The Pauline collection for the poor in Jerusalem is the most famous example of financial support for geographically distant groups in early Christianity. Recent assessments of the Pauline collection have focused on patronage to explain the social relations between Jerusalem and the Pauline groups and the strategies adopted by Paul. Through a comparison with the Greco-Roman world and a close reading of the texts, this study challenges the recent approach and proposes that other factors shaped Paul’s stance. Paul was interested in reassuring the Corinthians about the financial outcome of the collection and dispelling doubts that he might take advantage of them. The collection was an action modeled on divine generosity and an exchange within a reciprocal relationship between Christian groups. This study also surveys intergroup support between Christian groups in the first three centuries CE. This practice involved churches from most of the Mediterranean Basin and was known even outside of Christian circles. Transfers of money were organized according to a consistent pattern modeled on local charitable practices. The Pauline collection had similar characteristics and can be seen as part of this widespread economic practice.

The Right to Health in the "International Bill of Rights" -- Latin America and the Right to Healthcare -- Alma-Ata and the Advent of "Primary Care" in the Cold War -- Return to the US: From Medicare to Universal Healthcare? -- Return to Latin America: Alma-Ata in Nicaragua -- 7 The Right to Health in the Age of Neoliberalism -- Exit Alma-Ata, Enter the World Bank -- Healthcare and Neoliberalism: A Return to Chile, Nicaragua, China, Russia, and Cuba -- HIV/AIDS and the Human Right to Health Movement -- The Right to Health in Law: International and Domestic -- Medicines and the Rights-Commodity Dialectic: The Case of South Africa -- Rights, Litigation, and Privatization: Brazil, Colombia, India, and Canada -- The Healthcare Rights-Commodity Dialectic in a Time of Austerity and Reaction -- Conclusion -- Index.

This work explores the Jewish sources of philanthropic institutions in the Western world, a focus that has long been ignored by those who have focused their interest on the Greco-Roman culture. The author explores the possibility of Jewish influence on early Christian charities.

Social welfare has a three-thousand-year history in Western society. Th is book off ers a sociological framework that provides conceptual order to the countless details of that history, while highlighting its essentials. Social welfare in all its forms is based on one central concept-help. But there are many versions of help and multiple debates about those versions. Th e outcomes of some debates have led to withholding help, and these outcomes are an inescapable part of this domain, in the past and in the present. Th e major versions, their development, and the debates are carefully examined in this volume.

Social welfare has a three-thousand-year history in Western society. This book offers a sociological framework that provides conceptual order to the countless details of that history, while highlighting its essentials. Social welfare in all its forms is based on one central concept--help. But there are many versions of help and multiple debates about those versions. The outcomes of some debates have led to withholding help, and these outcomes are an inescapable part of this domain, in the past and in the present. The major versions, their development, and the debates are carefully examined in this volume. Social Welfare in Western Society argues that in history five basic concepts of help have emerged. These five, explored and developed are: charity, based on a relationship between private donors and recipients; public welfare, based on a relationship between the state and its recipients; social insurance, based on a relationship between the state and beneficiaries of its programs; social service, based on people skilled in interaction providing skill-based time to their clients; mutual aid groups (sometimes misleadingly called self-help groups), whose members are simultaneously helpers and those helped. There are multiple versions of each of these five concepts now usually referred to as social policy issues. There are fierce disagreements about what is helpful and which supposed forms of help are harmful to the wider society. The book concludes that major debates have centered and continue to center around these major issues: Should the poor be helped or punished? Who is to blame? Do the poor have the same rights as other people? Who should pay? Who should decide? What is the effect of receiving welfare on incentive to work? Who should be helped? This is a masterful text designed for professional and public reading. Gerald Handel is professor emeritus of sociology at The City College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Making a Life in Yorkville: Experience and Meaning in the Life Course Narrative of an Urban Working-Class Man, editor of Childhood Socialization, and co-editor of The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, all published by Transaction Publishers.

A study of medieval confraternities and their almsgiving activities, which Flynn believes created the first comprehensive welfare system in Western Europe. She also incorporates a study of late medieval society and its religious ideology and looks at the motivation of the confraternities.

This volume presents an innovative picture of the ancient Mediterranean world. Approaching poverty as a multifaceted condition, it examines how different groups were affected by the lack of access to symbolic, cultural and social – as well as economic – capital. Collecting a wide range of studies by an international team of experts, it presents a diverse and complex analysis of life in antiquity, from the archaic to the late antique period. The sections on Greece, Rome, and Late Antiquity offer in-depth studies of ancient life, integrating analysis of socio-economic dynamics and cultural and discursive strategies that shaped this crucial element of ancient (and modern) societies. Themes like social cohesion and control, exclusion, gender, agency, and identity are explored through the combination of archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence, presenting a rich panorama of Greco-Roman societies and a stimulating collection of new approaches and methodologies for their understanding. The book offers a comprehensive view of the ancient world, analysing different social groups – from wealthy elites to poor peasants and the destitute – and their interactions, in contexts as diverse as Classical Athens and Sparta, imperial Rome, and the late antique towns of Egypt and North Africa. Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome: Discourses and Realities is a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, classical literature, and archaeology. In addition, topics covered in the book are of interest to social scientists, scholars of religion, and historians working on poverty and social history in other periods.

Published in the year 2006, The Purchase of Pardise is a valuable contribution to the field of Major Works.