ARTICLES

Volume 51 - Issue 1

Reflections on Including the Stranger

By David G. Firth

1. Context and Approach

As with many who write on some area of biblical theology, my motivation in writing Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets¹ emerged from important pastoral, missional, and ethical issues I was encountering, issues where I wanted to ground my response more clearly in the biblical witness. Of course, one cannot simply read a ‘biblical theology of migration and ethnicity’ straight out of the Bible, because these are categories that have a specific nuance in modern discourse that differs from that of the biblical world. How such matters are constructed today are not the same as they were in comparatively recent history, let alone in the Old Testament. In addition, one cannot separate this from the issue of how one is to understand God’s involvement in Israel’s arrival in the land and the violence associated with that, since the issue of ethnicity is an integral part of this discussion. Indeed, when people learn that I teach Old Testament, it is one of the most frequent issues that they raise.

For me, biblical theology is therefore not an abstract discussion of some aspect of the Bible. It is rather a point at which the message of the Bible and the practice of discipleship come together. It remains the case that, in doing the detailed exegesis that supports the work of biblical theology, it may be necessary to move into areas that may seem obscure to many. But provided we keep the goals of discipleship before us, biblical theology can and should be understood as a discipline that is intensely practical, a place where careful exegesis and the issues involved in following Jesus come together. I therefore reject the sort of approach championed by James Barr in which biblical theology is a descriptive task rather than a normative one.² Rather, an evangelical approach to biblical theology takes the Bible’s normative status as its starting point because of the need for the Bible to shape all we believe, are, and do. However, in agreement with Barr, I do accept that we need to interrogate the Bible carefully, ensuring we allow its voice to be heard rather than projecting our own onto it, while also understanding how its content shapes and develops our theology.³ This process recognises that the interrogation of the biblical material is not restricted to the topoi that have typically guided systematic theology. Rather, careful examination of the biblical text shows that it too speaks to many issues that have perhaps only risen to prominence in recent years in which its contribution has been relatively unnoticed. We do not need to ignore key themes that receive prominent attention across the canon in a search for novelty, but neither do we assume that they are the sum total of biblical theology. Rather, for as long as discipleship faces new challenges, and as fresh questions arise, it is the task of the biblical theologian to examine the Bible to identify how specific texts or broader themes within it help shape our discipleship. Biblical theology is never less than descriptive, but that description of the biblical material finds its goal in shaping discipleship.

Although my reflections in Including the Stranger thus arise from my convictions about the interface between the Bible and questions of discipleship, I am not sure that I can trace the book’s origin to the questions of ethnicity which are at its core and which remain so prominent in current discourse. I was undoubtedly aware of discussions about ethnicity and migration that shape my thinking, something that continues to shape my existence as a foreigner living in the United Kingdom. But as someone whose vocation lies in the study and teaching of the Old Testament for those entering Christian ministry, and as someone who still moonlights as a preacher on some weekends, I also spend a good deal of my time engaging with the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, simply because it is there and worthy of study in its own right. That is, I do not only read and study the Bible simply because there are questions that I am confronting for which I do not have ready answers. I read and study the Bible because doing so is something that continually nourishes my own discipleship, confronting me with insights into the nature of God and what it is to know and serve him. I read the Bible because, as Craig Bartholomew reminds us, it is a means by which we hear God’s address.⁴

How, then, did my understanding of the nature of biblical theology and awareness of many contemporary issues concerned with ethnicity result in this book? Much of my professional work as a biblical interpreter has focused on the books of the Former Prophets, in the classroom, as a preacher, and also in my writing.⁵ It was in studying these texts that I began noticing the prominent role played by so many foreigners, and that there were many who I had not previously realised were foreigners. As I did so, I realised that their presentation was contrary to what I had often heard, and that the scholarly literature did not seem to address this issue in a manner that I found helpful. Alongside this, I was regularly encountering popular claims that suggested that these books effectively demonised foreigners. Richard Dawkins might not, in my view, be an effective biblical interpreter, but his claims about God in the Old Testament being a vengeful xenophobe, such that Israel’s entry into the land was morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, seem to have found considerable traction in both popular culture and the church.⁶ In truth, I do not know which came first—observations about the positive portrayal of so many foreigners or the contemporary discussions about both ethnicity and the justice of Israel’s arrival in the land. Perhaps it was just that these elements came together in a helpful way, helping me to see what I believed was an important insight in the Former Prophets—that these texts were not opposed to foreigners, only to foreign religion, and that Israel was called to be an ethnically inclusive and religiously exclusive people. Provided foreigners embraced Yahweh, they could be an important part of Israel. Conversely, the figure of Achan emerged as someone much more important than I had previously noted. He was someone with impeccable ethnic credentials and yet was excluded from Israel precisely because he placed his own interests before those of Yahweh. Ethnicity on its own was never enough. Indeed, anticipating themes that will become more prominent in the New Testament, it was always about a living faith in God.

