Semeia 83-84: Slavery in Text and Interpretation

Top Highlights

“The truth of the matter is that Paul neither defended nor condemned the system of slavery, for the simple reason that in the first-century Roman imperial world in which he lived the abolition of slavery was intellectually inconceivable, and socially, politically and economically impossible. A critical three-fold distinction casts badly needed light on the matter: that between slaves, the institution of slavery, and slave society.” (Page 266)

“Recent studies of slavery as a larger political-economic-domestic system deeply entrenched in ancient society and culture, more sensitive to the lives of the slaves themselves, present a far different picture of the social world addressed by Paul, suggesting serious reconsideration of standard interpretations of Paul and slavery.” (Page 19)

“The New Testament, however, particularly the ‘Pauline’ letters, had been quoted for centuries as the divine sanction on slavery, and then cited by slaves themselves and abolitionists in opposition to slavery.” (Page 21)

“Under Roman hegemony, slavery was not salvation. Nor was manumission mercy. Roman law suggested that an adult male slave was to be manumitted at age 30 (Bartchy, 1973). The legal evidence, however, shows not that the slave must be manumitted at age thirty, but rather that he should not be manumitted before his thirtieth birthday—not a prerogative but a prohibition with a view to constraining manumission and not liberalizing it. In other words, this piece of legislation was negative in intent and effect: masters were not being ordered to free their slaves but rather not to free them until their life-expectancy had virtually run out.” (Page 6)