Should We Keep “Slaves” in the New Testament?

July 6, 2025

Bart Ehrman

I’ve been talking about Paul’s view of slavery, in light of the book of Philemon; this seems to be a good time to talk about a very big issue connected with translating the New Testament from Greek into English.  It may seem fairly straightforward, but in fact it is incredibly thorny:  what English word is best to use for the Greek word that refers to a person who is owned by another and compelled (on every level) to do what the owner requires?  It’s “slave,” right?  How can it be complicated?  Let me put it in a bigger picture. 

For a very long time I’ve been interested in the question of how to translate ancient texts, such as the Greek New Testament, into modern languages. Early in my scholarly career my interest was piqued by the work I did as a graduate student working as a research grunt for the translation committee for the New Revised Standard Version. My Doktorvater, Bruce Metzger, was the chair of the committee and he asked me, during my graduate studies, to be one of the scribes for the Old Testament subcommittee. In that capacity I recorded all the votes that were taken by the translators for revisions of the text of the Revised Standard Version, in whichever subsection of the committee I was assigned to. Normally the subsection would have, maybe, five scholars on it. They would debate how to modify the text of the RSV, verse by verse, word by word; they would then take a vote by show of hands; and I would record their decision.

This was an eye-opening experience for me. Bible translation (or the translation of any foreign-language work, for that matter) is an inordinately complicated procedure. It is impossible to replicate the exact meaning of one language in another, since the nuances of words vary from one language to another. Let me give an example from the Greek of the New Testament. In English we have different terms that mean something like “love” – for example, “adoration,” “passion,” “lust,” “like,” and, lots of others. Each has its own connotations.

Greek too has a variety of words, and they all, in principle, could be translated with the word love, but they all too have their own connotations, which don’t always map well onto the English words and their connotations.  That is, it’s hard to find an exact English equivalent for any of the Greek words that could be loosely translated “love.”  So what’s a translator to do?  What they invariably have to do is to pick the closest equivalent English word to what the specific Greek word appears to mean in its context, and hope it conveys the right idea.

Other problems involve the fact that historical, social, and cultural factors make words suggest something different from one context to another.  This is a big problem with the Greek word DOULOS, which does mean “slave” – that is, a person who is owned by another person.

One problem is that in our American context, when we think of “slave,” we tend to think of black slaves in the American South before the Civil War, and all the horrors associated with the institution of slavery. Slavery was extremely common in Greek and Roman antiquity, but it was very different in that context: it wasn’t based at all on race or national origin; most slaves were either prisoners of war or people who had sold themselves or family members to avoid starvation; the institution was far more common then throughout cultures and regions; there was an enormous range of suffering connected with the institution depending on what kind of slave a person was; some slaves could be highly educated, wealthy, and own slaves themselves; many slaves were better off than lower class people who were free; and on and on.

So the problem is, if you translate the word as “slave” then it probably conjures up the wrong connotation; on the other hand, there is not good alternative. “Servant” doesn’t work (even though a lot of translations use it), since a servant is not owned by another. “Bond-servant” (which is sometimes used) doesn’t work so well since it’s not a term anyone uses any more. And … well, and there is not a good alternative.

And so: how to deal with the problem  In general: how can a translator translate any word – including DOULOS – and get all the nuances?

The short story is that it can’t happen.  When the NRSV committee was working on the translation of the NT, they could not decide among themselves whether to translate DOULOS as “slave” or “servant” or “bond-servant.”  I suppose other options were suggested; today many scholars would probably argue for “enslaved person,” since that more clearly indicates why the person is in the state they are rather than defining them by the state.  But that too would create debates both ideological and linguistic, the latter because “enslaved person” is not particularly mellifluent.

In the end, there was a three-person committee that had to make the final decision.  They voted.  It was 2-1 in favor of servant.  That decided it.  But a few hours later, one of them called from the airport on his way home, and changed his vote.  So that decided it.  They went with slave.

