Exegesis And History Of Reception

"Why should we take into account the history of reception in biblical methods? It is because as exegetes we have no choice. Recognizing our dependence on interpretations of the past is not a new method, but it is the very way we understand texts. Régis Burnet shows how this allows us to put our current interpretations into perspective, but also to dialogue with those of the past." --

Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches offers a varied range of topics, concerns and approaches to reception history across the fields of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and late-antique Christianity.

In recent decades, reception history has become an increasingly important and controversial topic of discussion in biblical studies. Rather than attempting to recover the original meaning of biblical texts, reception history focuses on exploring the history of interpretation. In doing so it locates the dominant historical-critical scholarly paradigm within the history of interpretation, rather than over and above it. At the same time, the breadth of material and hermeneutical issues that reception history engages with questions any narrow understanding of the history of the Bible and its effects on faith communities. The challenge that reception history faces is to explore tradition without either reducing its meaning to what faith communities think is important, or merely offering anthologies of interesting historical interpretations. This major new handbook addresses these matters by presenting reception history as an enterprise (not a method) that questions and understands tradition afresh. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible consciously allows for the interplay of the traditional and the new through a two-part structure. Part I comprises a set of essays surveying the outline, form, and content of twelve key biblical books that have been influential in the history of interpretation. Part II offers a series of in-depth case studies of the interpretation of particular key biblical passages or books with due regard for the specificity of their social, cultural or aesthetic context. These case studies span two millennia of interpretation by readers with widely differing perspectives. Some are at the level of a group response (from Gnostic readings of Genesis, to Post-Holocaust Jewish interpretations of Job); others examine individual approaches to texts (such as Augustine and Pelagius on Romans, or Gandhi on the Sermon on the Mount). Several chapters examine historical moments, such as the 1860 debate over Genesis and evolution, while others look to wider themes such as non-violence or millenarianism. Further chapters study in detail the works of popular figures who have used the Bible to provide inspiration for their creativity, from Dante and Handel, to Bob Dylan and Dan Brown.

This study seeks to make a contribution to current debates about the nature of Wirkungsgeschichte or reception history and its place in contemporary Biblical Studies. The author addresses three crucial questions: the relationship between reception history and historical-critical exegesis; the form of reception history itself, with a focus on the issue of which acts of reception are selected and valorized; and the role of tradition, pre-judgements and theology in relation to reception history. Disagreements about these matters contribute to what many characterise as the fragmentation of the discipline of biblical studies. The study champions the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer as a theoretical resource for understanding biblical interpretation, and a way of holding together with integrity the varied activities undertaken within the discipline. Each aspect of the argument is illustrated, tested and further explored with reference to the post-history of exhortations in the New Testament to 'be subject'. These have been widely cited and applied for 2,000 years – in literature, law and politics as well as in theological traditions. In this way the study makes a contribution not just to the theory but also the practice of reception history.

Traditional methods employed in biblical interpretation involve a two-way dialogue between the text and the reader. Reception theory expands this into a three-way dialogue, with the third partner being the history of the text's interpretation and application. Most contemporary biblical interpreters have ignored this third partner, although recently the need to include the history of interpretation has gained some attention. This book explores the hermeneutical resources that reception theory provides for engaging the history of biblical interpretation as a third dialogue partner in biblical hermeneutics. The first third of this work explores the philosophical background and hermeneutical framework that Hans-Georg Gadamer provides for reception theory. The center of this study examines how this hermeneutical approach is fleshed out by Hans Robert Jauss. Jauss not only builds upon Gadamer's work, but his literary hermeneutic provides a model applicable to the biblical text and its tradition of interpretation. The focus for the final third of the book shifts toward three studies that seek to demonstrate the applicability of various aspects of reception theory to biblical interpretation.

Based on the examples of Jeremiah 1 and 10, this volume contains contributions of the textual reception and of the exegesis of both chapters. Although textual history and reception history are to be distinguished from each other, they are interconnected, as the textual history of any biblical book is also part of its reception history. Jeremiah 1 and 10 are ideal "test cases" because their textual traditions (MT-Jer and LXX-Jer and its Hebrew Vorlage respectively) differ most significantly in terms of rhetoric, structure and content. The volume demonstrates how the Jeremiah's reception history helps to better understand the textual history of both chapters.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chester/University of Liverpool, 2007.