Revisiting Biblical Studies in Light of Reception Theory: Christian and Jewish Arabic Sources on Psalms 110 and 137

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to revisit the interface between biblical studies, reception exegesis, and reception theory. In the first part of the paper, we discuss what we believe to be the most important lessons learned from recent scholarship on the relationship between these fields and highlight what we think is still an underestimated conclusion: if we assume that “meaning” is contextual rather than essential, the full(er) capacity of a biblical text is not discoverable until we have examined how it has appeared in various contexts. Related to this is the question of why and how texts survive and even thrive in new contexts and in what way later authors utilize the “capacity” of the biblical texts, because even if “meaning” is ultimately brought to texts by their readers, texts are in some senses agents as well. To exemplify these discussions and the connection between reception exegesis and biblical criticism, two short examples from the reception of Psalms 110 and 137 in medieval Christian Arabic and Judeo-Arabic sources are presented. In the first example, we recapitulate findings on how inner-biblical reception generates a complex web of potential interpretations but also how the ambivalence created in the process may be the greatest asset of that text. It is also an example of where interpretation may teach us about the life and thought of ancient and medieval communities and how they interacted with one another over the meaning of the biblical text. In contrast, the second example is more centered on the “capacity” of the text and in what sense communities exploit that potential for their larger purposes.

1. Introduction

Since the mid-20th century, advances in literary studies and hermeneutics have provided new valuable methods and perspectives that increasingly have been incorporated into, and enriched, the discipline of biblical studies.1 As the prospects of uncovering the original meaning of any text began to fade, the dominant historical- and text-critical approach made space for constructivist and post-modern perspectives, which in turn opened up for new disciplinary partnerships, creativity, and perhaps most importantly for the present study, for new texts and the cultures represented through them to be participants in the dialog over what biblical texts can mean.

This development has been evident in, for example, a shift in emphasis from the study of the author’s (or editor’s) supposed intentions to unraveling the formal and structural aspects of the biblical text and the role of readers and listeners in constructing meanings.2 Suspicion against historical communities as misreaders and corrupters of the meaning of the biblical texts has to large extents been exchanged for curiosity over their point of view. Similarly, scribal intervention and the existence of versions (in the sense of adaptations) are no longer necessarily viewed primarily as deviations from original texts, but as constituting new creations, carrying different meanings and agendas. Through this paradigm shift, new energy has been invested in uncovering and conceptualizing the richness of the biblical heritage rather than lamenting the loss of a conceived original text.

The purpose of the present paper is to revisit some of the discussions that connect classical biblical critical studies with reception exegesis and reception theory with the aim of highlighting what we think is still an underestimated conclusion: if we assume that “meaning” is contextual rather than essential, the fuller capacity of a biblical text is not discoverable until we have examined how it has appeared in various contexts. To elaborate on what such conclusion may mean when applied to a specific corpus, recent scholarship on the reception of Psalms 110 and 137 in Christian Arabic and Judeo-Arabic sources is provided at the end.

2. Biblical Criticism, Reception, and Hermeneutics

Like other major sanctified and/or canonical texts in world literature, such as the Homeric works, the New Testament, the Qurʾān, the Sayings of Buddha, and the plays of Shakespeare, the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has a complicated textual history. The understanding of this corpus has long since become removed from authorial intentions and is instead deeply layered by the reflections of generations of readers. Thus, not only is the meaning of the text continuously subject to revision and reinterpretation, but the very notion of “the text” has come under scrutiny as the idea of a singular, authoritative Ur-text has given way to the recognition that all we have access to is a plurality of textual forms and versions. Though we may question whether original versions of biblical texts can be fully uncovered in the nineteenth-century sense of textual reconstruction, there is, of course, value in the endeavors of medieval and modern biblical criticism to interpret the meaning/s of biblical writings in accordance with the historical and social contexts of their time of composition and/or editing. Yet, approaching biblical texts as forms of discourse underlines, nowadays, the idea that texts and their meaning cannot be fully uncovered and that their readers in any event engage in an unending conversation that includes other individuals and communities in both ancient times and in their own days. Some scholars, such as Brennan Breed, go further, suggesting that biblical texts should be approached in terms of “continuous process [rather] than fixed product” (Breed 2012, p. 299). From this perspective, there is no moral (right versus wrong) or hierarchical (more versus less important) distinction between an original biblical composition and its so-called later version, adaptation or even wider reception: they all participate on equal terms in the broader biblical discourse.

We will come back to this argument below, but it is worthwhile to state already here that in light of these wider developments in biblical studies, it is in our view reasonable that education in the field should properly be divided into three equal areas: traditional biblical criticism (including source criticism, comparative Semitic and ancient Near Eastern study), reception studies (including reception history and reception exegesis),3 and theoretical approaches to readers and texts (including discourse and readership theories). Combining these areas of study enables us to gauge transformations in the meanings of biblical texts, and how texts are made relevant beyond their original historical context. Naturally, these three areas overlap and that in itself is an argument as to why they need to be equally considered. The reason we distinguish theoretical approaches from biblical criticism and reception history and exegesis is to emphasize the importance of theory, alongside the textual corpus and interpretive methodology. In some sense, a scholar’s theory of texts determines whether biblical criticism and reception belong to the same discipline (biblical studies) or whether the dominance of context in generating meaning encourages a separation between them.

