Hermeneutical Reflections

Abstract

Abstract This final chapter reflects more explicitly on what has been achieved in the preceding chapters, and on the wider implications for New Testament scholarship. It argues that modern commentators are dependent for their questions and conclusions on very specific strands in the reception history, to the regretful neglect of others. It also urges a greater openness on the part of biblical scholars to the multivalency and ambiguity of biblical texts. It proposes that reception history challenges historical critics to reconsider the role of the imagination (a necessity for historical-critical scholars no less than earlier interpreters), reader participation, and a broader concept of meaning than focus on historical prolegomena (questions of identity, origins, and geographical location which dominate recent discussions of Patmos). It also suggests that Patmos as narrative location may have a more fundamental hermeneutical role in Revelation than previously acknowledged.