Poverty, Law, and Divine Justice in Persian and Hellenistic Judah

Pickwick Publications, 2021

Like the first two volumes in this series (WealthWatch, Pickwick, 2011; and WealthWarn, Pickwick, 2019) this book attempts to do two things: (a) examine the primary socioeconomic motifs in the Bible from a comparative intertextual perspective, and (b) trace the trajectory formed by these motifs into early Jewish and Nazarene texts. Where WealthWatch focuses on Torah and WealthWarn focuses on the Prophets, WealthWise focuses on the wisdom literature. The texts examined here include the Instructions of Shuruppak, Codex Hammurabi, the Poem of the Pious Sufferer (Ludlul bel nemeqi), the Babylonian Theodicy, the Shamash Hymn, the Dialogue of Pessimism, various Hittite texts, the Proverbs of Ahiqar, 4QInstruction, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, the Wisdom of Solomon, plus Luke's "Sermon on the Plain" and the Epistle of James.

Pickwick Publications, 2011

The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions, basing itself on the presumption that (a) nobody can understand themselves apart from some recognition of their spiritual roots, and (b) that these roots sink deeper into the pages of the Bible than most Westerners realize. Focusing on that part of the Bible most widely recognized to be its ideological core--that which is called Torah by some, Pentateuch by others--it interprets this "great text" against other "great texts" in its literary world, including some epic poems from Mesopotamia (Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, Erra), some Jewish texts from Syria-Palestine (1-2 Maccabees, Damascus Document, 1QS, 1QpHab, and 1QHodayot), and some Nazarene parables from the Greek New Testament (Gospel of Luke).

2001

2018

Stone-Campbell Journal Conference, 2018 While there has been much written about the theme of poverty in the Bible, there does not exist the same volume of research concerning Scriptures response to the impoverished. Throughout the Bible, a concern for the vulnerable often arises. Yet, when communities read Scripture and understand the importance of helping the poor, scripture is not often looked to as a source for practices. All too common the further question is left un asked, how does scripture itself address issues surrounding poverty? The drive for this paper stems from a desire to elucidate the ways scripture itself addresses poverty. While there are many potential starting places for a question like this, my paper will focus on how ancient Israel responded to their own needy. I specifically focus on how Deut 15, the law concerning the remission of debt, served as a practice to ameliorate the needs of one group of the vulnerable members of ancient Israel. My hope is that this project will further our understanding of how God's people throughout their history have sought to realize a vision set forth in Deut 15 where God's people are called to be a set apart people where the possibility of Deut 15:4, "there shall be no poor among you," is realized. Deuteronomy 15 serves as an important aspect in the economic life of ancient Israel that seeks to address economic imbalances within the community. However, many scholars seem to overlook its importance by dismissing the remission of debts as utopian, impractical, and ahistorical. 1 In this paper, I offer a reading of Deut 15 in light of ancient Near East debt forgiveness practices to show the realistic program Deuteronomy calls for and to show how Deuteronomy innovates this practice. I argue that Debt forgiveness was practiced in ancient Israel and it was practiced, like many of the Deuteronomic laws, as a sign to the nations of a different kind of living that was made possible by Yahweh. Our examination will focus on Debt release in its ancient Near East context, and the text of Deut 15. We will begin with the relevant material from Israel's Mesopotamian neighbors-mainly Assyria and Babylon-where debt forgiveness was repeatedly declared for centuries. Then, our examination will focus on the text and grammar of Deut 15:1-11 to understand how the law of release is presented as a way to address poverty by "generosity empowered by blessing" 2 through obedience. We will also focus on the unique aspects of Deut 15 based on our background material analysis. By way of conclusion, I hope to offer some brief reflections concerning the modern church's approach to poverty.

The Journal of Religion, 2015

Old Testament Essays, 2020

Various laws were practised in ancient Israel. Although the present study will introduce briefly the concept of law as practised in Ancient Near East (ANE) in general, the project focuses particularly on ancient Israel as depicted by the Old Testament (OT) law traditions. The study seeks to investigate two main issues, namely: (1) formulation and implementation of the laws in ancient Israel, and (2) the application of the OT laws during the New Testament (NT) era and in Christendom. An attempt is made to respond to the following three research questions: (1) how were the OT laws formulated and implemented? (2) Were the OT laws the same as those practised by pagan nations or kings? (3) what is the NT/Christian view of the OT laws? In its entirety, the discourse will utilise two approaches, namely: (1) narrative inquiry, and (2) desk research.

Pickwick Publications, 2019

Like the first volume in this series (WealthWatch, Pickwick, 2011) this volume attempts two things: (a) to examine the primary socioeconomic motifs in the Bible from a comparative intertextual perspective, and (b) to trace the trajectory formed by these motifs through Tanak into early Jewish and Nazarene texts. Where WealthWatch focuses on Torah, however, WealthWarn focuses on the single largest section of Tanak—the Prophets. Where the ancient Near Eastern texts surveyed in WealthWatch include the Epic of Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, and the Erra Epic, the texts examined here include Inanna's Descent, the Babylonian Creation Epic (enūma elish), the Disappearance of Telipinu, and the Ba`al Epic. Where the Jewish texts surveyed in WealthWatch include historical and sectarian texts, the texts studied here include Ezra-Nehemiah, the Epistle of Jeremiah and Tobit. Where the Nazarene texts in WealthWatch focus on the stewardship parables found in the Gospel of Luke, the texts examined here focus on several prophetic vignettes from the Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles.

Few ancient civilizations preserved in their literature such a lengthy tradition of tension between rich and poor, or such vivid critiques of oppression, as were preserved in the literature of Judaism. These tensions appear in both pre-exilic and post-exilic works, and surface again in some parts of the New Testament, particularly in the book of James, in passages which reflect the traditions in which Jewish Christianity was apparently grounded. The culmination of this antagonista occurred during the war of 66-70 A.D., when factions among the Jewish rebels attacked their own upper classes during the revolt against Rome. The paper documents this antagonism, and also suggests how religion and politics intermixed to produce during most of this period results quite unlike secular classbased movements. Modern thinkers and activists, in contemplating the ancient Jewish homilies and diatribes stimulated by oppression and by the plight of the lower orders in society, should note both the prevalence of this kind of material, and the constraints on its political realization in that context.