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So I have the privilege today of introducing the speaker of the 2013 jones lecture. Dr Margaret aimer as President War Law stated last night. Dr Amer was born in Barbados and moved to THE US in 1977

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. She went on to receive a B. A . From Harvard University and or M. D. And PhD at Union Theological Seminary in new york. She currently serves as an associate professor of new testament

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at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta Georgia. She's the author of several books and also blocks for the Huffington Post and Dr Amours Research Interest Centers on Biblical Hermeneutics, especially in african diaspora communities. More broadly

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, her writing show a keen desire to treat the bible as a living relevant and most importantly an action inducing text or to put it in her words as a scripture through which to read the world. Indeed

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, her recent articles have focused on the ways in which scripture cause us to affirm defend and to act on behalf of the poor and the marginalized to become truth tellers and advocates who work for the least of

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these such people. Dr Emma rights are those that truly occupy Christianity. We are privileged to have dr Amer here and we look forward to our words of wisdom. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very

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much. Doctor Park President Wardlaw, my friend and former pastor, as he keeps reminding you members of the faculty, board members, alumni, students, staff, curious bystanders. Ladies and gentlemen, I

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would be remiss if before I began, I did not offer to you a word of thanks for this august invitation. I bring you greetings from the Interdenominational Theological Center and in particular from its Presbyterian Seminary in

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consortium, the Women and men of johnson C. Smith Seminary and from its President Dean, the reverend paul roberts. I also bring you greetings from one Howard Montgomery, a presbyterian ruling elder and the father

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of three presbyterian teaching elders, who reminds me that he and his late wife were married by reverend robert W. Jones not so long ago. Over the next two days I will be placing before you an

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argument about the nature of the collection of writings that the christian church calls the new testament. It is an argument that I have been thinking about for several years and have given voice to both at I.

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T. C. In the 2010 Charles B. Cofer lecture and at Stillman College as their lecturer and preacher for religious studies week in 2009 and 2010. It is an argument that I hope, given some

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time off for the next few years I can begin to flesh out more fully in a book length publication for these lectures. I hope to present briefly to parts of that argument today I will sketch out the

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premise that the new testament is, to a large extent, a collection of migrant writings and tomorrow I will build on that premise by suggesting that one of the underlying sources of church tension today stems from the

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ways in which we christians use migrant writings as scriptures . Now, when I say, the new testament is to a large extent a collection of migrant writings . I am not thereby making an argument about the

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relative ethics or worth of migrant persons. I do have a particular fondness for migrants being one myself and being descended on both my maternal and paternal side from at least three generations of migrants, with a sum

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total of nine countries in origin, only one of which is the United States. And to top things off, I married a migrant, a french citizen who still sends his proxy vote to be cast by

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his parents back home precisely because I am thus surrounded by migrants. I hold no fantasies of our relative goodness or of our relative depravity, individually or collectively compared to the rest of humanity. My argument focuses

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not on migrant qualities but rather on migrant strategies, not on migrant qualities, but on migrant strategies. Specifically migrant strategies for survival and communal strength in alien and sometimes threatening host cultures. Further in focusing on

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migrants strategies for survival. I am not primarily making this an argument about the United States, although perhaps I could my experience in the United States, like that of most acculturated migrants has been a mix of

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oppression and acceptance of alienation and embrace. However, I'm not so much interested in studying what host cultures due to migrants. I am far more interested in studying how migrants respond to their host cultures. Moreover

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, as a biblical scholar, I am particularly interested in how the earliest christians who I will argue were primarily migrants responded to their host culture. To the extent that we can identify this from their writings.

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Let me say a word about my journey to this position. It began about two decades ago when I first entered seminary at Union Seminary in new york city . Writing the first wave of located and in cultural

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rated biblical interpretation, I came to voice as a biblical scholar, instructed by the first full wave of these readings by the brand new women's bible commentary by stony the road be trod the african american fest Shrift

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to the work of Charles B. Cofer professor of hebrew bible at I. T. C. Where I now teach by reading from this place. Three volume collection of essays that highlighted located and in cultural

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rated readings edited by Fernandez Segovia and Marianne Tolbert, by my advisor. Vincent Wimbush is work on african americans and the bible, and by the work of walter wink and the earliest writings of the sojourner's community

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of evangelicals in Washington, D. C, who employed a lens of nonviolent activism to the sermon on the mount. In the midst of this maelstrom, I was lost, although I appreciate the powerful narratives

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of african american biblical scholars and used these as guides for my own work. They did not speak of the experience of migration and displacement, but rather of systemic legal alienation from one's own place of birth.

