Reception Exegesis of Lamentations: A Review Article

Abstract

Joyce and Lipton’s Wiley-Blackwell’s Bible Commentary on Lamentations develops a form of ‘reception exegesis’ which analyses each unit of the biblical text by reference to a ‘receiving text’ chosen from a wide range of genres: literature, drama, music, film, commentary, midrash, psychology, theology. The review considers the (considerable) success of such a strategy and compares and contrasts it with other more historical considerations of the reception of biblical texts. Where reception exegesis uses the receiving text to throw (sometimes critical) light directly onto the sending text itself, reception history, by tracing out the history of the reception of the biblical text at different times and in different contexts, rather shows the potential of the biblical text for generating new meanings.