Ep 100: Give Me Your Slave!

00:00- This is one of the imprisonments of Paul.

00:03- He's a career criminal is what he is.

00:05- Yeah, yeah, I think there were 34 felonies

00:09that he was convicted of.

00:11- No, no, no, that's somebody else.

00:12I think you can get someone else.

00:14(upbeat music)

00:17- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:20- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:21- And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:24where we increase public access to the academic study

00:27of the Bible and religion

00:29and combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:32How are things to say, Dan?

00:33- It's a good day, it's a good day for some,

00:37some expounding on Biblicality, I don't know.

00:42- Biblicalality, yes.

00:43- Yes.

00:44- Gonna get into some expositional weeds here on something.

00:48- We're gonna get into some weird stuff, man.

00:51I mean, the first, so our first thing

00:54we're gonna do a chapter and verse

00:57and we're gonna cover the entire book of Philemon,

01:00which does not take long, it turns out.

01:04It is, it's one of those blessed short ones

01:08that are scattered hither and thither

01:11throughout the holy text.

01:13- Or hither and yawn if you're nasty.

01:15- Yeah.

01:16- Yeah, only 335 words in Greek, the whole book.

01:21- Oh, okay.

01:21- Which sounds like a lot and that resolves to 25 verses.

01:25So, yeah, not gonna take long to get through,

01:28but some interesting stuff in there.

01:29- Yeah, I can't wait to have you explore it with me

01:33because I am, there's a couple moments

01:36that just made me go (mumbles)

01:40So there's that and then in the latter half of the show,

01:43we're gonna be talking about something

01:45that is near and dear to your heart

01:48'cause it was part of one of your master's theses.

01:54We're gonna be talking about the Septuagint.

01:56- The Septuagint, which is not how it's ever pronounced.

02:00- It's the seventh in the series, I understand.

02:03- 70th, but--

02:05- It's between, oh, 70th?

02:07All right, I was, oh yeah, Septuagenerian.

02:11All right, fine, it's the 70th.

02:13The translation of the 70 as it is known.

02:17- And we'll talk about the tradition

02:19that is the reason that it's called the Septuagint.

02:23- Okay, yes.

02:24- And why, you're probably using it wrong.

02:27But also, it doesn't matter.

02:28- T, I'm using it wrong, I literally just used it wrong.

02:33So-- - Well, not you, you.

02:34I'm talking to the audience if there is still an audience.

02:37- Oh, they're out there.

02:39- You guys are out there, right?

02:40Hello, are you there?

02:42So let's just dive in with chapter and verse.

02:46(upbeat music)

02:49And for chapter and verse, here it is, we're looking,

02:52we said it, it's Philemon.

02:54I like that on the Bible website

02:59that I'm looking at with the NRSVUE,

03:01it's listed as Philemon one.

03:03- Philemon one.

03:05- I don't know that there's more than one.

03:07- New York zero.

03:09(laughing)

03:12- Anyway, yeah, it's just the one book

03:15and the one chapter in the one book.

03:17- That's a problem.

03:21And here's the thing, it starts out,

03:24and it's a Pauline epistle, is that correct?

03:27- It is Pauline, it is indisputed,

03:30that is to say that there are no scholars

03:33who believe this is pseudonymous,

03:36that believe someone other than Paul wrote it.

03:39Everyone, pretty much everyone,

03:41I'm sure there's somebody out there,

03:42but everyone who has ever published on it agrees,

03:45this is Pauline.

03:46- Wait, no, I might, nope, I can think of somebody.

03:50- Oh, okay, it was challenged, it's authenticity,

03:54but that is actually a rather new publication,

03:57so we'll see how that goes.

04:00- How the rest of academia comes crashing down on them.

04:05I'm gonna say, and we'll get to it later on,

04:09but I am suspicious that this isn't actually Paul,

04:13but we'll get to why later on.

04:16- Okay, what I don't believe,

04:20I'm not saying that I think that this was someone else

04:24like later pretending to be Paul,

04:27and like trying to pass it off, we'll get to it.

04:30Anyway, starting off,

04:32verse one basically just says,

04:35and we are already to a place where you're gonna have

04:38to clarify something for me,

04:40because I know it doesn't mean what it seems like it means.

