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Formation is the key link between reception theory and the effects of scripture. Hans Robert Jauss, in effect the founder of modern reception theory, sees this approach as rejecting 'a closed past', and liberating readers from 'prejudices, and predicaments of a lived praxis, in that it compels one to a new perception of things'. 1 Reception history, Jauss suggests, can perform 'a socially formative function'. 2 He also urges: 'Question and answer can provide access to the otherness of the past'. 3 His teacher Hans-Georg Gadamer commends Bildung, not as culture, but as formation, which has goals 'outside itself'. 4
Scripture above all exercises formative power; it gives formation of character and action. It shapes readers by giving them a vision of what lies beyond the self. It delivers readers from narcissistic bondage to the self, from self-centred horizons, from self-affirmation and from self-love. 5 David Kelsey made the classic comment that the biblical text as scripture serves 'to shape persons' identities so decisively as to transform them' (his emphasis). 6 George Lindbeck and Frances Young echo the same point.
Hans Robert Jauss: background, influence and concerns
Hans Robert Jauss (1921-97) remains the effective founder of modern reception theory. Jauss is not a theologian or biblical scholar, but specialised in medieval romance literature. He was especially influenced by Heidegger and Gadamer on historicality, art and hermeneutics. The decisive step came in 1966, with the founding of the University of Constance (or Konstanz), with its new vision for interdisciplinary research. The University appointed a research team of five professors, who included Jauss.
Jauss' Inaugural Lecture of 1967 constituted virtually a manifesto of reception theory. He chose the title: 'Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory'. 7 This sought a 'still-unfinished meaning' in works, following Gadamer. 8 Jauss focused on the historical influence of a work. 9 But this 'influence' was to be reciprocal: both how works influenced their readers; and how successive generations of readers influenced the understanding of texts and works. This is akin to Gadamer's 'history of effects' ( Wirkungsgeschichte).
Jauss draws on Marxist theories of interpretation and on formalism, but goes beyond both. Marxism stresses the socially formative power...