Augustin Bea e la disputa sulla storicita dei Vangeli

What role did Cardinal Augustin Bea, former rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, play when, on the eve of Vatican II, the traditionalist exegesis promoted by the Pontifical Lateran University launched its attack on Jesuit scholars, precisely putting the preparation of the Council at stake? Based on documentation from private archives, this article sheds light on Bea’s position in this affair, as well as his public and private steps in defence of the historical-critical method. In doing so, it analyses Bea’s contribution to a particular aspect of that issue, that is the dispute over the historicity of the Gospels, from the early years of his career as a young lecturer at the Biblical Institute to his role in the promulgation of the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s instruction of 21 April 1964 on this subject, which was later adopted by Dei Verbum 19.