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Essays by Gonzales and Segovia in reading from this place gave me a glimpse of what might be. But unlike these men who arrived as adults with a maternal language other than english, my experience of migration from

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the english caribbean as a Tween who never had to learn english and has since lost most of her accent masks more than it reveals about mei migrant status. Unlike my fifth generation korean american friends, I am

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not regularly asked where I'm from, except by Ethiopians who think I resemble them. Fiona typically and southerners who claim that I have an accent. Yet even back in the earliest days of my formation as a

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biblical scholar, I had hints that my perspective was radically different from those around me. In my middle or year of seminary while investigating the hermeneutics of the Sojourner's community On the sermon on the mount, I

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voiced pointed skepticism that these documents were as so journalists asserted a manifesto for social change. Instead, as an upstart Midler writing in a community dominated by the arguments of walter wink, I argued that instructions to

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make friends with one's oppressor and to pray in one's closet resembled not so much acts of nonviolent resistance as basic survival instructions, instructions to persons with little societal power that saw themselves as easily crushed. In fact

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, I identified them most strongly with the kinds of instructions my parents would give my sister and me reminding us that we are not from here and that we needed to keep our heads down and do our work

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. Even then, these writings struck me as survival strategies of migrants as migrant writings. So when I say that my argument today focuses not on the relative worth of migrants, but rather on how our strategies

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for survival are encoded in the new testament. I'm picking up on an 18 year old proposal, one that as a doctoral student, I could not find a way to voice, but one that, as

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I have mused about it for the past five years , I believe, is not only correct, but also might be helpful not only to the research of biblical scholars, but perhaps more importantly to the work

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of those of us who identify as christians and who used the writings of the new testaments as scripture. Finally, let me say that this argument is not primarily a theological or ethical argument, although it does

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have theological and ethical implications. This argument is primarily a literary, historical and hermeneutic all article argument, and I make no proposition here for a theology of migration. Rather, I want to know first whether

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we can determine from the traces in the new testament , using our academic understanding of their literary, historical origins, what strategies these historical christian communities employed to interpret and learn to inhabit the world in which they

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lived? And second, as the subject of tomorrow's lecture, I want to explore whether we can determine how the Herman optical lenses, the migrant strategies of these early christian communities impact our contemporary Herman optical lenses

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as we interpret and inhabit the world in which we live. In Other words, I want to see not only what the migrant strategies in this text might be, but how we consciously or unconsciously adapt them

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in our work. Okay, let's do some bible . My case for the new testament as migrant writings relies heavily on the basic literary and historical, critical information that most Mdf students and religion majors learn in

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their introductory classes to the new testament. So, for some of you, this is going to be a review. Let me rehearse these for you. First, consider paul of Tarsus. Biblical scholars generally

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agree that Paul was a traveling preacher. Yes, yes, we do not have a letter from, written to or from his natal city of Tarsus. Thus, we can already see that paul was a

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migrant, a voluntary migrant to be sure, But nevertheless, a migrant paul's audience consists primarily of those that the gentiles mistakenly called you decoy or judy ins , but who were more broadly diaspora IQ worshippers of

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the god of Israel today for shorthand, we call them jews, but this does not get at the diversity of early Judaism's around the mediterranean basin, deeply Helen eyes but still holding onto cultural practices that stemmed

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from their original places of migration in the galilee and samaria and judea and Perea and the region surrounding this paul's assembly comprised in part of you doi, would have resembled our immigrant fellowships, gatherings of persons sharing

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not just similar religious convictions, but similar political, social and cultural values. Because religion and politics were not separate, at least not in the ancient world . In addition, given our basic research, basic

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research into the cities in which paul writes, Paul's audiences would also have been comprised at part of gentile migrants. Historians tell us that Corinth was a city settled entirely by migrants to the region. Rome had