04:43- Okay. - It says Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,

04:47or of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to our beloved.

04:52I don't think this means that Christ

04:54is holding Paul prisoner, but that's sure what it sounds like

04:57when it's worded like that.

04:59- No, the idea is that he is imprisoned

05:02because of Christ Jesus.

05:07Who has imprisoned him?

05:09- This is something that we don't know.

05:12This is what Paul usually says

05:15when he has been imprisoned somewhere because of,

05:19and this is how the book of Revelation starts as well,

05:22that John was exiled for his testimony of Jesus.

05:27And so Paul is apparently in prison,

05:31and we're not sure, it could be Philippi,

05:35could be Caesarea, could be Rome.

05:38In the book of Acts, Paul is imprisoned

05:40in those three places.

05:42I've actually, now that come to think of it,

05:45in 2019, when I was in Israel, Palestine, Caesarea,

05:50we visited Caesarea, which is where there's a Hippodrome,

05:54there's Herod's Palace, there's a bunch of cool stuff.

05:56I had a lovely parfait in the little cafe,

06:01overlooking the actual little port thing

06:06that had been built there.

06:08And then I went back in 2020, new,

06:11I don't remember the year, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

06:132023, I think it was, they had uncovered a prison there.

06:18So they were like, this is probably where Paul was imprisoned,

06:23and it was actually underground.

06:27So it was a place that I had walked around on previously,

06:31and they had excavated it,

06:32and there was this whole prison underneath the ground there.

06:35So that was pretty cool.

06:37So I had seen the place where he was in Israel, Palestine,

06:41without bumping into something.

06:43It's pretty common that, in fact,

06:47anytime you wanna do any construction anywhere,

06:48whether it's roads or housing or anything like that,

06:51the Israel Antiquity authorities got to come in

06:55and do their little, they have a certain amount of time

06:58where they go in and do their exploratory excavation,

07:00see if there's anything there.

07:01And then they may be like, oh, we found a temple.

07:05And then you're like, ah, then you can't build there.

07:09But that's literally what happened like six or seven years ago.

07:13They found a temple where the road was gonna go.

07:16And so they just had to build the highway over top of it.

07:20I remember you mentioning that, and I looked it up,

07:22and then you can see them continuing the dig

07:26underneath the freeway.

07:27Underneath the freeway, that goes over them.

07:29It's very cool.

07:30So we don't know where he's imprisoned,

07:32but this is one of the imprisonments of Paul.

07:35And it may be one that we don't know about.

07:37- That guy's just in a, he's a career criminal, is what he is.

07:41- Yes, yeah.

07:42I think there were 34 felonies that he was infected of.

07:47- No, no, no, that's somebody else.

07:49I think you can give someone else.

07:51Anyway, Paul is writing to our beloved coworker

07:56as the NRSVUE would have it.

07:59- Yeah, does everybody call it coworker or do other people say?

08:03(laughs)

08:04- Colleagues.

08:04- coworker feels, to our beloved.

08:08- Cine Ergo is the word in Greek,

08:10which literally means work with.

08:12- Okay, there you go.

08:13- Work with her.

08:14- Or with her.

08:15- A work with her.

08:16- Yep.

08:16- I like work with her even better.

08:17So I'm gonna start saying that in my daily life.

08:20Anyway, to our beloved coworker,

08:24work with her Philemon, to our sister,

08:27Afia, to our fellow soldier, our archipice,

08:31and to the church in your house, okay?

08:35I guess, so what do we know about Philemon?

08:38Do we know anything about this recipient of a letter?

08:42- Not really.

08:43Philemon is a name that occurs in Greek.

08:45In fact, it is, I think there's an old legend

08:50with somebody named Philemon or like a Greek myth

08:55or something like that.

08:56- Really, all we know is what we see in this text.

09:01And the idea that there's a church in your house,

09:04this is pretty common in this time period

09:06when Paul is going around setting up churches.

09:09It's not like, okay, we got the permits,

09:10we're gonna break ground next month

09:12and then we'll have everything up and running.

