Bibliography
| Title: Poverty and charity in Roman Palestine, first three centuries C.E. Type: Thesis Year: 1983 Abstract: "This work describes people's standards of life in Roman Palestine, with a view to compare the various Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman discourses on, as well as practices of, social aid. The sources used include: the Bible, especially in its Greek and Aramaic translations; several Qumran texts; the synoptic Gospels; the Mishnah, Tosefta, halakhic Midrash, and Gemaras (esp. Palestinian); Josephus; inscriptions; and archaeological reports. Using standard historiographic methods, an attempt has been made to deepen or renew the type of questions asked from the sources, chiefly with the help of other social sciences. The initial chapter surveys the vocabulary of poverty in the Septuagint, Qumran, rabbinic literature, Jewish-Christian texts, and Josephus. Attention is paid to indirect evidence. The two following chapters investigate poverty in food and clothing. These chapters show that not only the simple quantity of things consumed, but also a grid of markers based on purity and other principles, served to differentiate various levels of poverty and wealth. Chapters 4 and 5 investigate some of the causes of poverty: the physical and technical limitations, but more importantly, the ways in which appropriation of wealth and labor could happen, and be justified. Chapter 6 concentrates on the discourses and practices of charity: Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman. Chapter 7 extends the inquiry on the themes of poverty and charity--and how they affected practice--to the whole Christianized Greco-Roman world. One of the conclusions of this study is that poverty was undesirable for both Greek and Jewish cultures, except that Judaism sometimes developed certain forms of poverty in which economic and social aspects were hidden--even lost at times--in religious themes. A consequence was that not all the poor were recognized as such and could not easily claim the benefits of the laws designed to protect them. Some movements, among which Jewish Christianity, sought to correct these abuses. Christianized Greeks and Romans accepted and propagated the often shocking idea that it was a duty to help the poor. They developed methods and institutions initially based on Jewish practice. They also developed some indigenous ways of interpreting the Biblical message that can strike one as obfuscating rather than illuminating". Keywords: Jewish History: Roman Era |