Time of Troubles A New Economic Framework for Early Christianity

Economic Realities in the First-Century World, Roland Boer and Christina Petterson investigate economic realities in the first century. Particular Christian writings responded to the economic instability and changing social relationships of a Roman world in crisis as slavery expanded, transforming the agricultural economy so that slave estates could supply the needs of the polis. Theoretically flexible and responsive to historical data, Boer and Petterson's use of Régulation theory takes seriously the centrality of agriculture in the ancient world and finds economic instability to be the norm, except for brief episodes of imposed stability. Book jacket.