Biblical reception has been described as “biblical studies on holiday” (Gillingham 2015, p. 17). This statement probably originally implied that Bible scholars study reception when they are not doing their real work, which is teaching biblical Hebrew and historical criticism. Nevertheless, as Susan Gillingham points out, it is an excellent metaphor since it is often on holiday that we visit new places and gain new perspectives, learning to see things differently and returning home with new energy and insights. By traveling, we expand our knowledge of the world and our place within it, she claims, and reception studies thus enable us to see things in a new light. Perhaps, she notes, “reception history could be one of the best travel guides biblical studies could use” (Gillingham 2015, p. 17). Yet holidays are expensive. The primary problem with including post-biblical reception as a natural part of biblical studies is that it competes for time and space with biblical criticism. However, following Gillingham’s argument, what might be lost in terms of “biblical critical facts of knowledge” is compensated by an increased understanding of the complexity of knowing. It seems to be a worthwhile investment.

Reception is not alien to or at odds with biblical criticism. On the contrary, it partly ensues from it. If there is anything that biblical criticism has taught us, it is that reception is part of the development of the Bible itself, through its stages of redactions, intertextuality and later interpolations. Thus, the process of receiving a text implies making its “original meaning” relevant for new generations and thereby it also enables the survival of that text (cf. Breed 2015). As such, it is rather natural for Bible students to continue to study the process of reception, which was already set in motion in the biblical texts as they have come down to us, and which is likewise at work in their own reading of both the source material and scholarly literature. That is, the step from source and redaction criticism to reception studies and modern hermeneutics is, we believe, intuitive. Whereas the former two methods define and analyze how older texts were juxtaposed and interpreted so that they can be meaningful in their time, the latter two try to determine and explain how readers interpret them in a meaningful way. Modern hermeneutics shifts the focus from the study of the Hebrew Bible as a historical object to also study the subject who makes the interpretation. We interpret as we do because we are part of particular cultures and social contexts, heirs to particular traditions with specific histories. Hence, we interpret texts so that they make sense to us from our personal and communal experience. Michael Satlow states: “There is no reading outside of history and our larger conceptual apparatus. That is, we cannot escape the well-known hermeneutical circle and psychological tendencies to try to reinforce that apparatus rather than challenge it” (Satlow 2020, p. 51). Satlow contends that we are psychologically disposed to reinforce our presuppositions and prejudices rather than to question them (Satlow 2020, pp. 54–55). Human beings do not generally want to be challenged and changed, but rather to maintain their existing beliefs. Yet we can, he contends, overcome this state, because we can, at least to a certain extent, be critical of our own hermeneutical circle (Satlow 2020, p. 55). Thus, humans have a responsibility to be critical subjects and to possess the capacity to move beyond ourselves. This movement often takes place in relation to texts, whether composed last year or 2500 years ago, and in communication with other interpreters. As such, readers are subjected to the very mechanisms that brought many biblical texts into being, and they participate in the discourse surrounding these texts, on equal terms with the texts themselves.

The aims of scholars interested in reception are often similar to those scholars who reconstruct the historical-critical original meaning or form of biblical texts. Both approaches try to establish how a biblical passage was or is understood at a specific point in time, often applying the same critical methods (cf. Breed 2012, esp. 300–301). Whereas the Hebrew Bible is, by and large, confined to a limited textual corpus,4 its reception is fluid and open-ended. It starts within the biblical text itself, where there are inter-textual connections, such as between the double narratives in Genesis, or between the books of Chronicles and Samuel-Kings, and extends into the unknown future.5 Furthermore, reception is communicated through a range of oral, written, and visual media. Thus, as others have pointed out, biblical reception exerts cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural demands, and only a small portion of this rich heritage has yet been uncovered (cf. Gillingham 2015, pp. 27–29). This is especially true when it comes to non-Western sources, including Christian Arabic and to a lesser extent Judeo-Arabic texts, despite the increasing number of studies that examine this gigantic medieval corpus.6 To avoid the tendency to merely describe these sources, we also need to be able to analyze them in a broader theoretical sense (cf. Gillingham 2015, pp. 24–25). It is for this reason that the third main area of biblical studies we mentioned above, “theoretical approaches to readers and texts” or “theories of the nature of texts,” is no less important than the two other areas of traditional biblical criticism and reception. As mentioned above, such theories determine whether or not, and to what extent,7 reception history and exegesis belong within biblical studies. Much ink has been spilled to settle the relation between author, text, and reader, and their respective places within their larger contexts and traditions. All acts of personal and interpersonal communication are open to interpretation, whether verbal or non-verbal, as when interpreting a color that allows us to cross the street. These acts require constant and complex negotiations with the past and the present, the self, and the other/Other. Thus, as noted above, biblical texts and their readers participate in ongoing conversations (which constitute forms of discourse) on topics which in some senses are greater than they are, while being completely dependent on readers for their stamina and durability.