More recently the Updated Edition of the NRSV came out.  I have heard the scuttlebutt on this one.  The committee, apparently, after much debate decided to keep with slave.  The overseers of the translation at the National Council of Churches reversed their decision.  (These were not professional translators but church administrators; but since they own the copyright….)   And so now it is “servant.”

In my view, that is too bad.  I understand the arguments.  But the reality is that the Bible was written in a different context than ours and moral issues that we find problematic plague the Bible.  It is a thoroughly patriarchal text in many places for example.  If we translate the patriarch out of it, we misrepresent both what it says and what it means.  If we pretend that slaves were actually hired servants, we do the same thing.  IMO.

 I miss hearing the clacking of a typewriter. I miss seeing someone stacking a bunch of papers. I miss Bible Sword Drills. I miss discussing Dylan lyrics. I miss fried chicken on Sunday dinner at 12. I miss short, pithy sermons, 20 minutes max. I miss the future that doesn't exist anymore. I miss a cat curled up beside me or on my lap. I even miss eating Vienna sausages out of the can, the poor man's steak, cold pork and beans, and highly glazed honey buns. Oh well, a man can still dream.

 Only the strong survive? Not necessarily. Only those who can best adapt to change survive. But what kind of world will they survive into?

Rover, red rover, send (who?) right over. Who would YOU like to send over?

Without conscious effort, we are all slowly drifting away from each other. It takes concentrated effort to stay connected.

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I accept, however grudgingly, the passage of time. I accept, however without favor, that things will never be again be the way they used to be. And I accept, most easily, that I will never be wealthy, wise, and the person I could be. Whatever challenges remain, I hope that I am up to the challenges

Shared with Your friendsI accept, however grudgingly, the passage of time. I accept, however without favor, that things will never be again be the way they used to be. And I accept, most easily, that I will never be wealthy, wise, and the person I could be. Whatever challenges remain, I hope that I am up to the challenges

 

Philemon and the Morality of Slavery

July 3, 2025

Bart Ehrman

Here are a few more comments about the short letter of Paul to Philemon, whose major themes and emphases I discussed yesterday.   It may indeed seem a rather perifpheral letter – it’s a private letter about a slave returning to his master, not about Paul’s great theological views or highly informative discussions of his life.  But even so, this brief one-pager can provide us with some important insights into Paul’s view of his apostolic ministry, and even more about the role of social justice in his ministry (specifically: does he condone slavery?).

One thing to observe is Paul’s reciprocal relationship with his converts in this letter. In his other letters, he occasionally appears to be the all-knowing and all-powerful apostle, who makes his demands and expects people to follow them. On certain points that he feels strongly about, such as what his congregations believe about his apocalyptic message and how they treat the Jewish Law, he is altogether adamant. But on other issues, he falls short of making demands. In the present instance, he expresses his desire as a request—although, to be sure, he phrases it in such a way that it would seem impossible for Philemon to turn him down. Even here, that is, while claiming not to assert his apostolic authority, Paul in fact appears to be doing so (cf. vv. 17–19).

A more important point to be gleaned from this letter relates specifically to its subject matter. It may come as a shock to modern readers that Paul did not use this occasion to lambaste the evils of the institution of slavery. Not only does Paul fail to condemn slavery in general, but he does not denounce its practice among Christians in particular. He never commands his convert Philemon to manumit his brother in Christ, Onesimus, let alone set free all of his other slaves. Was Paul not concerned for the plight of the oppressed?

Throughout his letters, Paul shows a remarkable lack of concern for the social inequities of his world (a lack, i.e., from a modern perspective). Despite his views that all people are equal in Christ—Jew and Gentile, slave and free, men and women (Gal 3:28)—Paul evidently did not see the need to implement this egalitarian ideal in the workings of society at large. He maintained that slaves should stay enslaved, that men should continue to dominate women, and that Christians as a whole should stay in whatever social roles they found themselves (see esp. 1 Cor 7:17–24). But isn’t this a bit shortsighted?