09:14They would make converts,

09:17and then they would be like,

09:19anybody got a living room that could host this for a while?

09:23And usually it was in a lot of women

09:27were patrons of the church.

09:30They would use their homes for church meetings.

09:34And so it seems that these folks,

09:37I don't know if Philemon and Afia and the others

09:40are related or what,

09:43but it seems like they are the patrons,

09:45they are the hosts for one of the congregations

09:48that is meeting.

09:49- Are you aware of the modern day sect that called,

09:53that doesn't actually have a name,

09:55but they're sometimes called the two by twos,

09:57have you heard of them?

09:58- Don't think I have.

09:59- It's a, it's a somewhat secretive Christian sect,

10:04but they aim to sort of do things the old way.

10:09And one of the things that they do is they're apostles

10:14or they're leaders.

10:16- They're sent out two by two without purse or a script.

10:18- They do, they go, they literally don't have any money.

10:21They stay at members' houses

10:24and you know, and hold services in the houses.

10:27And yeah, that's kind of their whole thing.

10:30- That sounds like something I have witnessed myself personally,

10:33but probably not that specific sect.

10:38Because I think that kind of thing has been done many times.

10:41There's, since the Great Awakenings in the US,

10:44there are people who are like,

10:45we gotta get back to biblical Christianity.

10:48- You really don't know.

10:49- Minus the communism.

10:51- Right, yeah, exactly.

10:53- But not the parts we don't like,

10:55but the parts that are weirdo, that's interesting.

10:58- But they'll isolate one passage like that

11:00and be like, we're gonna build a church on that passage.

11:03- Yeah.

11:04All right, well, let's see what Paul has to say to Philemon.

11:09He first says some nice stuff about

11:13whenever I mention you in my prayers.

11:16I thank God because I hear of your love

11:21for all the saints and your faith

11:23toward the Lord Jesus.

11:26I pray that the partnership of your faith

11:28may become effective as you comprehend

11:30all the good that we share in Christ.

11:33Blah, blah, blah, that's nice.

11:36Then he says, he kind of, okay, I'm gonna just say.

11:41- It's like time for the pivot.

11:43And Paul goes full, like there are multiple moments

11:47of Paul being very passive aggressive.

11:49There's all these moments of, now listen,

11:52I could totally pull rank on you

11:55and order you to do stuff, but I'd rather just ask,

12:00not of love.

12:02That is not how you ask out of love.

12:04That is, let me just straight out the bat.

12:07When you say, verse eight just says,

12:11though I am more than bold enough in Christ

12:14to command you to do the right thing,

12:16yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love.

12:19And I, Paul, do this as an old man

12:23and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

12:26- It kind of has, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses.

12:31I kind of say too, he's like, I'm just an old man

12:34and I'm a prisoner of Christ.

12:36And if I wanted to, I could say jump

12:40and you'd have to say how high,

12:41but I would never pull rank with you.

12:44I would never do that.

12:45I'm just telling you, I could.

12:48And now I'm asking you kindly to please do

12:50what I'm commanding you to do.

12:51And what he's asking, he says,

12:55"I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus,

12:59whose father I have become during my imprisonment."

13:04Which when I first read my child,

13:06I was like, wait a minute, all had children.

13:09I have heard many times Dan say,

13:11Paul does not like the idea of even sex, so.

13:15- Yeah, yeah.

13:16So the--

13:17- Not a literal child.

13:18- Yes, and the idea that he converted him

13:21and so he is his spiritual father.

13:23So you've got, he's in his down line.

13:26- You got to imagine him in a beat field

13:30and just like you have planted this seed in the earth,

13:33now I will plant my seed in you.

13:35- Oh my goodness, that's from the office.

13:37- Yes, okay.

13:39All I'm saying is it has a very multilevel

13:44marketing feel to it, I'm just saying.

13:48Anyway, so Anesimus, Anesimus is in Paul's down line.

13:53He says, and this is the part that's like interesting,

13:58clearly, unless I'm misreading this,

14:01Philemon knew Anesimus before.

14:05He says, formerly he was useless to you,

14:10but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.

