J. David Pleins

Injustice Made Legal

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Is the Bible really on the side of the poor? Drawing on advances in culture criticism, Harold Bennett's work rescues the widow, stranger, and orphan from the realm of cliche to reveal their plight as victims of 'concealed sociopolitical interests': they were exploited by the very people who claimed to be helping them. Asking what the overprivileged stood to gain from the drafting of Deuteronomy's laws concerning the poor, Bennett uncovers a web of deceit that ensnared the poor while benefiting an elite religious movement. His book challenges our worn-out assumptions about the Bible's advocacy for the widow, stranger, and orphan, exposing a world in which the poor were nothing more than exploited pawns in a high-stakes political game. Bennett convincingly argues that the biblical laws that appear to aid the poor actually intensified the very injustices that such laws were supposed to fix. This is a timely book whose contemporary relevance is painfully obvious in a world plagued by rampant poverty amid obscene accumulations of wealth.”