Abstract
The title of this lecture is “Sojourners’ Truths: The New Testament as Diaspora Space.” A seminary professor often lives a double life of teacher and preacher, and each role can inform the other. This year’s Copher lecture grows out of such cross-fertilization. In preparing to preach a sermon on the Pentecost narrative, I became aware that the “crowd” in that story was composed of immigrants dwelling in Katoikountes, Jerusalem. This raised my interest about fee presence and impact of immigration on the New Testament. My interest rose further when I conducted a quick review of the texts of the New Testament canon. The undisputed letters of Paul, of which there are seven, certainly
constitute migrant writings, as Paul was writing neither to nor from Tarsus. The four gospels. Acts, and the three Johannine epistles have been identified, for many decades, as writings by unknown authors in
exile after the Roman siege of Jerusalem.