14:13And he goes on to say, I wanted to keep him with me

14:20so that he might minister to me in your place

14:23during my imprisonment in the gospel,

14:24but I preferred to do nothing without your consent

14:28in order that your good deed might be voluntary

14:31and not something forced.

14:33- Yeah, something coerced.

14:35- But not forced.

14:36- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

14:38And the thing that he, the good deed that he's talking about

14:41seems to be letting Paul keep Anesimus

14:46because he used to be Philemon's slave?

14:51Is that correct?

14:52Am I reading that right?

14:54- Yes.

14:54- So a couple things to start though,

14:58the name Anesimus means useful.

15:00So it's kind of a stock name for an enslaved person.

15:05- Oh, okay.

15:07- Was it an actual name that was applied to people?

15:10Okay, so you have a slave and you call them useful.

15:15- Yes.

15:16- Are you useful, get over here, pour me a drink.

15:18- Useful, can reach on high shelves,

15:21you get a whole battery of names,

15:24but the play on the little play on words there is,

15:29formally he was useless to you.

15:31But now he is indeed useful.

15:35- Yeah, I don't know why he was useless before, but okay.

15:38- Well, he's just got to say this is a,

15:41although the word in Greek is not Anesimus,

15:44it's Evkry stone, which really means profitable.

15:49But the idea is that Anesimus is probably a runaway slave.

15:55And so he is unprofitable to Philemon in the sense that

16:00he ran away and he was of no use to him

16:05in his escaped state, but now that he's with Paul,

16:10Paul is like, hey, guess what?

16:12You've been given a chance to make your runaway slave

16:16who was formerly useless to you useful once again,

16:21useful to you and to me.

16:22- Yeah.

16:23- Yeah, he says, perhaps this is the reason

16:28he was separated from you for a while

16:31so that you might have him back for the longterm,

16:34no longer as a slave, but more than a slave,

16:37a beloved brother, especially to me,

16:41but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord?

16:45That's very interesting.

16:47He's sending this guy back and saying,

16:49don't make him a slave again now that he has converted

16:53to being our Christian brother, is that right?

16:56- That is debated, and I think the majority of scholars

17:00would say Paul is not telling him to manume it.

17:05Anesimus, Paul is saying, well, to begin,

17:10the idea that he's his brother

17:11and you should accept him like a brother

17:13fits with other pseudo-Pauline texts like Ephesians

17:17where it talks about the duties of a slave to their master

17:20and the duties of a master to their slave.

17:23The idea is that if you're Christians,

17:25you are brothers in the sense

17:27that you are both now children of God.

17:30You see this across the New Testament,

17:33it's in Paul, it's in John, we find it in other writers

17:37that to become converted, you become children of God

17:41and or of Jesus, and that makes you brothers.

17:44And so in Ephesians, the idea seems to be

17:48the slave master relationship, which is temporal,

17:51is maintained, like it doesn't obliterate that,

17:54but you're both brothers in the gospel.

17:57And so the treatment should be one that is indicative

18:02of that parody in your relationship to each other.

18:08So Paul's not saying release him.

18:11Paul's saying, receive him as your spiritual brother

18:16because that's what he is, treat him better

18:20than you would treat any one of your other slaves.

18:23But a lot of scholars have pointed out,

18:25it would be pretty problematic of Paul to say,

18:29hey, release your slave.

18:31Philemon had legal rights over Onesimus as his slave.

18:35That would be probably crossing the line to say,

18:39hey, give up your legal rights over him.

18:42And also, if Philemon has got a bunch of other enslaved folks

18:46in his household, which he almost certainly does,

18:49and one of them comes back and says,

18:51I'm a Christian now, so you have to release me.

18:54And Philemon goes, all right, fine, you're released.

18:57What do you think all the other enslaved folks

18:58you're gonna suddenly do?

18:59- Suddenly you've got a lot of Christians in that household.

19:02- Yeah, yeah.

19:03And so it's tricky, but the majority of scholars would say,

19:08in fact, there's a commentary I really like on this

19:13in the New Testament library series that points out

19:18that there's absolutely no indication

19:22that Paul was asking him to release him.

19:27What we have here is,

19:29Paul did not lead a revolt against the slave system

19:34in his dealings with Philemon and Onesimus.

