DNK: Documentatieblad voor de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800 - Volume 48, Issue 103, 2025

Berend Gemser (1890-1962) was a Semitist and Old Testament scholar of Dutch origin. In 1926 he started an academic career at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is considered the founder of Old Testament scholarship and the study of the languages of the Ancient Near East in South Africa. He trained generations of students in biblical studies according to the Ethical Orthodox tradition. For three decades he integrated in South African science and church life. In the meantime, he continued to maintain his network in the Netherlands. Universities here were regularly eager for his expertise. Four times he turned down an appointment. This article analyses his Dutch academic opportunities and shows why he stayed in South Africa. It was only after his retirement in Pretoria that he came to the Netherlands for ‘a late short work’, as he put it.

This article describes the evolution of Dutch roman catholic catechetics, especially for primary and secondary education, in the years 1945–1985. Following the traditional catechism in questions and answers, a ‘catechetics on the history of salvation’ was developed around 1950, quickly thereafter followed by the ‘experiential catechetics’. Halfway through the seventies, this catechetical method underwent some influence from Latin-American liberation theology. From the eighties onward, the population of Catholic schools became more pluriform and subsequently more multicultural. To approach the pupils, the experiential catechetics was increasingly combined with the school subject ‘sociology’ and from 1985 onward (since that year obliged) with the subject ‘spiritual currents’. At first, experiential catechetics had the full consent of the bishops, but under the pressure of Rome and conservative bishops appointed in 1970 and 1972, the catechetics placed more emphasis on the transmission of faith. This emphasis, however, hardly resulted in a fundamental influence on the evolution of catechetics in an orthodox direction.