3. Reception and the Nature of Texts

Studies in reception build on several insights. Firstly, they acknowledge that the Bible was always read in different ways. Secondly, they highlight that the biblical canon itself is the end-product of reception processes.8 Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they recognize that biblical literature seldom provides one answer to complex questions, but allows for multiple voices, tensions and plurality of meanings to coexist. By preserving paradoxes, gaps, and more than one telling of the past, the Hebrew Bible motivates its readers to actively make choices as to its meanings, and these choices often disclose meta-narratives, presumptions, and cultural values. As such, biblical reception becomes a treasure for the understanding of intellectual history and human behavior. Shockingly immoral verses or texts such as the description of the smashing of infants to a rock (Psalm 137:9) heighten one of reception’s most important tasks. By studying the effect a reading has on a particular society, reception not only uncovers cultural and moral reactions, but also highlights the responsibility of the interpreter. Reception demonstrates how biblical texts have been used to oppress and marginalize minorities, legitimize colonialism, encourage anti-Semitism, condone slavery, minimize ecological disasters, diminish rival confessions, and more. For these and other reasons, studies in reception tend to focus on concrete interpretations, on the relation between the interpreting subject and its context and its effect on others. For example, the Bible scholar Moshe Greenberg has suggested that Bible teachers in schools should use rabbinic exegesis as a bridge between disturbing biblical passages and Jewish sensibilities. He believed that certain annihilative passages regarding the Canaanites in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua should be taught through the prism of rabbinic interpretation. The ancient rabbis, themselves the victims of Roman persecution and expulsion, were apprehensive regarding these texts. Their interpretations created pre-conditions for the fulfillment of the decrees, to the point that they could not be executed out in reality.9 For Greenberg “Rabbinic midrash becomes another methodology to deal with troubling biblical texts. Rabbinic commentary can help readers deal with ‘outdated’ elements of the biblical text, by demonstrating that the rabbis also felt this way, and struggled in these questions” (Sinclair 2010, p. 147).

The fact that engagement with a text may reveal and/or challenge the ethical assumptions of its readers leads us to consider the extent to which texts themselves might be understood as agents. In this connection, Breed points out that biblical texts are often understood as “containers of meaning,” with historical criticism applying the metaphor of a ship (the biblical text), and an anchor (its meaning) to suggest that the Bible’s meaning is anchored in its original context. This implies that to understand the Hebrew Bible we need to go back to its original setting, the location of the anchor for its meaning (Breed 2015, pp. 95–96). Yet, this conception is misleading: ships are not meant to be anchored but rather to sail the seas, moving passengers or goods from one place to another, precisely so that they can function outside their original context. Using Gilles Deleuze’s philosophical hermeneutics, Breed challenges us to take this function of texts into consideration and think about them in a broader way (Breed 2015, p. 100):

Whereas biblical criticism tends to think in terms of morality, asking, ‘What text is the best text, and what should one do with it?’ or in terms of an etiology, asking, ‘What did it originally look like, and what did it originally mean?’, from the point of view of reception history, biblical scholars can think in terms of ethology—that is, ‘What can a biblical text do?’

Few people would think it worthwhile to study a dog primarily in order to judge the extent to which a German Shepherd is identical to a reconstructed Ur-dog. Breed points out that people who study dogs are generally interested in how they adapt and develop new features depending on the context in which they are placed, and in how well a dog can be used for a specific purpose (Breed 2015, pp. 98–102).

We will come back to the consequences of this argument but first it may be worth mentioning a related aspect—the metaphor of survival.10 In our previous work we have used the comparison between texts and plants to illustrate this point. No one knows in advance which stories will thrive when transposed to new environments, and which will die out. Alongside rabbinic and New Testament exegesis, fascinating examples of reception from the Hebrew Bible are found in the Muslim tradition. In the Qurʾān and other Islamic sources, some biblical characters are given prominence, whereas others are not. Biblical characters who are mentioned are re-interpreted to make sense in Muslim contexts.11 Indeed, many biblical characters are able to survive in different contexts, religious or not, as previously phrased (Polliack 2020):

No differently than the literary portraits of Ulysses, Hamlet or Lady Macbeth, those of the Bible’s major dramatis personae still engage readers, regardless of religious background or the question of their historicity.

The reasons why and how biblical texts endure in different contexts are complex to pin down. Historically, the cultural and religious authorities who canonized the Hebrew Bible at different stages played crucial roles in ensuring that the Torah, Prophets and Writings are sealed and kept apart from “non-sanctified” texts. Yet this is only one aspect of historical survival. Some biblical texts endure through time, including in non-religious settings, because of the profound expression they give to universal aspects of the human condition and state of existence. In other words, some biblical texts are “deeply human”—“human” because humans throughout the ages have been able to relate to them, and “deeply” because what these texts say is not too obvious to make them redundant yet recognizable as truly insightful by the benign reader. Examples that come to mind are the stories of Cain and Abel, and Joseph and his brothers, but also texts like Amos 1–2, Isaiah 40–66, Jonah and Job. Other biblical texts survive because of their educational, philosophical, artistic and even entertaining aspects, as in the cases of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and Esther, or because they relate in some interpretive or analogical ways to other biblical texts, as with Chronicles. None of these texts would have lasted without human involvement through power structures, traditions, and “fusions of horizons.” The latter term is important, since texts do not strictly speaking survive in new contexts. They provide a medium in which fusions take place, and encourage the widening of context, rather than merely surviving outside of it.12 Indeed, it is very much because of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities that these texts have survived to this day, but it is also because of these texts that these communities came into existence and endure.