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destroyed the old Greek city and built a roman one in its place, settling it with retired roman soldiers , phillipe had a similar fate. Thessaloniki and the region of Galicia where favorite places for roman soldiers to

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be placed after retirement. Their cities full of migrants and Rome, of course, was full of all kinds of migrants. When one considers the gentiles of paul's audience, the presence of a variety of migrants

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within these audiences is fairly certain, given this historical reconstruction, which would cause very little real controversy among biblical scholars calling paul seven undisputed letters, migrant writings , letters written to and by and for migrants simply

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rehearses the facts as we can know them. Now let's take the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and luke. We start with Mark because scholarly consensus still leads towards market priority and to a date of the

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composition either during or just after the siege of Jerusalem 70 C. E. Most scholars place the composition of Mark in that most cosmopolitan of cities. Rome . And the importance of this proposition for us does

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not stem just from the migrant communities that made up the imperial city. More critical for us is the self evident fact that the gospel of Mark, composed and disseminated in Rome exclusively contains narratives about person's entire

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and southern syria that the capitalist Maria, the galilee samaria and judea. Clearly these stories have migrated, no doubt through the mouth of migrant storytellers and preachers . The final composition, written for a tenuous and

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frequently expelled community of you destroy and their migrant gentile allies in Rome must also be understood as a migrant writing you with me so far. Okay. I'm used to talk back Matthew and Luke, most scholars

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contend use mark and some other source to compose their writings. Scholars usually place Matthews compositions from 15 to 20 years after mark in the Syrian city of Antioch , the city from which the roman armies would march

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on Jerusalem If Matthew does in fact use mark and it seems fairly certain that he did as 90% of mark occurs in Matthew's Gospel students. If 90% of anything shows up in your paper, turn it in

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will catch it. Yeah. Then the gospel narrative as a written document must have migrated from Rome back to Syria that would already qualify Matthew and also luke as migrant writings. Matthew's community likely includes migrants from

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the judean wars and certainly includes disparity. Disporting you destroy all of these, living away from judea and thinking through the christian gospel in light of the political and social and cultural values of the recently conquered lands

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to their south look, axes usually dated at a time equal to or later than Matthew and its place of composition is an open, unsettled question. However , like Matthew and Mark, no scholar argues for

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a galilean judean Samarian or other Palestinian location of composition fluke. So luke acts like Matthew and Mark reflects the story written outside of its place of origin, Lukes dependence on Matthew. And Mark further reflects the

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migration of the writings and the migrants who composed the initial gospel clearly looks primary addressee. Theophilus appears to be a person of privilege and maybe at a local official of a particular city that's not a migrant.

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Nevertheless luke acts narrative is one based on writings written by migrants and writings that themselves have migrated with other persons. Thus all three synoptic gospels can be named migrant writings, writings written two and four, and

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probably by migrants With regard to the gospel of John and I promise I'm not going to do all 27 books like this. Similar arguments attend Jon's narrative also focuses on events and persons in Judea, Galilee,

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Samaria and the region surrounding them. However, most scholars place the authorship of john outside of roman Palestine , probably in Ephesus, as Raymond Brown long ago pointed out, john's Gospel demonstrates an accurate knowledge of

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some of the practices and places of roman Palestine that it would have been written outside of the region suggests , again, a migrant author, first or second generation rehearsing the traditions of his or her home culture

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for a community that most certainly includes at least diaspora , you die away further the possibility of Ephesus as the location of composition invokes a certain presence of those voluntary migrants who would have flocked to the single largest

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city of the roman empire. Thus we can already see that 12 of our 27 books are migrant writings . three others are self evidently so. First, Peter addresses itself to the exiles of the diaspora.

