Claude (Marie-Emile in religion) Boismard, o.p. (CB)

• Father Marie-Emile

Born on December 14, 1916 in Seiches-sur-le-Loir in Anjou, Claude Boismard entered the Dominican province of Lyon in 1935, after a bachelor's degree in philosophy, where he received the name Marie-Émile. After military service in the transmissions, immediately followed by the war, he was able to return to the studentate of Saint-Alban-Leysse in 1940, and was ordained a priest in April 1943. He continued his studies at the Saulchoir d'Etiolles and obtained the readership in theology with a thesis on the doxa in Paul's epistles. His superiors decided to have him continue his studies at the École Biblique, which he managed to join in January 1946, after the resumption of regular links.

It is the Master General of the Order who, at Fr. Benoit's request, decides on his definitive assignment to Jerusalem. He joined the faculty in January 1948, after passing the Bible Commission exams. He then specialized in Johannine literature; that is why, in 1948, he was entrusted with the Apocalypse for the edition of the first Jerusalem Bible. He did an excellent translation and a very innovative commentary.

In 1950, the Master of the Order appointed him Professor of the New Testament at the University of Fribourg. Benoit persuaded Fr. Spicq to take his place. Boismard was therefore able to return to Jerusalem and embark on new research on the fourth gospel and Catholic epistles.

He is also involved in a commented synopsis project promoted by Fr. Benoit. He composed about 70% of this synopsis, then the entire literary commentary. He was helped in this task by Fr. Arnaud Lamouille. The commentary appeared in 1972. The literary theories developed there were not unanimously accepted.

With Lamouille, Boismard then attacked the Acts of the Apostles and very quickly realized that the boundary between textual criticism and literary criticism was unstable (the book was indeed known in two versions, the Western text and the Alexandrian text). The result of the work of textual criticism appeared in 1985 in the form of the book Le texte occidental des Actes des Apôtres. Reconstruction and rehabilitation. He then undertook a literary examination of it, presented in the book Les Actes des deux Apôtres, published in 1990. In 1991, Fr. Lamouille, a victim of very serious eye problems, had to leave Jerusalem. Father Boismard lost with him his dearest collaborator.

Boismard then completed two studies begun with Lamouille: Le Diatessaron: from Tatien to Justin (1992) and the first volume of Un évangile préjohannique; Jean 1, 1-2, 12 (1993). He defends one of his dear ideas: the canonical version of the gospels would be longer than their original version. He taught at the School until 2001.

In 1984, he was made an officer of the National Order of Merit and, in 1988, Doctor Honoris causa of the University of Louvain. He died of cancer on April 23, 2004. In his last years, he had published a History of My Life (2002).

ISAAR (CPF), 2nd Edition, 2004.

Entry prepared on November 2018

MURPHY O’CONNOR, Jerry, « In Memoriam : P. Marie-Emile Boismard », in Nouvelles de Jérusalem, n° 80, janvier 2005

Author(s) : Marie-Alpais Torcheboeuf.