Because of such fusions of horizons, biblical texts are able to survive in secular environments. The interaction of world literature, culture and art, as well as socialist and human-rights ideologies with biblical foundational texts is beyond question. Visual and musical adaptations of biblical narratives, characters and themes abound in classical and popular art, including modern cinema and popular songs, which use biblical allusions to give voice to the mystery of music, the power of love, hope, human insufficiency, etc. Biblical authors and redactors did not invent the concepts of love and hope but they certainly gave them universal expression, concretized them and invited their audience to participate in their experience of them. Like many other people, religious or not, readers thereby participate in a discourse set in motion long ago, successfully formulated in biblical texts. The act of biblical appropriation or adaptation, therefore, always involves a double movement. The text imposes its experience of the phenomenon on the reader through formulating it for her/him, and the reader makes that text meaningful through reading into it her/his own experiences of that phenomenon and its formulation. The main function of the text, then, is to enable participation in such a discourse.

4. Reception and the Celebration of Diversity

If we allow ourselves, in line with Breed’s suggestion, to think about the nature of a biblical text, not in terms of what it once meant but in terms of what it can always do, the necessity of the study of reception becomes evident. As mentioned above, the processes by which texts survive in different contexts so that they may affect people long after their original composition, are complex and beyond our full reach. The fact is that not all texts survive. Texts that transcend their original settings are often thought of as classics. Based on his reading of Gadamer’s discussion of the classical, Masiiwa Gunda states that “what keeps classic texts relevant and alive is their ability to consistently be different as they encounter different situations” (Gunda 2015, p. 129). Thus, a classic work is timeless in the sense that later readers perceive it as relevant to them. This is an important observation for the field of biblical studies since classical works such as the Hebrew Bible become classics because of their ability to be different. Breed, drawing on Derrida, concludes that (Breed 2012, pp. 308–11; quote on pp. 310–11):

Texts are useful precisely because they are readable and able to be reinterpreted outside of their original contexts, or any context for that matter. One writes something down so that it can escape a given context. And since texts comprise networks or signs, and since signs are by their very nature things that may only establish an identity and function by referring to a variety of other contexts in which they are used, then any given text—in order to mean anything at all—cannot be contained and controlled by any context, any cultural construction, or any symbolic world. As such, the identity and the meaning of biblical texts by their very nature escape and exceed any and every context.

This approach to texts is seemingly in sharp contrast to the often-stated or underlying aim of biblical criticism, which is to understand what texts originally meant. Approaching biblical texts from this perspective, we instead have to conclude that it is precisely because biblical texts can survive outside their original context that they are biblical texts. If being different is part of the nature of biblical texts, how can we not include their reception, when this quality appears as a natural component in a biblical studies education? As noted above, biblical criticism can only answer part of what a biblical text actually is and hence, reception is needed to provide a fuller picture.

5. Example Texts

Below we provide two short examples, where various aspects of the discussions above are taken into regard. In the first example, we recapitulate findings on how inner-biblical reception produces interpretations that are difficult to read out of the text for later generations. It is also an example of where interpretation may teach us about the life and thought of ancient and medieval communities. In contrast, the second example is more centered on the capacity of the text and in what sense communities exploit that potential for their larger purposes.

5.1. Example 1: Reception of Psalm 110

Motivated by an understanding that context provides meaning, reception studies often tend to look for how Jews and Christians project their dogmas or present concerns on the biblical text. That is undoubtedly sometimes true. Steered by the Christian conviction that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, authors from New Testament times and onwards expected to find him predicted in the Hebrew Bible. A good case study is Psalm 110:1, “The lord [יְהוָה/ὁ Κύριος/māryā] said to my lord [לַאדֹנִי/τῷ Κυρίῳ μου/mār(y)], sit at my right hand…” which is frequently cited in the New Testament. Modern scholarship has not been able to settle the context of this enigmatic text, seemingly an enthronement psalm. According to Jeremy Corley, some elements point towards an origin in the early monarchy where the sons of David could apparently be called priests (cf. 2 Sam 8:18 where they are called כֹּהֲנִים; and Ps 110: 4 “You [=newly appointed king] are a priest for ever after the manner of Melchizedek”). Yet, it is also possible to place the origin of the psalm in connection to the Hasmonean dynasty, who assumed both priesthood and kingship (Corely 2017, p. 66).

It is worth noting in this connection that Gard Granerød suggests that perhaps the name Melchizedek in verse 4 (“Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek”) underwent a semantic transformation at some point in biblical times. Originally, he suggests, it might have been read “You are a priest forever. For my sake, my king is loyal.” In any event, the psalm, he argues, was read historiographically and connected to Abraham in the Second Temple period, which gave rise to the composition of the Melchizedek episode, later interpolated into Genesis 14 (Granerød 2010, pp. 211, 232, 246, passim). If Granerød is correct, the result of the perceived relation between two biblical events (Psalm 110 and the Abraham character/narratives in Genesis) gave birth to a third biblical event (the Melchizedek episode in Genesis 14), which segmented the inter-connectedness between the former two events for later readers. Facilitated by this inner-biblical exegesis, the author of Hebrews 7 (verses 2–26) writes (NIV):

2. and Abraham gave him [i.e., Melchizedek] a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”… 15. another priest like Melchizedek appears… 17. For it is declared “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek”… 23. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24. but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.

