Here’s another entry for my research journal re: my dissertation.

Broadly, I’m looking at the reception of the “chair of Moses” (ἡ Μωϋσέως καθέδρα) of Matt 23.2. Right now I’m slowly working through Origen’s commentary on Matthew (mid-third-century). Having already looked at some later figures, I already see that Origen is the one who sets the interpretive agenda for the next millennium-and-a-half. But that’s not really a surprise.

I am simultaneously dipping my toes into the more “theoretical” side of biblical reception. Heidegger, Gadamer, Jauss. These figures are critiquing various forms of ontology, epistemology, historiography, literary theory, etc. Emerging from the roiling ocean of technical terms, I am beginning to see how we humans usually engage with texts and traditions. I am trusting that it will prove useful to me—eventually.

Yet I cannot help but return to a singular point: for biblical studies, I need more than a general theory of reception. I need more than an understanding of how humans engage any text and any tradition. All of that is surely helpful, but it is insufficient insofar as the Gospel according to Matthew is a unique text and insofar as the work of the Spirit in the church alters human engagement with biblical texts and the traditions that flow (or don’t flow) from them.

I am seeking to integrate things from reception theory into a theological approach to reading Scripture. I haven’t worked everything out yet, but I have the sense that without a distinctly Christian theological approach, my dissertation will be so much straw for the fire.