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James is written to the 12 tribes in dispersion and the apocalypse of john has written when the seer of john of Patmos was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of jesus

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, which most scholars read as being in exile. This brings our count to 15 1st generation migrant writings Out of 27. Many of the rest of the writings may be considered second generation migrant writings by second

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generation. I mean, the writings possibly produced by residents that maintain intentional ties to the tradition of their migrant forebears Among these, I would place the due to the appalling and passed over letters commonly considered to

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be part of a school tradition surrounding paul and the johanna and epistles considered to be part of a school tradition surrounding the gospel of john, which leaves only Hebrews jude and second peter for our consideration. See

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, I told you I wasn't going to go through all 27 that way, both jude and second peter are generally considered later documents written after theological lines are beginning to be drawn in the early assemblies. They

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too, may be considered second generation migrant writings for the draw on earlier migrant traditions about what is and is not within the bounds of Christianity and even of writings of the migrant community such as first Enoch Hebrews

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is a puzzle for it gives us no clear historical data on which to draw. However, its theology of christian super session is um of the temple cult favors communities of diaspora. QD Oy, who might

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have had need to reinterpret faithfulness in light of distance from or destruction of the temple of all of the documents in the new testament, hebrews poses the greatest challenge to the assertion that the entire new testament consists

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of migrant writings. However, it is no way undercuts the assertion that the vast majority of the new testament writings can be considered migrant writings, writings to four and by migrants. Now I've gone to quite

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some length to demonstrate the first part of my thesis because although new testament scholars have had this evidence for some time, we have failed to put this evidence together to create a picture of the early christian assemblies

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as communities of migrants and displaced persons and of the new testament writings as directed to emerging from and written by elite members of those displaced and migrant communities. The rest of my argument for this afternoon seeks to

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answer the question, what difference does it make? I'm glad you appreciate that more. Specifically, I want to explore with you what migrant strategies these early christian communities of migrants used as they interacted with their

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cultures of origin and with the wider world, and how these strategies are reflected in the writings of the new testament For the sake of time. I will focus on three writers and you may follow along their

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bibles in front of you, the anonymous writer of the Gospel of john or john for short, James , the author of the eponymous hemolytic epistle and paul , focusing on his undisputed letters to unpack the migrant

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strategies of these three writers. I will employ the theoretical framework of psychologist john Barry proposed in his seminal essay, a psychology of migration. Then I will complicate this framework with a thick description of diaspora space

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proposed by sociologist of migration and diaspora studies. After bra. Once I've unpacked these strategies, I will turn my attention to some objections that might be raised to this proposal and to some possible benefits of this

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hermeneutic for the study of the new testament. Let me begin by introducing the theoretical framework of john Berry , professor emeritus of Queen's University in Canada and a pioneer in the psychology of migration and acculturation. In

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his 2001 article, a psychology of migration. Barry proposes four stances that migrants might take as they negotiate their home culture or their roots and their host culture or their place of migration, marginalization, separation,

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assimilation and integration, marginalization, separation, assimilation and integration in marginalization, migrants and I quote, lose cultural and psychological contact with both their traditional culture and the larger society. In other words, marginalized migrants

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or as I will be calling them, liminal migrants are migrants who choose to disassociate themselves both with their home culture and their host culture. They disassociate themselves both with their home culture and their host culture.

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There are mirror opposites, choose the strategy of integration or as I'm calling it accommodation. If the liminal migrants disassociate themselves from both home and host cultures, the accommodating migrants negotiate ways to stay in both home

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and host cultures, even when this causes tension, sometimes choosing one over another. But keeping both options open migrants who choose the strategy of separation, preserve their roots, their home culture and guard against the

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infiltration of the host society in their cultural base. They're mirror opposites, choose the strategy of assimilation, preserving the host culture and eliminating all traces of their roots, all traces of their home culture, limine

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Haliti separation, accommodation and assimilation. These for migrants stances described intentional survival strategies for migrant persons, interestingly . Our new testament, migrant writings include, and we as the church have canonized as scriptural, not

00:25:42.780 - 00:26:07.640

one but three of these migrants strategies is viable limine maliti, separation and accommodation. Before I describe these three strategies that exists, a quick word about the strategy that does not occur, Our christian scriptures do

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not include assimilation as a viable migrant strategy for life in the world. This makes some sense. The strategy of assimilation requires the elimination of one's home culture and the full adoption of one's host culture were a

00:26:26.990 - 00:26:45.480

new testament, christian to adopt assimilation as a migrant strategy. The result would necessarily be polytheism for the host culture of every first century christian was overwhelmingly pagan and deeply suspicious even of the ancient and thus permitted