For us today it may indeed appear shortsighted, but for Paul it was based on the long view. This evident lack of concern for a person’s standing in society was related to his notion that the history of the world as we know it was soon going to come to a crashing halt when God entered into judgment of it. Soon the wrath of God would strike, annihilating the forces of evil and bringing in his Kingdom, in which there would be no more pain or suffering or injustice or inequity. The equality that Paul sought was not one to be effected by social change; it was one to be brought by God himself, when he destroyed this evil age and set up his Kingdom on earth. Little did Paul know that readers would still be around over twenty centuries later to ponder his words.

But what about this business of slavery?  Does he implicitly condone it?

Many people who read the book of Philemon simply assume that Paul wrote the letter to urge Philemon to set his slave Onesimus free. After all, slavery is, and was, a horrible institution; and surely the apostle would have done everything in his power to try to abolish it. Right?

Unfortunately, when you look closely at Paul’s letter, you will not find a word against slavery as an institution or any instruction for Philemon to set his slave—or any of his slaves—free. How could that be?

As it turns out, slavery is mentioned in numerous early Christian texts—a handful of times just within the New Testament—and is never condemned. Philemon was not the only Christian to own slaves, and so far as we know, none of the others who did so was ever urged to set them free. In Acts 12:13–16, we learn that the mother of Mark had a slave girl Rhoda, who is simply assumed to be required to take care of her household duties. In Colossians 3:22–4:1 and Ephesians 6:5–9, slaves are instructed specifically to obey their masters “in everything”; and the masters—who must have been Christian (otherwise the authors would not be writing to them)—are not told to set their slaves free but to treat them fairly. This tradition of Christian slave-owning continues on in other Christian literature outside the New Testament. In the Didache, for example (see chapter 27), slaves are instructed to obey their masters as if they were a “replica of God” himself (Did. 4:10–11)!

How could Christians not only allow such a cruel system as slave-owning, but even condone and support it? Didn’t they know it was wrong? Why do they never condemn it?

The reality is that in the ancient world, almost no one condemned slavery as an institution.  Slaves, of course, almost universally hated being enslaved, but we have no record of them condemning it as an institution (hating being a slave is not the same as opposing the institution of slavery) (An interesting irony from the modern perspective is that even slaves could sometimes own slaves.).   Did slaves condemn it off the record?  We have no way of knowing:  we have very few writings from slaves (I’m trying to think of any…).  We do have some from former slaves:  Epictetus, the great Stoic from around Paul’s time (and one of my favorite ancient philosophers), was a “freedman” – that is, a former slave.  But he too never condemns the institution of slavery.

All that is hard for us to get our minds around.  My sense is that slavery was so much a common feature of ancient civilizations that it simply appears to be never (almost never?) questioned.

How could ancient people be so heartless?  Even the great moral philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, etc.)?  Good question.

One thing to reflect on to put it into a bit of persepctive is that in two hundred years, lots of people will likely be condemning us with respect to some moral issue or another that we take for granted and simply never realize is a huge problem.

Most people don’t think so, of course; and that’s what every age has thought.  So far, every age has been wrong…

 The market for “big ideas” depends far more on demand than supply, and the craving in the Democratic Party for the next new and popular thing is intense. Amid all of the chaos created by President Donald Trump’s antidemocratic power grab, one idea has broken through.

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“Abundance” is, depending on your point of view, a bold and confident answer to the problems plaguing progressives; a fiendishly clever plot by corporate interests to blunt the power of the populist left; an intellectual craze that will pass; or a sensible but rather modest set of ideas to make building housing, clean energy projects, and mass transit easier and scientific breakthroughs more likely.

