PERSPEKTIF PERJANJIAN LAMA TENTANG 'anawim SEBAGAI KOMUNITAS PERJANJIAN YAHWE

Abstract

In order to bring the churches in Asia toreturn to the original vision of the Jesus movement as “amovement of the poor for the poor”, in the midst of thereality of poverty in Asia as their primary reality context, thispaper attempts to trace the Old Testament (OT) testimoniesof the covenant community of Yahweh as a community ofthe people who are poor, alien, oppressed, and marginalizedin society. Some scholars distinguish the meaning of 'ani and 'anawim in OT texts; 'ani refers to the people who areeconomically poor, oppressed, and exploited, while 'anawim to the people who are pious and humble. However, the useof successive-changing and the interchangeable nature ofthese two words in many occasions, show that 'anawim is the plural form synonymous with 'ani, so they should notbe distinguished; they both refer to forms of concrete socioeconomicpoverty.