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monotheistic superstition of the you destroy should a new testament , migrant writer tried to write the gospel narrative while adopting the strategy of assimilation, her gospel or epistle would hold christ as equivalent at best two Artemus of

00:27:02.090 - 00:27:15.630

the Ephesians or isis of the Alexandrians and the stories of the way in which jesus makes even fuller the hebrew bible prophecies might be replaced with stories of how jesus fits with the myth Oy, of the ancient

00:27:15.630 - 00:27:30.590

pantheon of deities. That is, if the jesus story, the story of a crucified peasant traitor to the great god, caesar from the backwaters of roman , Palestine could even be told at all. Thus

00:27:30.590 - 00:27:48.000

, no christian scripture employs assimilation as a viable migrant strategy for christian communities. Now, this may have some consequences for today's debates on immigration and english only laws, but unpacking those consequences will have to wait

00:27:48.000 - 00:28:00.800

for a different series of lectures to see the remaining three strategies that work in the new testament writings, the mentality, separation and accommodation. We must turn to our three new testament writers, john James and

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paul Consider first this quote from John Chapter eight and I'm beginning at verse 31. For those who are following along, then, Jesus said to the jews who had believed in him. If you continue in

00:28:15.510 - 00:28:27.050

my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are the descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone,

00:28:29.140 - 00:28:37.590

Jesus said to them. If you were Abraham's Children , you would be doing what Abraham did. But now you are trying to kill me. A man who has told you the truth that I heard from

00:28:37.590 - 00:28:48.940

God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does? They said to him, We are not illegitimate Children. We have one father. God himself, Jesus said to

00:28:48.940 - 00:29:00.410

them. If God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and now I am here you are, from your father the devil and you choose to do your father's desires. In

00:29:00.410 - 00:29:19.540

this quotation, part of jesus's longer diatribe against the judy. Oy jesus is disa valley any cultural consonants with those that would seem to be his own people . His home culture within berries matrix. Such a

00:29:19.540 - 00:29:37.160

stance already eliminates two possible migrant strategies, separation and accommodation. Both of these strategies require some willingness to be in relationship with one's own culture. Yet this passage presents jesus at odds with and dismissive of his

00:29:37.160 - 00:29:51.160

home culture. We are left us with two options . Either the Gospel of john proposes assimilation, which we know it does not do, or it proposes a statue, a stance of women maliti. If

00:29:51.160 - 00:30:03.990

criminality, the Gospel of john would also have to encode a strategy that rejects the host culture of the migrant community. In light of that, we should not be surprised to read the following as part of

00:30:03.990 - 00:30:18.400

the symposium dialogue in the 15th chapter of john's Gospel and here I am, beginning at verse 18, if the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hates you. If you belong

00:30:18.400 - 00:30:30.950

to the world, the world would love you as its own because you do not belong to the world , but I have chosen you out of the world . Therefore, the world hates you. With this

00:30:30.950 - 00:30:45.950

assertion, John is depicting jesus and through jesus, his community as a community that is both rejected by its home and post culture, a community that has been forced to choose a liminal migrant strategy of survival

00:30:45.440 - 00:30:57.960

. Now, in all fairness, a careful reading of john's Gospel, johns to a careful reading of john's Gospel, john's liminal stance comes as no surprise , john alerts us to this migrant strategy from the

00:30:57.960 - 00:31:12.710

very outset of his gospel, when he describes the incarnate logos and the community of those who accepted him . In this way, he was in the world and the world came into being through him. Yet

00:31:12.710 - 00:31:26.350

the world did not know him. He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him, but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to

00:31:26.350 - 00:31:41.030

become Children of God. Sound familiar. You might now understand why I chose liminal rather than marginalized as my depiction of the strategy within the context of the new testament writings and of the church, john's gospel

00:31:41.040 - 00:31:53.650

presents a stance of women Haliti of neither being part of the world nor part of the home culture, a stance that requires a community of faith to strike out into unknown territory, creating an ostensibly brand new

00:31:53.650 - 00:32:07.460

culture apart from either of these cultural anchors, I will come back to the impossibility of this idealized stance later. But for now, let's continue by considering the past. The passages from the epistle of James

00:32:07.470 - 00:32:28.160

beginning in James, Chapter one verse 27. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God. The father is this to care for the orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