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There are certainly reasons to doubt that a “New Abundance” will ever take its place in history alongside the New Deal or the New Frontier. But the passionate response the idea has provoked and its resolute hopefulness about how well-designed government action could make life better and richer for the vast majority of Americans marks it out as the kind of idea Democrats need. It has the potential of dividing the party. In some ways, it already has. But there are also signs that Abundance may answer political needs of the party’s center and left alike.

The foundational text of the movement is “Abundance” by Ezra Klein, the New York Times writer and podcaster, and Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Published in March, the book has spent 14 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and hit No. 1 in April.

Do your own Google search to discover how a relatively slim volume — 226 pages plus footnotes — has so roiled and inspired the Democratic world. Like all successful manifestos, “Abundance” is briskly written and straightforward. “This book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need,” Klein and Thompson write. “That’s it. That’s the thesis.” The book’s very last words describe their ideological aspiration: “a liberalism that builds.”

The core argument is that well-intentioned progressives have created too many choke points that stall or block building things — including public and not just private projects. There are good reasons for environmental reviews, community-participation requirements and other permitting rules. But the authors insist that they shouldn’t be allowed to delay projects for years — or forever. The travails of high-speed rail in California are Exhibit A in “Abundance” catalogue of horrors but they offer many others.

The cause won a major victory on Monday when Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed two bills amending the half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act. The changes, which divided Democrats, will allow many development projects — particularly for housing — to avoid the rigorous reviews that often delayed construction and inflated costs. The measures drew opposition from leaders of environmental and community groups who fear the loosening of the rules went too far.

 

The Letter to Philemon in a Nutshell

July 2, 2025

by Bart Ehrman

I come now to the final Pauline letter of the New Testament, Philemon.  If you recall, Paul’s letters are ordered by length; this is by far the shortest, a real one-pager.  Given it’s brevity, I’ll be dealing with its major themes and emphases and the questions of Who, When and Why in just this one post.

First, a 50-word summary:

Paul’s letter to his former convert Philemon concerns Philemon’s slave Onesimus, who has fled from his master, possibly with stolen goods, found Paul in prison, converted, and begged him to intervene on his behalf– which Paul does by urging Philemon to receive his slave as a fellow believer, without punishment.

Here is how I discuss the letter in my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford University Press), edited a bit.

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The letter to Philemon is a little gem hidden away in the inner recesses of the New Testament. Merely a single page in length, the size of an average Greco-Roman letter, it is the only undisputed epistle of Paul addressed to an individual. Rather than dealing with major crises that have arisen in the church, the letter concerns a single man, the runaway slave Onesimus, and his fate at the hands of his master, Philemon.

On first reading, there may be some confusion concerning the recipient of the letter, since it is addressed to three individuals and a church: “To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house” (v. 2). It is clear, however, that the letter is really addressed to a solitary individual because Paul speaks to a single person in the body of the letter (“you” singular in Greek, starting with v. 4 and continuing through v. 24). Evidently, the principal recipient is Philemon, since he is the first one to be named, just as Paul names himself first as the sender of the letter, prior to mentioning his “coauthor,” Timothy.

Our only clues about who Philemon was come from the letter itself. To begin with, he must have been a relatively wealthy Christian. He had a private home large enough to accommodate a church (i.e., a private gathering of Christians), and he owned slaves. Moreover, he evidently had valuable property that could be stolen, as Paul thinks that Onesimus may have run off with some of it or else embezzled some of the funds entrusted to his charge (v. 18). Tradition holds that Philemon was a leader of the church in the town of Colossae, an identification possibly suggested by the fact that in verse 23 Paul conveys greetings from Epaphras, who, according to Colossians 4:12, was a member of that church (although many scholars doubt that Colossians was actually written by Paul).

