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Genre as Reception: A Multidimensional Network Approach

  • Will Kynes EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: May 31, 2023
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Abstract

A reception-oriented approach to genre will challenge the “objective” genre categories applied to the Bible by analyzing their culturally contingent place in the history of interpretation. It then gathers alternative genre groupings for the biblical texts from that history in order to comprehend the features of the texts more fully through the multiple ways readers have responded to their various capacities. This article incorporates conceptual blending and network theory with a growing reception-consciousness in biblical studies to develop a new three-dimensional version of the common comparison of genres to constellations. This new version communicates the value of a reception-oriented approach for appreciating the complexity of texts, biblical and otherwise, along with their readers’ cultural perspectives. The new multidimensional approach to genre that results is applied to the “Wisdom Literature” genre category as an example.


Corresponding author: Will Kynes, Department of Biblical and Religious Studies, Samford University, 800 Lakeshore Dr., Birmingham, AL 35229, USA, E-mail:
I’m grateful for the insightful feedback I received from participants in the SBL Use, Influence, and Impact of the Bible unit, when I gave an early version of this paper in 2018, and from those who attended an event sponsored by the Department of English and the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion at the University of Virginia, at which I presented it in a more developed form in 2019. The anonymous reviewers for this journal also provided thorough and thoughtful constructive criticism, which pushed me to improve my argument and update it further in light of recent developments in this fast-moving area of research.

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Published Online: 2023-05-31
Published in Print: 2023-05-25

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