Poverty in the Biblical World

Call For Papers: The Poverty in the Biblical World Section will offer three sessions in 2014: First, we will offer an open session, for which proposals are invited, focused on "The Common Good and Community Responsibility in Response to Poverty." Texts that assume people’s right to a livelihood permeate the Bible. Correspondingly, many texts emphasize the community’s collective responsibility for ensuring the economic viability of their members. In the Hebrew Bible a rich array of customs, laws, prophecies, teachings, and even royal propaganda articulate community and/or state responsibility for people’s economic sufficiency. Similarly, Gospel texts of covenant renewal insist upon mutual aid and cooperation. And the apostle Paul is engaged in a “collection for the poor.” Such biblical texts stand in striking contrast to the erosion of public values and the common good in public discourse today. We invite proposals for analyses and interpretations of key texts on the collective responsibility of responding to poverty in maintaining the common good, understood in historical context and/or their effective history, and/or their pertinence for addressing poverty today. Second, we intend to offer a session, with presentations to be arranged and open discussion, on "Ideology, Poverty, and the Formation of Biblical Scholars." Third, we also hope to cooperate with Economics in the Biblical World in a joint session on "(Im)migration, (Forced) Labor and Poverty."

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