19:36In fact, he makes no plea for the manumission of Onesimus.

19:40Not a single word expresses the wish or the command

19:42that Onesimus be legally emancipated,

19:46nor is Philemon condemned for the fact

19:48that he owned a slave.

19:50So Paul's trying to thread a very tiny little needle here.

19:54He's like, I like this guy, he needs to be treated better.

19:59He ran away from you for a reason.

20:01I'm honoring the social contract.

20:04I'm honoring the relationship.

20:06I'm having him obey the laws of the land

20:11by returning him to you.

20:13But in his kind of rhetorical speaking down to him,

20:18or kind of like, I could just snap my fingers,

20:22but I'm gonna give you the chance to choose to do this.

20:26He's kind of saying, at least just send him back to me.

20:31Let me take care of him,

20:34let him minister to me in prison.

20:36- Yeah, he does, I mean, yes.

20:38So going back to that verse 13, he does say,

20:41I wanted to keep him with me, but I needed,

20:43I want your consent, et cetera, et cetera.

20:46It is interesting to me,

20:48if it's not about releasing him from slavery,

20:51it's so razor thin close to that.

20:56- Yeah.

20:57- He literally says, no longer as a slave,

20:59but more than a slave.

21:01In verse 17, he says, so if you consider me your partner,

21:06welcome him as you would welcome me.

21:08If he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything,

21:12charge that to me.

21:14That feels like I was assuming based on all of that language

21:20that it was definitely like he released him,

21:24he's no longer your slave, he's just our brother.

21:27- I think the idea is more that Paul wants to uphold the law,

21:32wants an SMS to do the right thing,

21:37but he also does not want to see Onesimus hurt because of this

21:40or even executed, he's a runaway slave.

21:44I mean, it would be well with Infileman's rights

21:48to treat him quite harshly.

21:50And so what I think he's trying to emphasize

21:53is that Paul's like, treat him as you would treat me,

21:57trying to extend the protective wing of his authority

22:03over Onesimus so that the slave master relationship

22:07is technically retained, but Paul is putting an awful lot

22:11of weight on Fileman to not beat the crap out of him,

22:16have him executed, give him a dish duty for a month

22:21or whatever, I don't know what kind of punishments they,

22:24non-corporeal punishments they would have used back then,

22:27but Paul I think is, I can imagine the conversation

22:31that Paul and Onesimus had where he was like,

22:33look, I don't see any way around this,

22:35we gotta send you back, but I'm gonna write a letter.

22:39I am going to lean on Fileman to make sure

22:43that he doesn't give you too hard a time

22:45when you get back, I'm gonna ask him to send you back to me,

22:48so you're only home for the weekend,

22:50and hopefully everything's cool,

22:53and then you can come back and we can get back to work

22:56ministering to each other in prison.

23:00- I think that's probably a little closer

23:02to what's going on then.

23:03- That makes sense to me, that sounds about right.

23:07With one caveat, and that is,

23:10I'm still holding to my theory

23:13that this is pseudo-pigro-faffical.

23:17I almost had the big word, I don't know your--

23:20- You get pretty close, pseudo-pigro-ful?

23:23- Pseudopographical.

23:25- Okay, you can say pseudo-pigro-ful, that's close enough.

23:28- Anywho, here's my personal theory.

23:32- And it's based on verses 18 and 19.

23:32- Okay.

23:37Which is, and my theory is based entirely on the idea,

23:44not that it was written by someone claiming to be Paul

23:47for any kind of other reason,

23:49but just, I think this was written by Onissimus,

23:53by Onissimus, and he just said,

23:57because it feels a little too much, in verse 19--

24:00- Little too on the nose here.

24:01- He says, "I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand.

24:05"I will repay you."

24:07I say, "Nothing about your owing me, even your own self."

24:11Like, it just feels a little much.

24:13I think Paul, he wrote this for Paul,

24:17and just went leaned a little too hard.

24:20- And, you know, we talked with Canada a bit ago

24:23about enslaved folks being used to write.

24:26- Yeah.

24:27- And things like that.

