ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the Jews of ancient Judea perceived poverty. It focuses on the changing relations between the rich and the poor, as well as on the evolution of the right of the poor for support. Poverty was widespread among the Jewish population of Roman Judea. Nineteenth-century American authors used words such as poor, pauper, and destitute when they wrote about those in poverty in their days, but they could not agree on how to define these terms. One modern author identified population growth and eco-technological developments as crucial factors among the macrocauses of poverty. The attempt to systematize Jewish notions about the causes of poverty may be futile because this tries to impose an orderliness that is essentially foreign to the Jewish culture of the era. Avoiding poverty and not becoming dependent on others was a central axiom in ancient Judaism. This belief was so basic that it was held to be of biblical origin.