2. Content and Structure

Given my concerns in the book, its structure seemed to me to be fairly self-evident—the introductory chapter sets out the main issues concerning ethnicity before devoting one chapter to each of the books of the Former Prophets. The opening chapter also situated me as a reader of these texts. It seems to me to be important that the discussion of a topic which has potential implications for me (and my family) needed to be signalled, while also indicating the role this has played in the book’s development. I am not sure that declaring such situatedness is always necessary, but especially where the conclusions drawn from the biblical material have important implications for my own understanding and practice of aspects of Christian social ethics, it seems only right to note the possibility that some of my interests could come from that situatedness. On the other hand, I did not want to weigh down the opening chapter with an extensive discussion of theories of ethnicity. I could have expanded the chapter with a discussion of race and ethnicity as elements of social construction in which how we define the other is largely the result of social relations. This in turn would need to enter the discussion of whether race and ethnicity exist apart from those social relations. But I am not sure that the points made would have changed, because if people believe in such things (whether or not there is a reality behind them), then that understanding of race and ethnicity shapes their belief and actions. Moreover, and building on J. Daniel Hays,⁷ it seems to me that the biblical material does not reflect on issues of race and ethnicity in those categories. While I accept that we always have some theory through which we read the Bible, it did not seem to me that a detailed treatment of these areas of theory would have enriched the work.

Each of the books of the Former Prophets receives a chapter on its own. This reflects my conviction that reading these books as ‘Former Prophets’, rather than the common scholarly convention of the Deuteronomistic History, is important. This is not the place to detail my criticisms of the Deuteronomistic History as a hermeneutical construct, but I simply note that it ignores the canonical divisions between each of the books, books that each have a clear beginning and end. This allows us to recognise that, although these books have a clear family resemblance, there are also distinctive emphases that each brings, a distinctiveness that is flattened out when read as part of a Deuteronomistic History. So, although not a primary goal of the work, I did have a subsidiary goal of showing the fruitfulness of reading in this mode, and in particular of noting that although there was a shared vision of including foreigners, each book within the Former Prophets also develops this with its own distinctives.

Having previously written at some length on both Joshua and Samuel, I was able to draw on a body of existing research, though especially in the case of the material on Samuel there were points where I found myself needing to nuance my earlier conclusions or even to realise that there were important points where I had simply not appreciated the extent to which matters of ethnicity played out.

To give only one example, my earlier treatment of David’s friend Hushai the Archite had given no attention to the fact that his gentilic identified him as being a member of a clan that had remained in Israel after Israel’s entry into the land (cf. Josh 16:2). Like many contemporary western readers, the ethnic marking of his name had not seemed significant—no more important than a surname is today in identifying which person is meant. But though gentilics do not have only one function, ethnic marking can be one. Until I began exploring the issue of ethnicity, I did not appreciate how often it appears.

By contrast, it was doing detailed work on Joshua that first made me aware of how important this theme is. After all, the first person we encounter in the land is Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute who turns out to have a clearer understanding of Israel’s faith and purpose than the scouts who come to her house, and who demonstrates this in enabling their escape. That she is clearly contrasted with Achan, an Israelite of the Israelites who acts more like a Canaanite, is surely a vital part of the book’s presentation. As with Hushai, until doing the additional research for this book I had not realised the extent to which the figure of Achan casts a shadow over the remaining books of the Former Prophets, all of which allude to his story in showing points where Israel fails to live out its calling.⁸ That Caleb was of Edomite descent, and yet becomes the paradigm character for the land allocation chapters in Joshua, was also not something I had anticipated.

Although I had a reasonable body of work on both Judges and Kings, there was more fresh research involved here. In both books, there are people who I again had not realised were presented as foreigners. The case of Shamgar is perhaps an easy one to have missed since his own account takes only one verse (Judg 3:31), though he is also mentioned in the Song of Deborah (Judg 5:6). Of course once we recognise that Caleb was a foreigner, then Othniel (Judg 3:7–11) is too. Just as Caleb is a paradigm in Joshua, so also is Othniel in Judges. In Kings, it was Elijah who was the unexpected foreigner. The most indefatigable defender of authentic Yahwism was from a settler family, though his parents must clearly have been believers given his name’s testimony to that faith.

I could, like the writer to the Hebrews, go on with yet more foreigners in the Former Prophets, but time would fail me (Heb 11:32). Through foreigners, we see more clearly what Israel can be, and how it fails. Through foreigners, we gain a framework for assessing faithfulness and seeing that Israel was always more than its ethnicity. Israel was true to its calling when it included those who came to faith in Yahweh. Foreigners were, in fact, a major source of enrichment to Israel’s life. They could be a threat when they did not abandon their previous religion, but so could Israelites who did not remain faithful.

Why does this matter? It has, I think, important implications for how we read the New Testament and the church’s discovery of God’s work among the Gentiles. It also has important implications for how Christians engage with governments on issues of immigration today. I do not mean by this that all Christians will necessarily agree on government policies, even if they find my exegesis persuasive. But it should make clear that approaches to foreigners today that automatically demonise them simply because they are foreigners are unacceptable. As peoples move around the world today, we need to think through the biblical material more thoroughly than ever before.

For this to happen, there is more work to be done, both on the biblical material and contemporary ethical reflection. I was delighted to see that Daniel Timmer has built on my work in a recent study on the Latter Prophets,⁹ but there is more to be done in this area. I would hope that similar works could be produced on the Pentateuch, while Psalms also provides rich resources for reflection on this area. As always, once we begin studying the Bible in depth, it opens up new areas for us, expanding our understanding of discipleship and enabling us to wrestle with fresh challenges for today.