Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-called New Consensus

Abstract

There was no new consensus or old consensus during the twentieth century regarding social status in Paul’s assemblies. A comparison of the work of Adolf Deissmann with publications from the late twentieth century suggests instead a shift from an industrial capitalist interpretation of society focused on ‘class’ to a consumer capitalist interpretation of society focused on ‘social status’. Social status defined in this way is inappropriate for the description of the Roman empire, so this argument focuses instead on measuring economic resources. Rather than using the vague binary categories of rich/poor, a poverty scale is proposed with seven categories ranging from ‘below subsistence level’ to ‘imperial elites’. Using this scale, an examination of explicit references to economic resources in the undisputed Pauline letters leads to the conclusion that there is no evidence for any wealthy saints in the Pauline assemblies. On the contrary, most of the saints can be described as poor; that is, living near or below the level of subsistence.