What was slavery like in the NT world?
The latest Grove Biblical booklet is onSlavery in the New Testament and is by Caryn Reeder, Professor of New Testament at Westmont Higher, Santa Barbara. It offers a actually helpful exploration of the phenomenon of slavery in the New Testament world, and highlights the importance of our understanding since the mention of slavery, both literal and metaphorical, is actually so prominent in the NT texts. She begins:
Whoever wishes to get dandy among you lot must exist your servant, and whoever wishes to be start among you lot must be slave of all. (Marking ten.43–44)
There is no longer Jew or Greek, in that location is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male person and female; for all of y'all are ane in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3.28)
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. (1 Pet 2.eighteen)
In the New Testament, slaves guarded doors (Acts 12.xiii–xiv), managed their owners' wealth (Matt 25.14–xxx), prepared feasts and more than (Luke 15.23). Slaves, freed slaves and slave owners worshipped together in early on church communities (1 Cor 7.21–23; 1 Tim six.1–2; Philemon 15–xvi). The imagery of slavery described a person'south human relationship to sin and to God (John 8.33–36; Rom 6.sixteen–20).
These references assistance us run across just how common slavery was in the world of the earliest Christians. The Roman Empire was a slave society. According to Gaius, a second-century Roman lawyer, 'The principal stardom made by the police of nature is this, that all human beings are either complimentary people or slaves' (Institutes 1.nine). 'Slave,' 'freed slave' and 'freeborn' were cardinal categories of identity. A person'south condition determined their legal rights (or lack of rights), their power to protect their ain bodies confronting abuse and their capacity for social honor.
Although slavery was pervasive in the world of the New Testament, it is often invisible to usa. When a story or letter does not identify a person equally 'slave' or 'free,' we practise not ask about their status, or how that status afflicted their daily life. Therefore, we do not wonder what the gospel message meant for slaves, freed slaves and slave owners. For example, how did the primeval Christians experience the unity of slaves and costless people in Christ? How did they sympathize the exhortations for Christians to apprehensive themselves and serve (or 'exist enslaved to') each other? What did freedom in Christ mean for Christians who were enslaved to human owners?
Caryn sets out the social reality of slavery in the Empire, and then gives a whole chapter to exploring the experience of slavery.
Some slaves in the Roman Empire were born into slavery, just freeborn people too became slaves through capture in war or less legal means. The experience of slavery was very different for people who were born and raised to be slaves and those who became enslaved later in their lives.
Rome'southward wars brought many new slaves into the Empire, as Jesus warned in Luke 21.24. Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote about the Jewish revolt confronting Rome in the first century, claimed that the Roman army captured 97,000 slaves in Galilee and Judea—and then many that the slave market was glutted (Jewish War vi.384, 420).
For people who had been costless before their capture, the loss of rights over their own bodies added to the trauma of war. The same would be truthful for people kidnapped by pirates or brigands in deserted places around the Empire. The autumn from the honour of freedom into the humiliation of slavery was and then distressing that, in many stories, the newly enslaved committed suicide. This is the reason Josephus gave for the mass suicide at Masada on the eve of the Roman victory over the Jews there (Jewish War 7.380–387)…
In very wealthy homes, some immature child slaves became objects of affection to their owners, pampered and played with (sometimes in disturbingly sexualized ways). About kid slaves did not accept what we would consider a childhood. Rather, they began piece of work as presently as their bodies were capable of simple tasks. The beginning-century writer Columella commented that slaves on agricultural estates were 'hardened to farm work from infancy' (On Agriculture 1.eight.2), and contracts for apprenticeships to weavers and other skilled workers tape young ages for slaves…
Slaves who were part of the same household lived, worked and relaxed together. In funerary inscriptions, slaves referred to each other equally family unit members and friends. Funerary inscriptions too indicate enduring relationships between slaves and slave owners.
Nosotros run across such relationships in Acts. Rhoda, a slave, knew Peter well plenty to recognize him immediately when he unexpectedly came to the door. She was one of a few members of the church building in Jerusalem to be recorded by name (Acts 12.12–xv). Ii slaves and a soldier escorted Peter to Cornelius's house and, therefore, these slaves were instrumental in the preaching of the gospel to Gentiles (Acts 10.vii–8). When the caput of the household like Cornelius or Lydia became a Christian, all the members of the household—a group which included slaves—were baptized (Acts 10.44–48; sixteen.15, 33).
While slaves were part of their owners' households, under Roman police they could not legally marry. However, slaves might form relationships alike to wedlock with each other and have children together. In the parable in Matt 18.24–25, a slave had a wife and children. But the owner's actions indicated that he owned his slave's wife and children. Owners permitted or forbade their slaves' relationships. Owners as well arranged or enforced relationships in lodge to encourage procreation and additions to the numbers of slaves in a household.
Being in a slave marriage did not protect a slave'south body from others. Slaves had no right to reject their owners' sexual advances. Seneca the Elder claimed that unchastity was a necessity for slaves (Controversies iv, preface 10), and Plutarch said that husbands honoured their wives past using slaves for sex (Marriage Advice 16). Numerous stories, letters, and poetry from the Roman globe indicate the expectation of the sexual availability of male and female slaves of all ages, both inside individual households and equally public prostitutes, to their (male person) owners.