By doing so, the author of Hebrews continues the work of elevating the position of Melchizedek, by (again) de-personalizing the name by stating that it means “king of righteousness” and then turning him into a type of Christ. According to Granerød, the author of Hebrews employed contemporary Jewish hermeneutical techniques and then used the “potential already present in the Melchizedek texts” in the Hebrew Bible, rather than being dependent on previous, post-biblical traditions about Melchizedek, in his exegesis (Granerød 2009, esp. 201–202). This exegesis too turned into a canonical book for Christians and would thus affect the future of Christian interpretations of this and other psalms.

Post-biblical discussions of Psalm 110 often centered on whether the indirect object “to my lord” [לַאדֹנִי/τῷ Κυρίῳ μου/mār(y)], refers to a human or a divine being. As Granerød notes, in early rabbinic times, the identification of “my lord” as Abraham was frequently made among Jews (Granerød 2010, p. 218). Christians kept close track of Jewish interpretations of the verse and John Chrysostom notes in his commentary on the psalm that Jews cannot agree on the identification of “my lord,” some saying it is Abraham, others saying it is Zerubbabel and others again saying it refers to someone else (Hill 1998, p. 12). In Medieval times, the important Jewish exegete Saadiah Gaon (882, Fayyum, Egypt—942 Baghdad, Iraq), who wrote a Judeo-Arabic translation and commentary on Psalms, which became semi-canonical throughout the Jewish communities in the Islamic world, also interprets the referent of “my lord” as Abraham and places it within the context of Genesis 14.13 Saadiah, who came from an undistinguished family and even so, was appointed Gaon of the Sura Academy in Babylonia (near modern Baghdad), represents a new generation of Jewish scholars who, together with Muslims and Eastern Christians, participated in the theological discourse known as kalām in which rational arguments and logic was used to defend and develop the own stance. As most scholars in medieval times, Saadiah read the Hebrew Bible holistically and, like others around this time, provided inter-linear exegetical commentaries to biblical texts, which often prompted details like this to be addressed. Similarly, Rabbi Shelomo Yitzhaki, known as Rashi (1040–1105 Troyes, Champagne), the major Jewish exegete in the Christian domain of Western Europe, explains that “my lord” may refer to Abraham, as suggested by rabbinic midrash, and places it within the context of Genesis 23.14 In contradistinction to Saadiah, Rashi relies on midrash or allegory more frequently, though he does resort to the “plain” meaning of the text (peshat), and highlights its importance, especially when such a literal–contextual reading may provide a textual, theological or moral insight that would otherwise get lost. In our case, however, the issue at stake is the identification of a non-identified referent in the text, and that Abraham would be a good candidate to fill such a gap on the plain level had already been “rigged” by the biblical editors.

In this case, patristic authors, regardless of “school,” often used the same approach, i.e., they sought to identify the unclear referent by reading the biblical corpus holistically. Yet, since their biblical canon had expanded, their holistic reading offered new options. Even for the most “Antiochian”15 Christians—some of whom were skeptical of the expectation to find Christ hidden in every psalm—the New Testament authors had made it impossible not to let Psalm 110 ultimately point towards Jesus Christ. Thus, we see how inner-biblical reception has encapsulated in Psalm 110 potential references to Abraham for Jews and to Christ for Christians, as if these references were always intended by the text, completely regardless of the author’s intentions.

Although Jews and Christians in medieval times mostly mentioned each other for polemical purposes, they still engaged and spread information about each other.16 Such information could be polemical and thus not trustworthy but we should not by default exclude that it could also reflect minority readings, perhaps mediated through oral settings, or alternative readings that would not make it into more standardized works. In a still unpublished commentary on the Psalms by the East Syriac polymath, Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 1043), known to have followed the “Antiochian” tradition, it is stated that according to the Jews, this psalm was uttered by the slave of Abraham (also called Eliezer) on his way to betroth Rebecca and Isaac, the son of his master. His commentary reflects that by his somewhat earlier peer, Ishoʿdad of Merw, from whom Ibn al-Ṭayyib is known to have borrowed (van den Eynde 1981, p. 157). Ibn al-Ṭayyib continues by claiming that this Jewish interpretation occurred because the Jews distorted (ḥ-r-f) the openings lines of the psalm “the Lord said to my lord” by mixing the words al-rabb, which is a name for God, and al-sayyid meaning “[human] master” because of their similarity in writing (London, BL, Add. 15442, fol. 174r; d. 1188 CE). The two words יְהוָה and לַאדֹנִי are hardly similar in Hebrew script although they do come closer in Jewish reading tradition (ʾădōnî vs. ʾădōnāy) and in Syriac script. The difference between Syriac māryā intending “God” and mār(y) intending “master” including human masters as well, is used in the Peshitta (van den Eynde 1981, p. 157), which may have prompted the Christian commentator to assume that this similarity caused confusion for Jewish interpreters as well. In any event, by following the (probably Syriac) text in front of him, Ibn al-Ṭayyib differentiated between the two words in his translation and uses al-rabb and al-sayyid. Saadiah too differentiated between the two words in his Arabic translation by using allāh and al-sayyid, thus both of them are preserving the nuances of the Hebrew Bible in their respective translations. In contrast, a contemporary Christian peer of Ibn al-Ṭayyib named ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Faḍl who was active in Antioch and belonged to the Rūm Orthodox community, seemingly used a Greek Vorlage, which employs the lexeme Κύριος in translating both יְהוָה and לַאדֹנִי (see above) and therefore picked one Arabic term (al-rabb) to represent both words, thus smoothening out the tension.17

