Exploring Metaphors for the Reception History of the Lord’s Prayer

Abstract In his work Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Brennan Breed argues that texts are nomads which – existing without original form and without original context – have no homeland to claim as their own. Their entire history has been marked by unpredictable movement and variation. He therefore proposes that the study of reception history should primarily be an exploration of the potentiality of textual meanings. The suggestion that meaning progresses without relationship to hermeneutical antecedents, however, runs contrary to Gadamer’s assertion that the contemporary effect (Wirkung) of a text always exists in unity with its historical effects. Following Gadamer, the reception historian may still explore hermeneutical potentiality – but does so with a sense of historical consciousness. In this light, the nature of a biblical text may be more suitably characterized by the metaphor of an emigrant rather than that of a nomad. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of these divergent metaphors in our attempt to define both the nature of biblical texts and the task of the reception historian. Our test case will be the early interpretation history of the Lord’s Prayer. Given that the original form and context of this prayer are irretrievable, Breed’s theory is applicable in many respects. Yet it will also be seen that in the early reception history of the Lord’s Prayer there are also patterns of synchronic continuity. Amidst diverse agendas of theology and praxis, we find that interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer were consistently rooted in an inherited conceptualization of Jesus Christ – what we will call a canonical remembrance of his life and proclamation.