ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the application of Gadamer and genre theory to contested biblical texts, using a reception history study of Genesis 16 to explore how different Lesespiele can explain a nineteenth-century contest between slavery apologists and abolitionists over the relevance of Hagar's story. Like the characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, both sides of the real slavery debate share a historical horizon, and the question they are asking is the same: does God condone slavery? However, their Vorurteile about the genre of the text – is it a high-mimetic casuistic folk tale, or low-mimetic saga cycle? – mean they read the Abraham narrative very differently. This recognition of how different Lesespiele lead to different understandings of the text's relevance need not relativise the text's authority or suggest that the Bible is indeterminate on questions of slavery. Based on the literary and theological payoffs of the low-mimetic reading, this chapter argues that the abolitionist reading is the best reading, as it does justice, not only to enslaved people, but also to the artful actuality of the text and its place within the canon. Reception history proves a valuable tool for cultivating the modern reader's wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein, foregrounding tradition and its effect on understanding.