In any event, the interpretation attributed by Ibn al-Ṭayyib to the Jews makes perfect sense from a close philological study of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis 24:12 says, in the context of the servant of Abraham looking for Rebecca: “And he said: ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham [יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲדֹנִי אַבְרָהָם]…’” It is likely that this information thus came from a real encounter between Jews and Christians. Thus, as we know especially from Muslim texts, biblical exegesis was a vital means of communication and held a prominent place in the intellectual life in and between various Near Eastern communities in the early Islamic era.18

To conclude, by studying the reception of Psalm 110, we may disclose thoughts, inter-relations, and practices of various post-biblical communities and get a glimpse into how inner-biblical exegesis affects the meaning of an earlier text. Indeed, the process of finding concrete identifications of poetic references already began within the biblical corpus itself. Does the post-biblical reception of this psalm also say something about the nature of the text? In his discussion about the origin of the psalm, Corley states regarding Psalm 110 that it is more “likely that the Hasmoneans sought legitimacy by reviving usage of an ancient psalm rather than originating an entirely new composition” (Corely 2017, p. 70). Indeed, the origin of a text is one thing and the survival of the same text quite another. To survive, it must be meaningful to later generations of readers and it is in the very nature of (good) poetry to be read out of context, as often pointed out. It is precisely because the psalm can be linked with various Abrahamic narratives, Davidic and Hasmonean kingship, and Messianic figures that the psalm was found useful in many contexts. Its ambivalence is its greatest asset. As argued above, a classical text, such as (many) biblical texts, depends on its ability to be different to different readers. This is especially true of poetic texts, such as psalms, and of the Hebrew Bible in general, which are often the product of redaction, rather than of a known author.19

But contexts do not necessarily provide useful meanings to texts. They can also silence them. According to Corely, this psalm was not frequently used at all by the Qumran community (despite their interest in Melchizedek), perhaps because of their skepticism about the Hasmonean combination of kingship and priesthood (Corely 2017, p. 68). If Corley is correct, what made the Hasmoneans favor the psalm was the same quality that made the Qumran community ignore it. Whereas it was apparently silenced in the Qumran community, it prospered in the New Testament because of its messianic potential (a royal psalm) and its undefined referents (you, are a priest forever; the Lord said to my lord). Although biblical texts at one point were guaranteed survival through their inclusion in the biblical canon, a survey of which texts were actually used through the ages indicates that not all biblical texts were considered equal. Some prospered mostly in Jewish settings, others, perhaps those of higher adaptability, in both Christian and Jewish contexts.20 As a book, psalms were probably used more often than any other biblical book. Yet, even within this corpus some psalms (including Psalm 110) were used more frequently than others, and selected verses from a psalm were deemed more useful than other parts of the same psalm (cf. liturgical prayers, such as prokeimena, where such selection is evident). Answers pertaining to the adaptability—and thus capacity–of various biblical texts still lie ahead of us and will be uncovered only subsequent to careful, inter-disciplinary studies of their reception in different contexts.

