Genre as Reception: A Multidimensional Network Approach

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.