ABSTRACT
‘Strangers’ and ‘strangeness’ are motifs embedded at the heart of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. They weave their way through it as a recurring thread. In almost every book of the Bible, explicitly or implicitly, the interconnected themes of journeying, alienation and encountering outsiders are explored. The peoples of God frequently found themselves wandering or experiencing exile in foreign lands and it is this which explains the pervasiveness of the thread. Fascination with strangeness is also a response to universal and perennial human preoccupations. Mursell suggests that it reflects the ‘urge to migrate [that] has characterized human civilization since earliest times’ (2005: 4) and Brueggemann claims that the Bible is addressed to ‘the central human problem of homelessness (anomie)’ (2002: 200). Life as strangers is double-edged in the Judaeo-Christian tradition in that, while affirmed as a God-given and fruitful calling, it is also peppered with a painful longing for home and roots. The following fragmentary montage provides an overview of the range of material and writing on the theme. 1