24:28So, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility,

24:32and Paul seems to be trying to,

24:34whoever's writing this is trying to make it seem like

24:37Paul is the one who's--

24:38- It just seems like it's writing down.

24:40- He's writing real, real hard to do.

24:41- This is me, Paul, I promise.

24:43There's nobody else writing this.

24:44Just Paul, earlier in the chapter,

24:48I, Paul, do this as an old man, blah, blah, blah.

24:51Anyway, no, so, yes, Paul does,

24:55this is a really hard lean.

24:57Paul says, if he is wrong to in any way,

24:59or owes you anything, charge that to me,

25:01I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand,

25:04I will repay it.

25:05I say, "Nothing about, I love this line."

25:09Look, I'm not even mentioning the fact that you owe me,

25:13even your own self.

25:15Like, look, I'm not even bringing it up.

25:17What, again, the backhanded, the--

25:20- Yeah, I'm gonna bring this up

25:22to let you know that I don't even have to bring this up.

25:24- Right, right, I would never, I would never,

25:26but, you know, let's both remember it anyway.

25:30(upbeat music)

25:32- So that, yeah, he says, "Yes, brother,

25:36"let me have this benefit from you in the Lord.

25:40"Refresh my heart in Christ, confident of your obedience.

25:44"I am writing to you, knowing that you will do

25:46"even more than I ask."

25:48- Yeah, it's laying it on pretty thick here.

25:52- It's pretty thick. - It's like, and I don't even,

25:54I don't even have to worry.

25:56I know you're actually gonna go above and beyond.

25:58- Yeah, you're probably gonna send me more than him.

26:01You're probably gonna send me a couple more slaves.

26:03Who knows what you're gonna do.

26:03I don't know.

26:05And then he says, and then the last line

26:08is this weird thing where he says,

26:09"And one thing more, prepare a guest room for me,

26:13"for I'm hoping through your prayers to be restored to you."

26:16Now, my guess is, that's saying,

26:20buy my way out of prison,

26:22and I'm gonna come and live with you.

26:24'Cause that, dude, what are your thoughts on that?

26:27- I don't think he's asking him that.

26:32But I think it's, I think this is kind of a criticism sandwich.

26:37- Okay.

26:38- You say nice stuff, you get your criticism in there,

26:40your constructive criticism,

26:41and then you follow it off with nice stuff.

26:43- Sure.

26:44- He's like, it's kind of like, I gotta borrow money.

26:47Oh, by the way, if you wanna come spend the night

26:49at any point, you need a couch to crash on, that's cool.

26:54It sounds to me like he's just trying to put

26:59another stroke of butter on him

27:03and just try to make him feel good.

27:05But you're the one I've been thinking about this whole time.

27:08- Yeah, I'm coming to visit any day now.

27:11I'll come for a bit, don't mind the fact that I'm in prison.

27:15That's fine, I'm in and out of that, you know.

27:19- And then he literally says, and by the way,

27:22a bunch of my fellow prisoners say hi.

27:25- Yeah.

27:26- So, there you go.

27:28That's it. - Mark, Aristarchus,

27:30Demis, and Luke, my co-workers.

27:34- And is that Mark, Mark, and Luke, Luke?

27:37- I think there are folks who think it is Mark.

27:40If you go to In Acts, it refers to John,

27:45whose other name was Mark,

27:47as somebody who was occasionally found gallivanting

27:52around with Paul.

27:54And Luke is supposed to be Paul's missionary companion

27:58in the book of Acts.

27:59So, I think the idea is that, yeah,

28:03these are to be identified with those folks.

28:06Now, the reality is that the authorship of Mark and Luke

28:10is a secondary edition.

28:12So, these were not the actual folks

28:15who actually wrote those texts,

28:18or at least are very, very unlikely to be.

28:20But I think traditionally, yeah,

28:21they are identified with the gospel authors.

28:25- Okay, interesting.

28:27- And this is the last, in the canonical order

28:33of Pauline Epistles, this is the very last one.

28:35They were kind of organized according to size, length,

28:39started with Romans, and then you go from there,

28:41so long as to shortest.

28:42So, Philemon is last and the Pauline.

28:45- Just as a little aside.

