From Scientific Exegesis to Novel Writing: The Bible Novels by Vincent Zapletal OP

Fr Vincent Zapletal OP (1867-1938), a Czech Old Testament scholar, is one of the most important pioneers of the historic-critical method in catholic exegesis. As with many others, even he had to search for another field of interest during the era of modernist crisis. During the 1920s, Fr Zapletal published six biblical novels, written in German, in which he gave an account of the lives of the great figures of the Old Testament: Moses, David, Joseph. The paper studies the motivation for writing these novels, their literary qualities, the censorship of the novels and the reception of the novels after they were published.

Keywords: Modernism crisis; Biblical novels; Exegesis; Dominicans; Old Testament