Covenant Economics: A Biblical Vision of Justice for All

The Bible might seem like the last place one would look for information and guidance on economics, but in fact the Bible deals with all aspects of life. Richard Horsley's Covenant Economics explores economic issues in the Bible, offering pastors, students, and laity a clearer understanding of the Bible's clarion call for economic justice for all--an issue that is sure to resonate during today's trying economic times.

Questions for discussion and suggestions for further reading are included in this volume--a work that will spark lively conversation.

The Bible deals with all aspects of life indivisibly. In the last generation biblical scholars broadened the usual focus on religious issues with more attention to the "social world" of biblical texts. Much less attention was given to economic issues reflected in the Bible. And biblical scholars did not make the limited amount of research on economic issues in the Bible generally accessible to educated readers, clergy and lay. This book does just that, allowing pastors, students, and interested laity to form an understanding about the economics of the Bible and its clarion call for economic justice for all, an issue that is sure to resonate during today's trying economic times. Questions for discussion and suggestions for further reading are included in this volume—a work that will spark lively conversation.

"Dr. Horsley gives us insight we didn't receive in seminary: that the history of Jesus' ministry and early Christianity has far reaching implications for the economic dislocation and class disparity that existed in that time, but has equally far-reaching implications for what we are experiencing today."
—Dr. David Wilkinson, Senior Pastor, St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, Tucson, Arizona.

Richard A. Horsley is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and the Study of Religion at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He is a prolific author with twenty New Testament studies to his credit, including Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea, and editor of In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, both from Westminster John Knox Press