28:46- I just think, so one of my questions to you,

28:50having read this multiple times,

28:52and basically I've just read the entire book on our show.

28:57- Yes.

28:58- I skipped a little bit here and there, but not much.

29:00- Yeah, one or two verses.

29:01Why is this in the Bible?

29:05It doesn't, I don't feel like anything is gained.

29:09Anything is like, like you say,

29:12he's not changing the rules of slavery.

29:15- Yeah, and that's an important point.

29:17- Expounding on anything useful.

29:19It just seems very strange.

29:21- I think this was probably something that was preserved

29:25that was a letter from Paul,

29:28and when Paul started to get hot,

29:30and these letters started being considered as scripture,

29:36this was just part of the collection.

29:40Because, yeah, there's not a lot in the way of,

29:43there aren't really many Christian principles.

29:46There's no deep storytelling going on here.

29:50It's just this letter.

29:51He's kind of leaning on a buddy.

29:56- There's nothing to be gained spiritually

29:59that I can see from this,

30:01or there's no parable here of the slave returned to his master.

30:07But yeah, it's very interesting.

30:11- But every time that someone brings up the fact

30:14that there's no part of the New Testament,

30:16or the Hebrew Bible, no part of the Bible period

30:20that questions, much less condemns or prohibits

30:23the practice of buying, selling or owning other human beings

30:26and slavement, people will bring up Philemon.

30:28What about Philemon?

30:30And like even if Paul is,

30:33it seems to me to be in between the lines.

30:36I think Paul is probably saying, come on, man,

30:38just do the right thing.

30:40Don't be that guy.

30:41But even that is not questioning the practice of slavery.

30:46It's just saying, I like this guy, let him go.

30:49And even within the transatlantic slave trade

30:53and in the South and the US in the early 19th century,

30:58you had people where their masters would be like,

31:02I like this guy, good guy, we're gonna let him go.

31:05- In my will, as soon as I'm dead, you can be released.

31:08That doesn't question or condemn the practice of slavery.

31:13And so, but that is certainly one of the ways

31:16it has been deployed historically

31:18and more on the closer end of history

31:21than on the further end of history,

31:23but it has certainly been deployed as a means of

31:27endorsing an anti-slavery and abolitionist perspective.

31:34- Right, which even if it's wrong,

31:37obviously I would like it if it were anti-slavery,

31:42that would be nice.

31:45- Yeah.

31:45- But I think you're right, you know,

31:47having had you sort of explained to me,

31:49looking back at it, I think it's clear,

31:52he is just saying, he's saying, like, don't kill him,

31:57send him back to me, I want him.

31:59- Yeah.

32:00- He's not, yeah, he's not saying he's not a slave anymore.

32:04He's saying, I want him to be my slave, not your slave,

32:09give him to me, have him work for me.

32:11- Yeah, 'cause if he releases him,

32:13it's not like he's under his authority anymore.

32:17- Right.

32:18- He's like release him so that he can come back to me,

32:20not release him and then send him back to me.

32:23It's like if you release him,

32:24he's not yours anymore to command, so.

32:26- Right.

32:27- But yeah, and elsewhere, you know,

32:31there are constant references to slavery,

32:34including Christian enslavers and Christian enslaved,

32:38that never says, oh, you're a Christian,

32:40you don't have to be enslaved anymore.

32:42Oh, you're a Christian, you have to release all your slaves.

32:44Like, there's nothing that remotely hints

32:47at any such thing anymore.

32:48So this seems like a unique situation

32:52that I think we probably shouldn't generalize

32:56to Paul's overall view on slavery.

32:58However, having said that, the places where Paul quote unquote,

33:03talks about the Greco-Roman household codes

33:08and all that kind of stuff,

33:09those are limited to the Deutero Pauline,

33:12or at least the disputed Paulines.

33:14So those things were probably not written by Paul.

33:18- Right.

33:19Well, all right, that was interesting.

33:22I actually, that's a fascinating little snippet there.

33:26One other thing, I wanna recommend a book.

33:29- Okay.

33:30- It is called Slavery in Early Christianity by Glancey.

33:35There's a second edition, fairly recent,

33:40phenomenal book on slavery and Christianity.