5.2. Example 2: Reception of Psalm 137

We have seen in the first example that because of the inner-biblical interpretation, which had taken place in their respective canonical collections, Christians believed that Psalm 110 ultimately referred to Christ whereas Jews normally attributed it to Abraham. Rarely, however, did a doctrine decide the meaning of a text. Breed urges reception scholars to follow the text in their selection of corpus. Indeed, he argues, by using pre-disposed categories such as Christian versus Jewish reception or medieval versus modern reception or genres such as literature and film, scholars “draw our focus to external categories, instead of the productive capacities of the text” (Breed 2012, p. 316). Instead, by examining which specific features of the text are actualized in which contexts, attention may be turned to the potential of the text. Or, to put it differently, it shows how the reading is transformed in its struggle to survive in foreign soil. We will give a concrete example here, which is discussed more carefully elsewhere (Hjälm 2024). In her valuable study of the reception of Psalm 137, Gillingham shows that the psalm has, with a few exceptions, been interpreted differently by Jews (as describing a communal experience) and Christians (who have used it more individually, often allegorically) through the ages (Gillingham 2013; Gillingham, 2019). The corpus used for her study includes a range of genres yet almost exclusively Western examples. If we turn to Eastern sources, we see that there was no consensus among Christians how to best interpret the psalm since there was no consensus regarding what theoretical framework should be used when approaching biblical texts in general (simplified as “allegorical” vs. “historical” or “moral” approach). The dividing line thus was not drawn between Jews and Christians as such but was rather a question of hermeneutics. This dividing line lasted well into Islamic times. Thus, a medieval Arabic Psalm commentary written in al-Andalus and connected to Ḥafṣ ibn Albar who was active in the ninth and tenth centuries, interpreted “your infants” in 137: 9 (NIV: “Happy [or Blessed] is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks)” as evil thoughts before they had grown strong, and “the rock” as Christ. The interpretation of a rock as a symbol of Christ was already established by Paul in his exegesis of the rock in Horeb as Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:4; Ex. 17:6). The “blessed” is any righteous person who takes control over evil desires, a common interpretation associated with Origen (d. ca. 254) (cf. Hjälm 2024). Interpreted in this, typically “Alexandrian,” way, the verse is turned from morally problematic to psychologically beneficial. Jewish medieval commentators usually refrain from commenting on this verse. Interestingly, two commentators of Spanish background, however, do comment, Abraham ibn Ezra (1089/1092–1164/1167) and David Kimhi (1160–1235), by historicizing the text to its own period and so limiting its ongoing impact or significance. Both Ibn Ezra and Kimhi are known for their primary interest in the “plain” meaning of the text (peshat). Kimhi is the clearest: “It is said: ‘Blessed shall be he who pays you (as you deserve)’—this is Darrius the Mede who destroyed Babylon; ‘Blessed shall be he who takes your little ones’—in a cruel manner, as they were cruel to Israel.” 21 For him this is a cruel historical event enacted by imperial powers. Ibn Ezra is terser: “He [the author] told of their cruelty in what they [the Babylonians] did to the Israelite babies, hence above it is said [as you deserve].” Both exegetes point out the moral cruelty as the compositional relationship between verses 8 and 9, as relating to past historical events.

If taken literally, the most problematic word is אַשְׁרֵי “blessedness” or “happiness.” Most modern English translations choose “happy” instead of “blessed” to smooth out what otherwise appears to be a call to God to revenge through the cruel killing of infants. In Greek, the situation became even worse as the word used for אַשְׁרֵי, makarios, is also used, for instance, in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”) and clearly a state Christians are encouraged to strive for. John Chrysostom called this punishment in the psalm directed towards Babylonian infants “strange and surprising” and solved the problem by noting that David did not speak by his own words but merely reflected the words of the Jewish captives who, understandably, were under a lot of pressure (Hill 1998, p. 244; cf. Hjälm 2024, pp. 26–27). Chrysostom’s attention to the literary structure of the psalm (who said what) in combination with his pastoral concerns, made him resolve the problem in a rather sophisticated manner. This interpretation is reflected in the Arabic commentary by Ibn al-Faḍl who opted for the same solution (Hjälm 2024, pp. 27–28). Ibn al- Faḍl was active in Antioch in the eleventh century and serves as a good example of the reception of Chrysostom and other mainstream patristic exegetes in the East, from which he borrowed freely and as he saw fit. For example, in this case, he did not recapitulate the interpretation of Theodoret of Cyrus, who apparently understood the psalm as a prophecy and identified the blessed as Cyrus the Persian (Hill 2001, pp. 323–25). The latter tradition is instead partly reflected in Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s commentary, who did not seem to see the text as morally problematic but indicated that the Babylonians deserved it. A similar interpretation is provided by another Arabic-writing scholar, the Karaite exegete Yefet ben Eli (Jerusalem, second half of 10th century), as explained by Uriel Simon: “At the end he [i.e., Yefet] again refers to Babylon and puts in the mouths of the Israelites, who will have their vengeance when it falls at the hand of Persia, the triumphant shout: ‘a blessing on him who repays you in kind what you have inflicted on us’” (Simon 1991, pp. 110–11n. 87). The Karaites rejected the authority of oral tradition and thus broke with rabbinic Judaism. They argued that the Bible is self-sufficient and that its texts should be read in light of each other with special attention paid to grammar, narrative structure, and historical setting, that is, its “plain” meaning. Thus, in this regard, Yefet’s interpretation is similar to those of Ibn Ezra and David Kimhi but also to the “Antiochian” Christians who believed that a biblical text should be read as a cohesive unit and not in the light of philosophical frameworks outside of the text, which they accused the “Alexandrians” for doing (cf. Young 1997, pp. 161–85).

In the above examples, the text (Psalm 137:8–9) has, being replanted in different soils, developed quite different traits. The “allegorical soil of Alexandria” turned the Israelite experience of exile into a battle against evil as such—a foreign element trying to take root within the soul. The literal–historical layer is linked to the allegorical by a shared experience of expulsion. The apparent immorality embedded in the literal level of the text forced other authors such as Chrysostom to enter a discussion regarding the structure of the text and ask whose voice these words actually represent. In a similar vein, Jewish commentators from the Islamic world and Spain (Yefet, Ibn Ezra and Kimhi) are conscious of the literary structure of the text, point out its cruel imagery and see it as an expression of rage and anguish, hoping for justice and beseeching God in the face of ancient empires, and seeing the psalm as relating to these empires. It is not that they are not bothered by the immorality of the passage, they clearly describe it as cruel, rather, they put the stress on the speaker’s hope for a divine balancing of justice. The Christian author Ibn al-Ṭayyib takes a similar stand. The idea that God is in control of history is not only in line with a dominant meta-narrative provided by many biblical books, but also quite ready at hand since Eastern Jews and Christians in this time might have identified with the Israelite minority under a foreign power (still) run from Baghdad.

