34 Adelbert Denaux figures as well as the narrative structure of a text. Exegetes are not used to link a theory of the text as communication event with the question of the style of its author. They usually apply stylistic study to the issue of authorship determination or tradition/redaction criticism. And not all students involved in stylistic studies ask for the pragmatic effects of style on the reader. For NT texts there is, of course, the difficulty that only the text is directly accessible to the student. The original author and reader are unknown or only accessible through the way the author manifests himself in his work (implied author) and the image of the readers that can be detected from his text (the implied reader). Moreover, in view of the fact that the text of the Bible has been transmitted within a living tradition, one has to take into account the diachronic situation of the readers, dependent on their temporal, cultural and confessional context11. H. Utzschneider has pointed to three aspects implied in a responsible way of interpreting biblical texts: 1. The relative autonomy of the text; 2. The orientation towards the reader, and 3. No reduction of the text to its auctorial original situation12. These three aspects offer a basis for diachronic study as well as a synchronic interpretation of biblical texts. Interpretation of texts implies the three intentions, called by U. Ecco 1. intentio auctoris (author), 2. intentio operis (text), and 3. intentio lectoris (reader or hearer)13. The interpretation of the text (intentio operis) can be described on three levels: “1. seine sprachlich-literarische Gestalt oder Oberfläche, 2. seine thematischen Gehalte oder Tiefenstruktur und 3. seine Anredeelemente, anders gesagt: seine pragmatisch-kommunikativen Gehalte”14. The last aspect shows that the autonomy of the text is indeed relative. Its meaning or intentio cannot be isolated from the intentio of the author and of the reader. It would be naïve to think that a text is autosemantic. In reality each (historical or present) reader has some perception or knowledge of the intention and milieu of the real author (and his implied author and implied reader)15. Reader-response criticism is aware of the ambiguity of the term ‘reader’: is it the 11 implied reader, the informed reader, the flesh-and-blood reader, the model reader, the competent reader, the encoded reader, the intended reader, the subjective reader, or even the willful misreader (cf. S.D. Moore, “Stories and Reading: Doing Gospel Criticism as/with a ‘reader’”, SBL 1988 Seminar Papers 27 [1988] 141-59, 141). U. Utzschneider, “Text - Leser - Autor”, 227. For this model, see also J.D. Hester, 12 “Speaker, Audience and Situations. A modified Interactional Model”, Neotestamantica 32 (1998) 75-94; I.J. du Plessies, Results, 338-43. U. Eco, Die Grenzen der Interpretation (München 1992) 35ff. (ital. original, 1990). 13 H. Utzschneider, “Text - Leser - Autor”, 230. 14 I.J. du Plessies, “Results”, 339. 15