testament journal in the world, annually providing close to 3,000 concise summaries of academic articles and books bearing on the subject. Today, nearly all of the abstracts are by Harrington, who assumed the editorship in 1972, and his co-editor, Christopher R. Matthews, a research professor at STM who joined him in
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1986 while in the midst of earning a Harvard doctorate in New Testament and Christian origins. Their connecting offices on the second floor of STM’s building, on the Brighton Campus, can resemble the sports desk at a metropolitan daily newspaper, the two men typing furiously at keyboards with piles of copy on their desks, occasionally getting up from their chairs to talk over a point. On a late-summer morning, Harrington and Matthews had each cranked out roughly half a dozen abstracts of between 100 and 250 words—including one about the “theology of martyrdom” in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Harrington) and one about Greek translations of the Psalms (Matthews)—prior to a 10:30 interview for this article. There are surprisingly few bookcases or stacks of journals in the office suite. The academic publishings delivered from all over the world are ransacked by the two editors upon arrival. After their contents are culled, the publications do not linger
in the office but instead are quickly sent over to the STM Library. Consequently, the library has what Harrington describes as easily “one of the best New Testament collections in the world,” with some 170 active journal titles. Part of Harrington’s daily routine has been to walk a few minutes over to the library and pick up any periodicals that are mailed there (most of the 500 journals surveyed go directly to the NTA). But Harrington, who is struggling with a serious illness, tilted his head toward Matthews in a joint interview and smiled— “He does most of the walking now.” Harrington and Matthews edit each other’s work, and both have their specialties. As Harrington explained, he tends to reach for the articles about biblical interpretation, biblical theology, and the Jewish setting of the New Testament; he also has a particular interest in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthews gravitates toward articles that center on the exegesis of particular texts, especially the letters of Paul and Luke’s Acts of the Apostles; the development of early Christianity; and the Gnostic Gospels (which are considered apocryphal texts). Harrington, when asked if he ever considers panning a piece, says, “No. Absolutely not.” Some authors, he says, “hang themselves” with their unsound theses. Harrington and Matthews keep writing until they have at least 600 article abstracts (sometimes 750) and about 300 book notices. They sort the summaries into categories such as “biblical theology” and “NT World” (which includes studies of ancient Jewish, Roman, and Greek communities around New Testament times) and email the entries to “our friends in Denver,” as Harrington calls the husband and wife team of Maurya Horgan and Paul Kobelski. The couple, both equipped with doctorates in biblical studies, own HK Scriptorium, a small design, editing, and typesetting company that seems to have cornered the U.S. market in producing biblical journals. From Denver, final proofs are emailed to a printing house in Michigan, which churns out copies for the journal’s 1,400 subscribers, mostly libraries and Scripture scholars, in more than 70 countries. In addition, 300 institutions—ranging from
photograph: Caitlin Cunningham