Biography of a dream: a wirkungsgeschichtlich study of the Fourth Beast in Daniel 7

Abstract

One question guides this dissertation: what is a text? Answering this question pushes the boundaries of biblical studies, prompting more considerations: is a text limited to the words written on pages and inscribed in stone, or is it something more? Where (and when) does a text begin and end? How does the ongoing life of a text affect the communities creating, reading, and finally, interpreting it? Do texts even exist? Hans-George Gadamer engaged similar issues about literary hermeneutics in his magnum opus Truth and Method, in which he created the term Wirkungsgeschichte, otherwise known as “history of effect”. The dissertation uses Daniel 7 as a Wirkungsgeschichte case study and text that prioritizes horizons of historical influence alongside ongoing dynamic processes of biblical reception and production to reconsider Daniel 7 as an interpretation, a consequence, and literary product subject to change. Reading Daniel 7 in this manner shifts the discussion away from what strictly asking what a text “means” and toward understanding Daniel 7 as something living and constantly shaped by preceding and proceeding history, a position composed of original settings alongside histories of lived responses to external realities.