[PDF] Full Land As An Economic Factor And Its Biblical Origins Download eBook

Land As an Economic Factor and Its Biblical Origins

Author: Kenneth Wenzer

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2003-11

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0595299814

Our homage to freedom is a mockery, for the blinding glare of riches and power have made of democracy an illusion. The consequence is life without social and economic justice and a false view-we are chained to monetary acquisitiveness, group identities, and other limited perspectives. Power and influence coupled with technology, bureaucracy, and greed have masked accumulated wisdom-the bedrock of individual integrity. Even social injustice masked as property rights takes on a look of integrity, liberty, and prosperity. At the root of our problems is the relation of man to the land and his mental and physical separation from it. The most endurable structure would be built upon the Fatherhood of God, which the ancient Hebrews perceived as requiring the sharing among the entire people of the divine gift of land. While land rent has been acknowledged to be socially created, a theft by private interests of natural resources that belong to mankind in common, is protected and exalted as the fruit of effort and a basis of personal rights. The First Definitive History of Land Economics stands in a tradition of social criticism that recognizes that land-rent income should be the tax base of the community and the means to eliminate poverty. The author hopes to do something towards overcoming a way of thinking that in the guise of defending property rights defends privilege in its robbery of Nature, labor, and life.

The Annotated Works of Henry George

Author: Francis K. Peddle

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-12-24

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1611477026

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Henry George (1839–1897) rose to fame as a social reformer and economist amid the industrial and intellectual turbulence of the late nineteenth century. His best-selling Progress and Poverty (1879) captures the ravages of privileged monopolies and the woes of industrialization in a language of eloquent indignation. His reform agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the Gilded Age, and his impassioned prose and compelling thought inspired such diverse figures as Leo Tolstoy, John Dewey, Sun Yat-Sen, Winston Churchill, and Albert Einstein. This six-volume edition of the works of Henry George assembles all his major works for the first time with new introductions, critical annotations, extensive bibliographical material, and comprehensive indexing to provide a wealth of resources for scholars and reformers. Volume 1 of The Annotated Works of Henry George includes an introduction to the six-volume series that focuses on the social context for George’s political economy, as well as the public and private struggles that George faced. Tension between the dream of economic justice and different techniques to realize it proved a continuing challenge for the Georgist movement after its heady early years. Volume 1 presents three major works by George and new essays to provide context. George wrote Our Land and Land Policy (1871) while still a journalist in California. Fred Foldvary shows that George, even as a neophyte economist, wrote with uncanny insight and analytical skill. In The Irish Land Question (1881), George dove into the maelstrom of Irish land policy. Jerome Heavey provides the essential clarification of the history and politics of Irish land law and explains why George’s remedy was not adopted. Property in Land (1885) incorporates the debate between George and the eighth Duke of Argyll. Brian Hodgkinson provides the historical and philosophical setting for this exchange between the Scottish aristocratic landowner and the American “Prophet of San Francisco.”

The Land, the Bible, and History

Author: Alain Marchadour

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2009-08-25

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0823226611

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This unique book offers a Catholic view of the Holy Land in the debate that rages among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Alain Marchadour and David Neuhaus, two biblical scholars and priests living in Jerusalem, clearly analyze the Promised Land-as concept, history, and contested terrain-in Catholic teaching and doctrine. They offer an analytical reading of the entire Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments) with reference to the idea of the Land promised by God. They explore early and medieval attitudes, especially with regard to the Holy Places and the Jewish people. Moving carefully to the present day, they focus on anti-Semitism, the tragedy ofthe Shoah, Western colonialism in the Middle East, the creation of the State of Israel, and the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem as they examine Catholic reactions to the tumultuous events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the renewal of Catholic thought in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. Studying the most recent Church documents, Marchadour and Neuhaus confront the ongoing struggle for peace, justice, and reconciliation in the Middle East. This illuminating book is an essential tool for all those struggling to understand the links between the Bible, the Church, and contemporary Middle Eastern realities, especially in Israel and Palestine.

Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy

Author: David A. Fiensy

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1625641818

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What does economics have to do with Christian origins? Why study such a connection? First of all, the New Testament makes many direct references to economic issues. But, second, the economy affects every other aspect of life (family, religion, community, work, health, and politics). To understand what it was like to live in a society, one must understand what the economy was doing. The study of the economy includes not only the goods and services of a society but also human labor and its control. For one, it entails the size of the pie of goods. (How prosperous was first-century Galilee?) But the study of economy also takes account of the slice of the pie that each family obtained. (How fair was the economy to each family?) Those involved in the quest for the historical Jesus have discovered that the ancient economy is a major point of dispute among various interpreters. Was the early Jesus movement a socioeconomic protest? Or was it primarily a religious reform? These two approaches understand Jesus in remarkably different ways. This volume seeks to guide readers through some of the most controversial issues raised in the last twenty years on this important topic.

Idols of Nations

Author: Roland Boer

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1451484410

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Roland Boer and Christina Petterson here produce a critical survey showing that the rise of capitalist theory was shaped by the way different economic philosophers—Smith, Hobbes, Grotius, Malthus, Locke––read the Bible. Invoking Jeremiah (14:22) and Adam Smith—who took the title of his Wealth of Nations from Isaiah (61:6, 66:12)—they show that early theories of capitalism were shaped by particular assumptions that these theorists brought to their readings of the story of Eden in particular. They examine those assumptions and evaluate what has changed in subsequent centuries. Idols of Nations shows that the Bible was central to the theorization and economic thought of these key thinkers as it explores the distinct problems each sought to overcome.

Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee

Author: Jeffrey A. Fager

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 1993-02-01

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 056762319X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The biblical jubilee represents one of the most radical programmes for land reform from the ancient Near East, yet it was never practised in ancient Israel. What then is the meaning of this sacred law that was never enforced? This cogently argued book attempts to answer that question by using the tools of sociological analysis. Fager examines three levels of meaning within the jubilee legislation, which was produced by the priestly intellectuals during the period of exile. The actual words of the text carry one meaning and the priests intended a slightly different meaning, but underlying both was a moral world view that guided them. The laws of the biblical jubilee thus enable us to examine the deepest level of the ancient Israelites' understanding of land and justice.

The Economy of Ancient Judah in Its Historical Context

Author: Marvin Lloyd Miller

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-11-04

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1575064146

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The dynamics of ancient Judah’s economy are among the most important, but also neglected and least understood, aspects of ancient Israel’s history. The essays in this volume address this gap from a multidisciplinary perspective, involving archeology, biblical studies, economics, epigraphy, ancient history, Jewish studies, and theology. The essays focus on particular issues in the economy of ancient Judah and its neighbors during the late monarchy and the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenistic periods. Some of them evaluate the theoretical models used to understand the inner workings of ancient agrarian economies, while others explore rural economies, the forces of regeneration and degeneration in particular regions, the settlement histories of different areas, and the exploitation of depopulated land in Judah and Idumea. Essays in the volume also address population growth, urbanization, the role of diverse temple towns (such as Babylon and Jerusalem) in regional market economies, the literary portrayal of patron–client relationships, symmetrical and asymmetrical relations in international trade, and the views of urban elites toward agrarian economic developments. Yet others discuss family economics—policies of reproduction, gender roles, family size, and household hierarchies—in Judah and ancient Persia. Many of the essays appearing in this volume were originally delivered as papers in special sessions devoted to these topics at annual meetings of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and the European Association of Biblical Studies. The scholars participating in this international project conduct their research at institutions in Canada, Germany, Israel, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States.

Faith and Wealth

Author: Justo L. Gonzalez

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2002-04-16

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1579109357

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ideas pertaining to economics and social order were central concerns of the early Christian church, yet modern theologians and scholars have paid little or no attention to these issues as important theological questions. This brilliant and thorough study is a history of the views that Christians held of the origin, significance and use of wealth. Justo Gonzalez examines early Christian ideas, beliefs and teachings about the use of money, property, communal sharing and the rights and obligations of rich and poor. Setting the Christian community in the political, social and economic contexts of the times, Gonzalez highlights the ideas of such prominent writers as Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and the Desert Fathers concerning wealth -- noting what traditional scholarship has overlooked. As the author points out, this book is not a social or economic history of Christianity during the first four centuries; it is a history of the views that Christians held on economic matters. This profound, enlightening and highly readable work of excellent scholarship is a major contribution to the study of the history of Christian thought. It clearly demonstrates that the issues of economics and social justice are central theological concerns, deeply rooted in Christian doctrine and Christian tradition.