00:32:30.340 - 00:32:42.890

Later in chapter four First one, these conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You will have wants something and

00:32:42.890 - 00:32:54.110

do not have it. So you commit murder and you covered something and cannot obtain it. So you engage in disputes and conflicts you do not have because you do not ask you ask and do not receive

00:32:54.110 - 00:33:08.340

because you ask wrongly in order to spend what you get on your pleasures and here's the kicker, adulterous women and that's what it actually says in the greek . Do you not know that friendship with the world

00:33:08.350 - 00:33:25.220

is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God . James and john stand firmly with each other in their disdain for and dismissal of the world. Here

00:33:25.220 - 00:33:42.380

again, is a stance in which the host culture is rejected. However, unlike John James also says this, this is James. Chapter two, If you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted

00:33:42.390 - 00:33:57.240

by the law as transgressors for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For the one who said, you shall not commit adultery, also said, you

00:33:57.240 - 00:34:09.640

shall not murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged by

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the law of Liberty. Chapter four verse 11 do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters , whoever speaks evil against one another or judges one another speaks evil against the law and judges the law

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. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge law in this case must be understood as tora, the law of James's own people. James, thus

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is not advocating a liminal migrant strategy. Instead, James is advocating a separatist migrant strategy. What is the context of this council to set to remain separate from the world luke, timothy, johnson has demonstrated

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that James is very possibly a letter written from the earliest christians in Jerusalem, through the brother of jesus , to the early diaspora rick communities of judea. We who have accepted jesus as the christ and the

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son of God from Jerusalem. James writes to migrant churches, migrant church plants, councils, the early believers not to adopt gentile ways in their time of migration. Rather, they are to continue their adherence

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to the law, to be weary of accepting worldly ways and to keep themselves unstained from the world. Next let's consider our brother paul, the great troublemaker of the church. Here are some of paul's more

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familiar quotations. Some of you can do this one by heart, as many of you as were baptized into christ have clothed yourselves with christ. There is no longer jew, nor greek, there is no

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longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female. For all of you are one in christ, jesus. If you belong to christ, then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to the promise

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and to the jews. I became as a jew in order to win jews to those under the law , I became as one under the law, though I myself am not under the law, so that

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I might win those under the law to those outside the law. I became as one outside the law . Though I am not free from God's law, but I'm under christ law, so that I might

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win those outside the law to the week. I became weak, so that I might win the weeks I become all things to all people that I might save. That I might by all means save some

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. Already. Here we can sense a shift in strategy. Paul's over an inclusion of persons both from within and outside his own migrant culture and his willingness to negotiate between cultures in his ministry suggests that he

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, unlike James and john does not advocate a total avoidance of the gentile world. However, paul's claim is not that his community become a gentile community. Paul's claim is that his community of judea and gentile

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migrant jesus believers somehow inherits the benefits reserved specifically for judea. Oy, the covenant blessings of Abraham, the paul continues to embrace at least some of his home culture, a culture steeped in abrahamic covenant and

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the mosaic law. This pauline migrants strategy, I have termed accommodation rather than integration. Paul has not so much integrated gentile and jewish cultures as he has suggested ways that they might accommodate one another in the

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uneasy tension of a migrant strategy that both accepts and critiques home and host cultures. This is most clearly evident in Romans chapters 12 and 13 In chapter 12 , Paul famously, Councils do not be transformed to

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this world, conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. However, in

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Romans 13, the same Paul calls for a certain amount of conformity to the world as a way to fully comply with the requirements of the mosaic law. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,

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for there is no authority except from God. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but too bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good and

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you will receive its its approval. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid for the authority does not bear the sword in vain. Pay taxes, page all what is due them,

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taxes, to whom taxes is due revenue, to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due honor, to whom honor is do owe nothing to anyone except to love one another for the one

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who loves one another has fulfilled the law. Despite the council in Romans 12, 1 must read woman's 13 as advice to conform to the world, at least in part, even as you also attempt to

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conform to the law here, paul advises, negotiate as best as you can between the host culture in which you find yourself and the home culture to which you may cling but not so closely, that you

