ABSTRACT
The Bible is the main legislative and literary influence on European Poor Law and on literature on poverty and the poor. No extant literature from the ancient world placed more importance upon social welfare and the duty of the better-off toward the poor. Most societies have tended to accept poverty as a natural condition. Not the Bible. The agricultural laws and customs of the Bible were continually germane to largely agricultural European societies until the Industrial Revolution, and even to some extent after; and biblical poetry too, the Psalms above all, inspired a daily struggle to limit the gap between rich and poor. The popular appeal of the Bible in largely impoverished societies lies in its persistent relevance to and support of the poor. Biblical influence dominated European culture after the invention of printing, when Bible translation became the chief driving force in European culture. Biblical influence spread in the 16th century as the Reformation spread, when prolonged European warfare and population growth increased the numbers of the poor, and the rise of capitalism widened the gap between rich and poor. Yet, in many ways, biblical teachings were incompatible with social and political circumstances centuries and millennia later. This chapter asks: why the unusual sympathy of the Bible for the poor?
