Jesus and Poverty in the Context of Imperial and Local Economies in First Century Galilee

Abstract

The article studies various portraits of the local Galilean economy in consideration of developments made in recent research on the Roman economy. It challenges the view that the Roman economy as it manifested itself locally in Galilee was primitivist and served only the interests of the elite. As it turns out, the economic activities in the countryside were led by various local and regional agents and not by the elite as has often been assumed. Looking at the Roman economy writ large not only helps to correct earlier one-sided views of an allegedly poor Galilee, but also provides comparative material that helps to place the local Galilean Jesus movement as one among many groups in the globalized Roman world that used discourses of poverty as instruments of self-definition and exclusion. The language of poverty does not always indicate a lack of material resources or employment, because it is often used to connote a sense of social marginalization.

caused by various reasons.