00:39:17.510 - 00:39:30.490

exclude those from the host culture. In your community , paul, James and john are only three of the migrant writings of the new testament. However, they stand as examples of the three embedded migrant strategies

00:39:30.490 - 00:39:45.660

found throughout the new testament. And although Barry's framework serves as a helpful preliminary model, any framework is too neatly a summary of positions and it can present them as if they were static and absolute. For

00:39:45.660 - 00:40:01.030

this reason, sociologist after our bra of London provides a helpful complication as we ponder these migrant writings in her book cartography, ease of diaspora, Bra describes a place of cultural formation and re formation that migrants

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inhabit as diaspora space, diaspora space for her is that place where multiple subject positions are juxtaposed, contested , proclaimed or disavowed whether permitted and prohibited, perpetually interrogate and where the accepted and the transgressive imperceptibly mingle

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. Even while these syncretic forms may be disclaimed in the name of purity and tradition here, tradition itself is continually invented, even as it might be hailed as originating from the mists of time. Bra contends

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that all migrants, regardless of their primary strategies, make and remake their migrant cultures in diaspora space. Here they determine who they are and will continue to be what is and is not permitted and the location

00:40:52.550 - 00:41:12.880

and relative permeability of community boundaries in diaspora space. Also, migrants remake culture itself while simultaneously claiming the ancient provenance of that culture because of this messy creative contest station. No migrant strategies ever pure. And

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this is evident when we considering our three new testament , migrant writers, john C. S for a space is perhaps the easiest to demonstrate. His rhetoric calls for the liminal community, one that is neither

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part of the world nor part of the culture of the Judeo. Oy one should expect those that john's proposals would reflect a brand new reality one completely set apart. However, john starts with him to the

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Lagos that very platonic concept of the word that created all things. John of course, combines this logos with the Hakuba Sofia tradition of his Israelite heritage into weaving these to, to tell the story of the

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advent of jesus and john does not stop there. Like the world he inhabits, john appropriates constructions of power such as kingdom, master slave and the patriarchal household as metaphors for his so called liminal society,

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john further re reads each of the Israelite holidays through the lens of jesus. Passover is the code. Even the minor feast of Hanukkah become infused with john's attempt at the mentality. Even john's new commandment,

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Love one another sounds an awful lot like a remix of the Command to love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19, john strategy of criminality that must be understood as an idealized position taken by a community struggling

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to define itself against those from both its home and host cultures that would deny its legitimacy In proclaiming a new liminal stamps, john in this community are not creating something completely unknown. Instead, they inhabit diaspora

00:42:52.520 - 00:43:08.820

space, inventing traditions and claiming for them in ancient provenance originating from the mists of time. Similarly, James strategy of separation proves to be more porous and more contested than perhaps initially presented James council to remain

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separate from the world must be understood in light of his adoption of various tropes, virtual lists and the like that derived directly from the Hellenic world. He counsels his community to avoid, he counsels all of

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this in a highly schooled style of writing that plays with the liberation and greek rhetorical structure. Using a style I set to a gentle greek even when he quotes the bible in this whole melodic epistle to diaspora

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in judea. Oy, James councils turning from the gentile world, But ironically, his argument must take a gentile structure and style to be understood and appreciated . James presents a call for a separation from the

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world dominated by a greek culture in language steeped in greek culture cadence and philosophy. Thus, also, as with john, James takes an idealized position to define his audiences, subjectivity over and against the world

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and like john in calling for a migrant strategy of separation, James inhabits diaspora space in his writing, James's reinventing tradition, a greek tradition that can be followed by Hellenic you decoy who hold to the royal

00:44:22.580 - 00:44:38.460

law and live in a culturally greek world. And James like john claims for these reinventions and ancient provenance originating from the mists of time, Paula's accommodation a strategy to some extent shields him the kind of critiques

00:44:38.730 - 00:44:52.230

faced by john and James, and that he calls explicitly for a communal negotiation between home and host culture . However, paul, even more than john and James enters into that contested diaspora space to remake culture

00:44:52.230 - 00:45:07.950

and tradition while claiming for it. In ancient provenance , paul's argument about gentile inclusion without the requirement of circumcision is the most blatant example of this cultural rewrite in an exceedingly slippery piece of hand waving that meets

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none of the requirements of exegesis and might even be questionable. Mid rush, paul argues that it is the law, and not the abrahamic covenant that requires circumcision. Well, of course, is wrong.

