Studies over my first year of graduate school forced me to begin wrestling with the issue of slavery in the Bible, as readers of this blog may have picked up from the paper on Philemon. The Bible’s treatment of slaves is one of the issues most offensive to modern Christians today, because for us the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘slavery’
27 Feb
Runaway Slaves in the Greco Roman World In Relation to Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Part 4
Examining Paul’s Letter to Philemon With this background in place we now want to briefly examine the bearing of this study on Paul’s letter to Philemon. We will look at three things. First we will look at the nature of Onesimus’ wrongs against Philemon. Second, we will consider the rights of Philemon as slaveholder. Third, [...]
26 Feb
Runaway Slaves in the Greco Roman World In Relation to Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Part 3
Runaway Slaves Reasons for Flight There are three broad ways to categorize reasons a slave might have had for running away. A slave might run away to escape a dangerous or harmful situation, i.e. a slave might run away because he or she was being treated unfairly or was being beaten. Second, a slave might [...]
25 Feb
Runaway Slaves in the Greco Roman World In Relation to Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Part 2
Slavery in the Roman World A careful distinction ought to be drawn between slavery as it was practiced in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries and the slavery practiced by the Romans in the 1st century. Slavery in the Greco-Roman world was not a racial institution. That is not to say that certain [...]
24 Feb
Runaway Slaves in the Greco Roman World In Relation to Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Part 1
Introduction The relationship of slavery to the Bible remains a controversial issue in the world of biblical studies. Among those biblical texts which overlap with the issue of slavery is the seemingly insignificant Pauline epistle, Philemon. This letter written from Paul to Philemon, is a plea written on behalf of a man, Onesimus, who is [...]
