The book "Slaves in the New Testament" looks interesting, it's not a topic I've looked much into, or even thought much about, until I read Boer and Petterson's "Time of Troubles" that touches on that issue, I know Candida Moss has also done some work there. I've been dipping my toe back into the topic of socio-economic contexts of early Christianity lately, and slavery has been a bit of a blind spot for me.
Roman, for the record (although I think you know), recommendations do not mean I espouse every last thing said in a book. However, I think the research in Harrill's book is good overall. But his thesis is that NT presents slaves through the artifice of literary devices, conventions, and tropes. His method is historical rather than theology and he focuses on the Roman social context when reading the NT. Hope this helps.
I agree, it's an interesting subject. There are some valuable resources out there that deal with the NT and slavery besides Harrill. For a genral overview of world slavery, see https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cambridge_World_History_of_Slavery.html?id=f4x041s0wlsC
Sean, two reasons I did not say a lot about this book is because it was mainly produced for a course of mine and is a lot like my other work, Investigating Life's Meaning (I own the rights to that book).
But there are some differences between the two books. Secondly, Contemplating Personhood used to be difficult to acquire. However, Amazon now says it ships in two days. I also must point out that the publishers always have treated me fairly.
Boer and Petterson's work and Moss's work is also historical, their thesis is that slaves were used by the congregations as slaves. I'm not sure I agree with their thesis, since it depends largely on "reading between the lines," as it were, although I don't know of any evidence that this didn't happen either.
Boer and Petterson also argue that although some of the messaging and practice from Christianity (especially in its most apocalyptic form) challenged social structures which included slavery, there was mitigating messaging also (spiritualizing class language), which became more prominent as it was realized that the eschatology was not as immanent as thought.
This is a common theme in scholarship, although to be honest I think it's well overplayed. The "radical" Apocalyptic ideas stayed in Christianity for a long time, and mitigating messaging was there even from early on.
Either way, how congregations dealt with slaves, and if they used slaves is an interesting subject. From what I've read on Philemon it seems ambiguous what the actual status of Omesimus was when Paul sent him back.
Of course theologically we see in Gregory of Nyssa the first (as far as I know, in human history) absolute rejection of the institution of slavery which was entirely grounded in Genesis and Romans, so whatever was the case historically the seeds of abolition were there ideologically.
I've read some about how the 1st century congregation ppossibly interacted withh slaves and there are studies about Phhilemon and Onesimus. They're interesting but not necessarily persuasive.
I find some of Augustine's and LActantius' remarks about slaves nto be interesting. See also https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Augustine-Stanford-Memorial-Lectures/dp/0521574331
7 comments:
The book "Slaves in the New Testament" looks interesting, it's not a topic I've looked much into, or even thought much about, until I read Boer and Petterson's "Time of Troubles" that touches on that issue, I know Candida Moss has also done some work there. I've been dipping my toe back into the topic of socio-economic contexts of early Christianity lately, and slavery has been a bit of a blind spot for me.
What is the thesis of that book?
I didn't know you had written a new book, Edgar. You need to learn to advertise better;-)
~Sean
Roman, for the record (although I think you know), recommendations do not mean I espouse every last thing said in a book. However, I think the research in Harrill's book is good overall. But his thesis is that NT presents slaves through the artifice of literary devices, conventions, and tropes. His method is historical rather than theology and he focuses on the Roman social context when reading the NT. Hope this helps.
I agree, it's an interesting subject. There are some valuable resources out there that deal with the NT and slavery besides Harrill. For a genral overview of world slavery, see https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cambridge_World_History_of_Slavery.html?id=f4x041s0wlsC
Sean, two reasons I did not say a lot about this book is because it was mainly produced for a course of mine and is a lot like my other work, Investigating Life's Meaning (I own the rights to that book).
But there are some differences between the two books. Secondly, Contemplating Personhood used to be difficult to acquire. However, Amazon now says it ships in two days. I also must point out that the publishers always have treated me fairly.
Boer and Petterson's work and Moss's work is also historical, their thesis is that slaves were used by the congregations as slaves. I'm not sure I agree with their thesis, since it depends largely on "reading between the lines," as it were, although I don't know of any evidence that this didn't happen either.
Boer and Petterson also argue that although some of the messaging and practice from Christianity (especially in its most apocalyptic form) challenged social structures which included slavery, there was mitigating messaging also (spiritualizing class language), which became more prominent as it was realized that the eschatology was not as immanent as thought.
This is a common theme in scholarship, although to be honest I think it's well overplayed. The "radical" Apocalyptic ideas stayed in Christianity for a long time, and mitigating messaging was there even from early on.
Either way, how congregations dealt with slaves, and if they used slaves is an interesting subject. From what I've read on Philemon it seems ambiguous what the actual status of Omesimus was when Paul sent him back.
Of course theologically we see in Gregory of Nyssa the first (as far as I know, in human history) absolute rejection of the institution of slavery which was entirely grounded in Genesis and Romans, so whatever was the case historically the seeds of abolition were there ideologically.
I've read some about how the 1st century congregation ppossibly interacted withh slaves and there are studies about Phhilemon and Onesimus. They're interesting but not necessarily persuasive.
I find some of Augustine's and LActantius' remarks about slaves nto be interesting. See also https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Augustine-Stanford-Memorial-Lectures/dp/0521574331
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