Peasants Prophets and Political Economy: The Hebrew Bible and Social Analysis

Contents 1 Ancient Palestinian Peasant Movements and the Formation of Premonarchic Israel 2 Joshua 3 Coveting Your Neighbors House in Social Context 4 Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy 5 Debt Easement in Israelite History and Tradition 6 The Political Economy of Peasant Poverty 7 Bitter Bounty: The Dynamics of Political Economy Critiqued by the Eighth-Century Prophets 8 Whose Sour Grapes? The Addressees of Isaiah 5:1-7 9 Accusing Whom of What? Hoseas Rhetoric of Promiscuity 10 Producing Peasant Poverty: Debt Instruments in Amos 2:6b-8 13-16 11 Micah--Models Matter: Political Economy and Micah 6:9-15 12 Review of Roland Boer The Sacred Economy In ways almost unnoticed by the larger interpretive community Marvin Chaney has worked relentlessly and tirelessly and with great erudition and theological sensibility to contribute to a major revolution in Old Testament study. Against the uncritical practice of modernist reading marked by individualism and romantic spirituality Chaney has insisted on the materiality of the Bible and its defining concern for political economy. The essays in this volume bear witness to his thought and growing conviction about this radical interpretive reorientation. The collection is of immense importance not only for historical reason but because it constitutes a wake-up call in our own highly contested political economy to read the Bible knowingly and critically. Our debt to Chaney is very great for bringing these great essays back into our contemporary conversation. They continue to challenge our reading habits in important ways. --Walter Brueggemann Columbia Theological Seminary Marvin L. Chaney is Nathaniel Gray Professor of Hebrew Exegesis and Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary (emeritus). In addition to his articles and essays he published Biblical Israel through an Agrarian Lens (in Korean) and coedited Distant Voices Drawing Near and Reading a Tendentious Bible.