The exegetical task is far too large to be successfully pursued by individual scholars working alone. It calls for a division of labor, especially in "research," which demands specialists in different fields. Interdisciplinary collaboration will help overcome any limitations that specialization may tend to produce.
It is very important for the good of the entire church, as well as for its influence in the modern world, that a sufficient number of well-prepared persons be committed to research in the various fields of exegetical study. In their concern for the more immediate needs of the ministry, bishops and religious superiors are often tempted not to take sufficiently seriously the responsibility incumbent upon them to make provision for this fundamental need.
But a lack in this area exposes the church to serious harm, for pastors and the faithful then run the risk of being at the mercy of an exegetical scholarship which is alien to the church and lacks relationship to the life of faith.
In stating that "the study of sacred Scripture" should be "as it were the soul of theology" (Dei Verbum, 24), the Second Vatican Council has indicated the crucial importance of exegetical research. By the same token, the council has also implicitly reminded Catholic exegetes that their research has an essential relationship to theology, their awareness of which must also be evident.
