Stranger: A Biblical Teaching as an Anthropological Resource

Abstract

The biblical priority to care for the stranger is high in both Old and New Testaments.  Furthermore, the stranger includes not only foreigners in Israel’s midst, but all those who are other to us, even we ourselves, and God.  We are to see, make space for, and provide solidarity and shalom for the stranger in an I-Thou manner, not exploit them as an It, respecting the boundaries as well as the relations between people.  In so doing, we are able to hold in tension both the particularities of human difference and the universality of God’s love for all.  Perhaps theologians and anthropologists, as relative strangers, can begin to welcome and care more effectively for one another in this biblical “I-Thou” manner.