My book group is reading The Last Week by Crossan and Borg. I thought this was going to take me away from the science, environment and food related reading I'd rather be doing, but it brought me right back.
Reading the background on the temple-centered economic system in Jesus' place and time, I was reminded how much of that depended on agriculture. Consolidation of lands in the hands of a few because of debt is not a new thing. Shifting production from diversified basic agriculture to luxury cash crops is not a new thing. Subsistence then would have been barley or other grains, lentils or other legumes and vegetables, while the luxury crops would have been grapes, figs, olives, dates and the like. (Funny - as land prices go up here in Sonoma County its more and more grapes, and more olives.) Because large land holders tried to get away with as little labor as possible, many peasants, now landless, were forced to seek menial work in the cities, beg, or take up a life of crime, and buy their food.
Food security expressed in the language of the prophets:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.... Micah 4:3b-4
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