Wherever Philemon lived, he appears to have stood in Paul’s debt, as Paul not so subtly reminds him: “I say nothing about your owing me even your own self” (v. 19). (By claiming to say nothing about it, of course, Paul says all that needs to be said!) For this reason, it appears likely that Philemon was one of Paul’s converts. Apart from these things, we cannot say much about the man himself. As for the occasion of Paul’s letter to Philemon, we know that Paul writes from prison (v. 1). Again, we don’t know where he is or why he is being punished; it does appear, though, that he anticipates being released (v. 22). The letter may date toward the end of Paul’s career, in the late 50s.

While in prison, he met and converted Philemon’s runaway slave Onesimus. When he speaks of Onesimus in verse 10 as one “whose father I have become,” the Greek literally says “whom I begot”—the same phrase that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 4:15 to refer to his converts in Corinth. The letter does not explicitly indicate whether Onesimus himself is imprisoned, for example, for having been caught in flight with some of his master’s goods (v. 18), or whether he has come to visit Paul in jail as a friend of his master.

The former option seems unlikely. The Roman Empire was a big place, and to think that Paul and the slave of one of his converts just happened to end up in the same jail cell, whether in a major urban center like Ephesus or in a small rural village, simply defies the imagination. On the other hand, if Onesimus was trying to get away from his master, why would he have gone straight to see one of his friends?

Recent studies of ancient Roman slavery law may provide an answer to this question. It was a legally recognized practice for a slave who had incurred his or her master’s wrath to flee to one of the master’s trusted associates to plead for his intervention and protection. The associate then served as a kind of official mediator who would try to smooth out differences that had arisen through misunderstanding or even malfeasance. Malfeasance appears to be the issue here.

A possible scenario, then, would be something like the following. Philemon’s slave Onesimus has done something wrong, possibly stealing from the household or incurring some other kind of financial loss for his master (v. 18). Rather than stand and face the consequences, he flees to Paul, the apostle who had converted his master to a new religion and who is therefore a known and respected authority for him. While visiting Paul, Onesimus himself becomes converted to faith in Christ, a conversion that proves convenient for the nasty little business at home: Paul can now urge Philemon to receive Onesimus back not only as a slave but as much more, as a brother in Christ (v. 16), one who has been “useful” to Paul and can now be “useful” to Philemon (v. 11). Here Paul is playing with words. Slaves were often given descriptive names, such as the Latin Fortunatus, which means “lucky,” or Felix, which means “happy.” The Greek name Onesimus means “useful.”

In his mediatorial role, Paul urges Philemon not to punish his slave, who has now had a change of heart, and to charge the apostle himself with whatever debt he has incurred. Paul appears to know full well that Philemon will simply write off his loss, given the (spiritual) debt he owes him (vv. 18–19).

But is this all that Paul wants Philemon to do? Scholars have long debated the real meaning of his request, some thinking that Paul wants Philemon to manumit Onesimus (i.e., release him from his slavery) and others that he more specifically wants him to free him to engage in missionary work. Unfortunately, there is little in the text that suggests either possibility. Even verse 16, which urges Philemon to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but … [as] a beloved brother,” is concerned with how he should react to this errant member of his household; it does not tell him to change his slave’s status. (Consider an analogy: if I were to say to a female acquaintance, “I love you not as a woman but as a friend,” this would not be to deny her gender!) It may be that the modern abhorrence of slavery has led interpreters to find in Paul a man ahead of his time, one who also opposed the practice.

Yet Paul may be asking for something else. He emphasizes that Onesimus has been useful to him and states quite plainly that even though he would like to retain his services, he doesn’t want to do so without the leave of his master (vv. 12–14). Moreover, at the end of his short letter he asks Philemon to provide him with some kind of additional benefit in light of his own debt to Paul (the word “this” in v. 20 is not found in Greek; literally the text says, “Yes, provide me with a benefit”). What exactly is Paul looking for? Although Paul says not a word about Onesimus being set free, it appears that he would like to have him sent back. Is Paul asking Philemon to present him with a gift in the person of Onesimus, the slave?

 

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“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

Aldous Huxley, born 26th July 1894