Rome March 12-14 2006   Fr. Raymond Collins met with other New Testament Scholars at the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity

In Augsburg, Germany, on October 31, 1999, a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, was signed by Edward Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity, and Bishop Christian Krause, President of the Lutheran World Foundation.  This historic document, to which the Methodists later agreed, was accompanied by an Official Common Statement in which the two churches pledged their commitment "to continued and deepened study of the biblical foundations of the doctrine of justification."  To get this study underway a planning meeting was held at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Rome, March 12-14, 2006.  Members of the group were two German exegetes1, Karl-Wilhem Niebuhr (Lutheran) and Thomas Soeding (Catholic), two American exegetes Karl P. Donfried (Lutheran) and Raymond F. Collins (Catholic), Theodor Dieter (representing the World Lutheran Foundation), and Msgr. Matthias Turk (representing the Pontifical Council).

 The photos below were taken by Theodor Dieter (representing the World Lutheran Foundation) who doesn't appear in any of them.

¹ Exegete is the technical name for a person who applies the science of scholarly biblical interpretation drawing out the meaning of the Scriptures explaining or interpreting the text. Bible scholars using information supplied by the historical-critical method, are in a better position to pursue the task of correctly interpreting the written Word of God.