Migration and Western Biblical Interpretation: Empire, Method, and the Politics of Displacement (Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation, 18)

Before migration studies became a formal discipline, its core terminology was shaped within Western scientific and nationalist frameworks. This book interrogates how those frameworks continue to structure biblical interpretation. Challenging methodological nationalism and the “container model” of society, Gregory L. Cuéllar argues that empire―not the nation-state―provides the more adequate lens for understanding human mobility in the Hebrew Bible. Through sustained engagement with Ruth, prophetic literature, and the history of migration theory, the book reframes displacement as constitutive rather than anomalous. By exposing the political and epistemic assumptions embedded in migration discourse, this study calls for a more ethically accountable and post-imperial biblical scholarship.

Gregory L. Cuéllar is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ruth A. Campbell Professor of Biblical Studies at Austin Seminary. His work examines migration, empire, and interpretive method. He is the author of Resacralizing the Other at the U.S.–Mexico Border and Empire, the British Museum, and the Making of the Biblical Scholar.