Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East: Guide to the Bible and Economics, Volume 1 - Paperback

by Matthew J. M. Coomber (Editor)

Over the past few decades biblical economics has developed into an important subfield of biblical studies. Through examining the economic realities that lay behind Hebrew biblical texts and archaeological findings, biblical economics has led to greater understandings of the cultures and experiences of ancient Hebrew communities, the legal and religious texts they produced, and of how those texts may or may not relate to the experiences of communities who continue to receive them, today. Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East has brought together ten scholars of biblical economics and one economic anthropologist to create a repository of what is understood about the economic realities of Southwest Asia in the late second and first millennia BCE. In addition to furthering the research and teaching interests of biblical scholars, this volume has also been created for the benefit of economic historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.

Author Biography

Matthew J. M. Coomber is professor of biblical studies and theology at St. Ambrose University and an Episcopal priest. His publications include Re-Reading the Prophets through Corporate Globalization (2010; paperback ed., Cascade, 2022) and Bible and Justice (2011). He is coeditor of Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha (2014) and editor of the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice Guide to Bible and Economics (Cascade).