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Literature and Theology 2004 18(2):139-152; doi:10.1093/litthe/18.2.139
© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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Reading as a Little Child: On the Model Reader of the Gospels

Petri Merenlahti

Department of Biblical Studies P.O. Box 33, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland petri.merenlahti{at}helsinki.fi

Introduced by Umberto Eco, the semiotic concept of the ‘model reader’ refers to an ideal reader that the literary text anticipates and tries to create. Although a set of strategies and instructions in the text, each model reader hooks onto a particular moment in time and space; reading is a social act that requires adaptation to the language and culture of a particular community. Consequently—and this is the point of this paper—literary and historical approaches are equally indispensable, if we are to read the Early Christian gospels as their model readers would.


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