The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel)

New
Paperback
2015
$45.31

The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel offers a new reconstruction of the economic context of the Bible and of ancient Israel. It argues that the key to ancient economies is with those who worked on the land rather than in intermittent and relatively weak kingdoms and empires. Drawing on sophisticated economic theory (especially the Regulation School) and textual and archaeological resources, Roland Boer makes it clear that economic crisis was the norm and that economics is always socially determined. He examines three economic layers: the building blocks (five institutional forms), periods of relative stability (three regimes), and the overarching mode of production. Ultimately, the most resilient of all the regimes was subsistence survival, for which the regular collapse of kingdoms and empires was a blessing rather than a curse. Students will come away with a clear understanding of the dynamics of the economy of ancient Israel. Boer's volume should become a new benchmark for future studies.

Synopsis

The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel offers a new reconstruction of the economic context of the Bible and of ancient Israel. It argues that the key to ancient economies is with those who worked on the land rather than in intermittent and relatively weak kingdoms and empires. Drawing on sophisticated economic theory (especially the Regulation School) and textual and archaeological resources, Roland Boer makes it clear that economic crisis was the norm and that economics is always socially determined. He examines three economic layers: the building blocks (five institutional forms), periods of relative stability (three regimes), and the overarching mode of production. Ultimately, the most resilient of all the regimes was subsistence survival, for which the regular collapse of kingdoms and empires was a blessing rather than a curse. Students will come away with a clear understanding of the dynamics of the economy of ancient Israel. Boer's volume should become a new benchmark for future studies.

$45.31

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20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 570
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Published: 10 Apr 2015
ISBN 10: 0664259669
ISBN 13: 9780664259662

Media Reviews

Boer's growing corpus of critical work has not received nearly the attention that it merits. With this book Boer establishes himself as a front-line critical scholar whose work will be an inescapable reference point for future work. This courageous book is nothing short of a tour de force in which Boer probes the economic organization, structure, practice, and resources of the Near East and ancient Israel as a sub-set of that culture. His study is organized around `regimes' of allocation that distribute resources and of extraction that plunder resources according to the deployment of socio-political power. The discussion maintains a continuing dialectic of `subsistence' and `surplus' that kept economic practice endlessly open and unstable. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this book and the sheer erudition that has made it possible. Boer's patient attention to detail, his mastery of a huge critical literature, and the daring of his interpretive capacity combine to make this book a `must' for any who want to probe the economic sub-structure of biblical faith and the culture that was its environment. - Walter Brueggemann

Author Bio

Roland Boer is Professor of Literary Theory at Renmin (People's) University of China, Beijing, and Research Professor in Religious Thought at the University of Newcastle, Australia. An internationally recognized lecturer, he is the author of numerous articles and books, including In the Vale of Tears; Lenin, Religion, and Theology; Criticism of Earth and Political Grace.