This brief exercise in reception history shows how the context, tradition, and hermeneutics of a specific commentator turned one and the same text into quite different texts in the process of making it relevant and by doing so ensured the relevance of the “original text” for generations to come. It also shows that interpretations at least to certain degrees transcend pre-disposed categories such as Christian and Jewish. In terms of what this text can do, we have seen that it provides tools for (perceived) self-improvement, words of comfort, and hope for justice. As is often the case, Jews and Christians read themselves into the biblical texts by identifying as their addressees. In doing so, they both confirmed their own place in sacred history and safeguarded the relevance of the texts.

One should not, however, forget that another option to deal with verse 9 is to simply omit it and/or focus on other elements in the psalm, such as hope or identifying the evil in this world. As stated above, several Jewish interpreters refrained from commenting on the verse at all. The question of how to understand texts, or parts of texts, that do not leave much mark on tradition certainly merits a project of its own. In the present case it leads us to ask, is the last part (vs. 8–9) of this psalm as viable as the previous verses? Or does it survive only by association to them? Is it a parasite in the biblical corpus or an integral part of its genius? Child killing or sacrifice is not alien to the biblical world. As indicated already by Chrysostom, it is, at least under dire circumstances, part of human behavior. The ongoing tension between describing and controlling human conduct gleaned from the biblical texts survived even after the canon closed and as such, post-biblical interpretations reflect, or perhaps better—bring forth—tensions which were already present in these texts and made them viable and attractive.

6. Some General Conclusions

The main purpose of this paper has been to emphasize the importance of giving more space to reception in the field of biblical studies and to treat it not as a marginal phenomenon but as a mandatory component. Firstly, if a text is more than a container of original meaning, then the argument that biblical critical scholars investigate biblical texts is not fully true. Rather, they investigate biblical contexts and their relations to the texts. To study biblical texts on a more profound level, one should, in line with Breed’s argument, also study the potential of the texts to evolve and replant themselves, as that potential is inherently part of what biblical texts are.

Secondly, reception should be integrated fully into biblical studies because biblical texts are essentially discourse, and reception enables the continuation of that discourse, which somehow unites—even when used for polemical purposes—communities across contexts. Indeed, texts both create interconnections between contexts and prevent contexts from being completely new. This function of texts also enables their survival.

Thus, in our opinion, biblical studies should include, on equal terms, biblical criticism, reception studies, as well as more theoretical approaches to readers and texts. Taken together, these areas help us to deal with the complex process of meaning making, which includes the intentions of the authors/redactors, the historical recipients of the texts, the traditions that canonized and transmitted them, the presumptions and expectations of later readers, and the nature of texts themselves.

Exactly how such studies are to be executed will vary and surely improve over time. Some will produce dubious results, be methodologically questionable, and get trapped in their own hermeneutical circles, just as studies in any other discipline, especially new ones, can sometimes do (Gillingham 2015, pp. 22–24). Yet because of the paradigmatic shifts in understanding texts in relation to their contexts which developed in the nearby fields of philosophical hermeneutics, literature studies, and sociology in the twentieth century, and which have already been introduced into biblical studies, it is unthinkable, in our opinion, to no longer consider reception as a natural component of any biblical studies setting.

As noted above, it is unclear why some texts survive and others do not. This may be connected partly to the quality of the texts themselves and partly to their readers. It is reasonably clear however that the greatest threat for a text is to lose its readership. Bible reception is vital for keeping biblical texts alive, and it constructs the very stage on which biblical criticism stands. Indeed, the largest threat to biblical texts is irrelevance. The only way to ensure that the texts survive is to encourage a plurality of receptions instead of regarding “non-critical” interpretations as incorrect, strange, or irrelevant. If texts are not allowed to freely prosper and thrive on their own conditions, uncontrolled by their “original meaning,” they may not survive. If they are by nature types of discourse, they cannot be treated merely as objects but must be regarded also as subjects in conversation with different parties. If readers are not allowed to read themselves into the texts and thereby make them relevant, they will not find it worth transmitting them to the next generation. It is readers who, by their engagement, nourish the texts and prevent them from perishing. As pointed out by Breed and Polliack, it is in the nature of viable texts to change in the process of being read, precisely because appropriation of meaning is reading. As Breed noted, reception studies are most apt to take on the task of uncovering such readings and thereby the potential of the biblical text itself (Breed 2012, p. 320).

The project of integrating reception history into biblical studies is sometimes part of the larger aim of “setting the text free” from biblical critical scholars and restoring it to religious communities. For sure, religious communities have a right to appropriate the biblical text. However, our aim is not to narrow down and close the text in terms of meaning or interpretative authority, but to open it up and make it more complex and thereby more challenging.