Insights from Reading the Bible with the Poor

To read the Bible in the 21st century requires familiarity with a wide range of strategies and perspectives that have shaped contemporary biblical scholarship. Volumes in the Insights series ask what we have learned from particular perspectives and what promise they hold out for future study and interpretation. In this volume, Crystal L. Hall, poverty scholar and Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, introduces poverty studies and its importance to biblical scholars. She describes specific insights from her direct work with impoverished communities, offering particular examples alongside careful analyses of specific biblical texts that illustrate the important insights to be gained from reading with the poor. She then presents challenges for the future of biblical interpretation in a world riven by inequality.