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Caryn then turns to the vexed question of what the New Testament writers thought about slavery ethically, and why they did not explicitly advocate manumission (freedom for slaves). She considers Paul's instructions in i Corinthians, and the particular case of Onesimus and Philemon, before making more full general observations.
It may exist surprising to readers today that New Attestation authors did non ask slave owners to free their slaves (an issue addressed in the side by side chapter). There are, nonetheless, some important differences from the Greco-Roman household codes. First, unlike the Greco-Roman examples, the New Testament texts directly addressed the slaves themselves. The direct address gave the slaves their own agency, making them—and non their owners—responsible for their own behaviour. Secondly, in Eph 6.nine and Col iv.1, Paul commanded slave owners non to threaten their slaves, but rather treat them with 'justice and equality.' Like the instructions given to husbands and fathers in Eph 5.25–33 and 6.4 and Col 3.nineteen and 21, the instructions to slave owners limited their power over vulnerable members of their households. Thirdly, Paul reminded slaves that their true owner is God—and slave owners are also owned by God. In these ways, the New Attestation household codes challenged Greco-Roman social norms…
Slavery was fundamental to life in the Roman Empire. Perhaps considering of this, there is no command in the New Testament for Christian slave owners to free their slaves. Instead, Paul and Peter instructed Christian slaves to be good slaves, obeying their human owners as if they were obeying God (Eph 6.5–8; ane Pet 2.18–21).
The New Testament household codes, among other texts, were used past supporters of slavery in the Americas to counter the abolitionist movement. Slave owners argued that slavery was a natural role of the social social club of the earth. They also claimed that the enslavement of Africans and indigenous peoples was for their own adept. According to white slave owners, races they saw equally inferior would get civilized through slavery.
Opponents of slavery also drew on biblical bear witness. They pointed to the refrain that repeats through the Former Attestation: God saved Israel from slavery (Exod twenty.2; Ps 81.ten; Jer 34.13). Paul proclaimed that in Christ, there was no slave or free (ane Cor 12.13; Gal 3.27–28; Col 3.11). For Christian slaves and abolitionists, texts like these demanded the abolition of slavery.
Slavery's children entered history from beneath: from their straitened vantage they came to meet in the holy Scriptures that God grants victory to the unlikeliest people—people like themselves—and past the unlikeliest means. The Bible privileges those without privilege and honours those without honour…(A Callahan, The Talking Book)
New Testament authors did non need the terminate of slavery every bit a social and economic organisation. However, they did critique the cadre assumptions of Roman slavery: the dehumanizing of people made in God'due south image; abusiveness every bit a matter of course; and the very idea of ownership over human lives. Equally in Rev xviii.11–13, slavery and the slave merchandise brought divine judgment on the Roman Empire. The message of mutual submission is central to discipleship in the New Attestation.
For yous were called to liberty, brothers and sisters; only practice not use your freedom as an opportunity for cocky-indulgence, only through dearest go slaves to i another. (Gal 5.thirteen)
We should not overlook how radical this message would accept sounded in the early on church building, in the midst of Rome's slave gild. Fifty-fifty if the New Testament authors did not proclaim the end of slavery, their redefinition of freedom and slavery challenged the cardinal social values of their day.
How might these messages sound today? The New Testament asks united states of america to question our own structures of power and status. Even if nosotros consider slavery to be illegal, are there ways we still fail to recognize the bones humanity of the people around us? Are there ways that Christian leaders could do improve at giving up their power and privilege for the sake of their congregations? If we listen carefully, the subtle challenges to the Roman system of slavery in the New Testament encourage those with power and privilege to give up their privileges for the sake of the less privileged.
Finally, Caryn turns to the question of the meaning of slavery metaphors and images in the New Attestation.
The metaphor of slavery and liberty runs through Rom 5–viii. The Christians in Rome lived at the middle of the royal slave society. Roman Italy had the highest percentage of slaves of any region of the Empire. Paul's metaphors in his letter to the Roman churches used the reality they knew to teach a powerful lesson about sin, death, grace and life…
Freedom from sin did not mean Christians had no possessor. In Christ, they were slaves to God, obedient to righteousness, and rewarded with life (Rom six.13–23). For an audience in the heart of the Roman Empire, the metaphors of slavery and freedom, death and life, would resonate with slaves and slave owners alike. But equally in the mutual enslavement of Christians to each other, the call to exist slaves to God reminded slave owners that they also were owned. As Paul said in 1 Cor 6.19–20, no ane belonged to themself. Christians were purchased by God, and like slaves they should alive for God.
This is an invaluable study, providing essential data about the context of slavery in the outset century as we read both literal and metaphorical language of slavery. It highlights how prominent this language is in the New Testament, and the theological freight that it carries, and offers vital background for any upstanding discussion of slavery and the Bible.
Yous tin society the booklet post complimentary for £3.95 in the UK from the Grove website, or purchase information technology as a PDF e-booklet.
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