Engaging with Wirkungsgeschichte: Romans 13:1-7 as a Case Study
Abstract
An interesting and stimulating development in biblical studies is a method called Wirkungsgeschichte1 – a German compound term difficult to pronounce, difficult to spell and nearly impossible to translate. This term was originally coined by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his philosophical work Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method) published in 1960.2 This new discipline which has won gradual recognition aims at reading a text while being conscious of the different ways in which it has been interpreted in the course of time. It is a technique of analyzing the history of a text’s influences and effects. It examines the way the Bible had been interpreted in different historical eras under the influence of the concerns readers have brought to the text. In the English world, Wirkungsgeschichte has been rendered by at least three names: “Reception History”,
“history of influence” or “history of effects.” All these names attempt to describe the sum total of varied interpretations and appropriations of a text which have been made through history. The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993) translates Wirkungsgeschichte into English as “history of the influence of the text” and considers it as one of the approaches based on tradition, alongside Canonical approach and recourse to Jewish traditions of interpretation.
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
Consent to Publish and Transfer of Copyright
By publishing in Prajñā Vihāra, the author agrees to transfer and assign to Assumption University of Thailand as the Publisher of the Journal, the copyright to the Article in any form, including any and all rights, interests and claims related to it.
The author does retain the following rights:
- The right to make further copies of the published article for their use in classroom teaching.
- The right to reuse all or part of the published article in a compilation of his or her own works or in textbooks of which they are the author or coauthor.
- The right to make copies of the published article for internal distribution within their academic institution.
- All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
- The Article is his or her original work, and has not been published previously and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
- It does not contain any matter that is obscene, libelous, or contrary to law.
- They have obtained the necessary license or written authority and paid any and all related fees for the use and reproduction of text, tables, illustrations and other copyrighted work from the owners of the intellectual property rights, and can furnish the Publisher copies of the license/written authority and proof of payment of related fees upon the signing of this Agreement.
- They have the consent of the Co-Authors of the article upon the signing of this Agreement.
- In the event that they intend to republish, reprint or translate all or part of the Article in other publications, they will secure the prior written permission from the journal Editor.
Prajñā Vihāra adopts the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) license