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Circumcision occurs in the very narratives that paul sites not as an additional stricture given by the law, but as the sign of inclusion in the abrahamic covenant. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between

00:45:37.100 - 00:45:53.860

me and you and your offspring. After you. Every male among you shall be circumcised any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin . He can be a bit redundant, shall be

00:45:53.860 - 00:46:09.990

cut off from my people. He has broken my covenant, Paul's convenient misappropriation of his own scripture supports the ancient provenance he claims for his reinvented tradition. Paul two Inhabits DS for a space, paul,

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James and john demonstrates the sometimes contradictory but frequently creative work of migrants. The work of figuring out communal and personal stance is wrestling with the porosity of communal boundaries and the flexibility of hard lines. The work

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of reinventing traditions while claiming ancient provenance. All the while presenting and imperfectly maintaining overarching, negotiated strategies between their home and host cultures of note to us, paul and James and john enter into this contestant and

00:46:43.340 - 00:47:01.860

sometimes contradictory and creative work in the pages of the new testament writings that we the church called scripture, that is friends. Our scriptures themselves constitute not only migrant writings, but diaspora space. Now, some

00:47:01.860 - 00:47:13.940

of you might object to my treating the new testament as a collection of migrant writings, although I will not be able to address all of your objections here , let me address to that might emerge 1st.

00:47:13.940 - 00:47:28.790

The use of contemporary models to read ancient persons is always fraught with difficulty. Even the construction of a personal identity as a concept concept is a late 19th and early 20th century invention out of concern, not

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too anachronistic, we apply modern psychological norms to these ancient examples of migrant cultural negotiation. I have specifically avoided speculating about the sanity or stability of these strategic choices. Such speculation would in fact be anachronistic and

00:47:45.920 - 00:48:00.920

serves no useful purpose. The usefulness of berries framework for me rests in its descriptive, not its prescriptive functions. Barry's framework helps us to chart a preliminary categorization of the different migrant strategies encoded in the new

00:48:00.920 - 00:48:16.190

testament canon that have long been on examined for now let me close by suggesting three ways of thinking about the new testament. Scriptures might be helpful for our task together as students that is asthma, 30 disciples

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of the written words of scripture and of the word made flesh to which scripture points first considering the new testament writings as migrant writings, contributes at least in some small way to the workaround in culture rated and

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located readings that Newsome Felder, Segovia, Tober Wimbush and the others began when I first entered seminary work that calls scholars of the bible and people of faith to consciously use our own cultural lenses so that we

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might see new realities in these ancient texts and reinterpret these old words for a new day. When I bring more migrant lenses to this text, I like , I like my forebears read differently. I read

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from my location in so doing I honor those who taught me how to read from my place, my migrant place, my diaspora space. And in turn , I hope that my in culture rated reading encourages

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you to enter into the hard work of unpacking your space, you're landed or liminal migrant or resident space so that you too might consider where your reality intersects with these scriptures and Youtube might begin the hard work

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of finding out what it means to read from your place. So first migrant reading for me is an invitation to you to read with me and to read for yourself these migrant writings that we call scripture.

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In addition, I hope that my use of the corrective complication of after bra illuminates the wondrously unsystematic messiness that was the birth of the church and in which the church continues to live daily. Despite our longing

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for order and certainty, the messiness serves as good news for it demonstrates, was the creative ways that led by the spirit of God. Our forebears of faith, thought through strategies of engagement and disengagement with

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their home culture and with their host cultures, interpreted and reinterpreted their scriptural heritages and reestablished even in the midst of deep cultural upheaval and oppressive imperial rule, links to an ancient past and to a never aging

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Tryon god on whom their communal identity rested. Finally identifying the new testament scriptures as migrant writings allows another conversation to begin tomorrow's conversation. For tomorrow, we will consider What difference it makes that we 21st century

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people of faith read these contested spaces, these reinvented traditions claiming ancient provenance, the strategies of world engagement . Yes, these migrant writings and more than just reading them, what difference it makes that we the

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church call these migrant writings these sojourners truths scripture.