33:43What we can reconstruct from the material data

33:46from the archeological data and other historical texts

33:50and things like that.

33:51So if you'd like more on that,

33:52highly recommend that.

33:53- Cool, excellent.

33:55All right, well, let's move on to our next segment.

34:00What is that?

34:01(upbeat music)

34:04And the that, this time, is this the that?

34:09The this the that is the Septuagint.

34:14- Septuaginta, yes.

34:16- Yeah, so you have said that word many, many times

34:21on this podcast.

34:24- Yes, and we've sort of vaguely explained

34:28what it is before, but I think it bears diving into

34:33'cause what is that?

34:37- What is that?

34:38That is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible

34:43and that sounds pretty banal.

34:48Okay, it was translated into Greek,

34:49but it's actually quite fascinating

34:52because until we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls,

34:54the Septuagint was the oldest version

34:57of the Hebrew Bible that we had.

35:00With like the complete Hebrew Bible was non-existent

35:04in any Hebrew manuscript prior to around 901,000 CE.

35:09We had fragments and stuff like that.

35:12- But if we go back to the great unseal manuscripts

35:12- Wow.

35:16of early Christianity the fourth century,

35:18Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus,

35:21they preserve a version of the Septuagint,

35:26the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

35:29And it was probably executed

35:31between probably the middle of the third century BCE

35:36down to around the turn of the era.

35:40- So we, sorry, just so that I'm processing this,

35:44the Septuagint is what, 'cause for whatever reason,

35:48my brain has just thought that's what Christians used

35:53as their sort of their version of the Hebrew Bible.

35:57But we're the Jewish people of the early common era

36:02also using the Septuagint or like--

36:07- Yes, that's why Christians used it

36:09because originally they were Jewish

36:12and they were just using the same thing

36:15that the earliest followers of Jesus used.

36:18So the reason it was translated is because

36:22the largest population center of Jewish folks

36:25outside of Jerusalem was in Alexandria, Egypt.

36:29- Oh.

36:30- Which spoke Greek and so there were an awful lot of folks

36:34living in Alexandria who were Jewish

36:38who could not access the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew adequately.

36:43- Okay.

36:44- And there's even a theory,

36:46it's called the interlinear theory,

36:48it's not really, I don't think it's has,

36:51it has fallen on hard times, let's say.

36:53That the idea is that the Septuagint was never meant

36:57to be a formal translation

37:01so that people who did not speak Hebrew

37:03could read the Hebrew Bible,

37:05their idea was that it is to facilitate better understanding.

37:08It's like an interlinear translation

37:10that's just intended to be a guide as they read the Hebrew.

37:15Huh, that's one theory, but Septuagint means 70

37:20and this is based on a very, very famous tradition

37:24of how we got the Septuagint.

37:27The reality is that each book

37:30and sometimes, you know, parts of books

37:32were translated by different folks.

37:34We can go through and look at translation philosophy

37:37and style and all this kind of stuff

37:38and they differ significantly from book to book.

37:42But there's this tradition known as the letter of Aristaius

37:46to Philocrates that is quoted in Josephus.

37:51He paraphrases large chunks of it.

37:55It is talked about in Philo of Alexandria.

38:00He's got a text called The Life of Moses

38:02where he quotes chunks of it as well.

38:05There's an excerpt in,

38:07so that it's preserved in a text

38:10called Preparation for the Gospel by Eusebius

38:14who was a buddy of Constantine.

38:17But what he does is he quotes a bunch of other authors

38:20and one of the folks he quotes is Aristobulus of Alexandria

38:23who was writing around the middle of the second century BCE

38:27and Aristobulus quotes a bunch of the letter of Aristaius.

38:31But this is a tradition that tells the story

38:33of mainly of a ruler in Egypt

38:38known as Ptolemy the second Philadelphus

38:42who ruled between 281 and 246 BCE.

38:46And according to this letter, Ptolemy hires or appoints

38:51somebody to take over the curation

38:57of the library of Alexandria, Demetrius of Phallerum.

39:02And in the beginning it says after he had been appointed

39:07over the King's library, Demetrius of Phallerum

39:09was furnished with much money in order to collect

39:12if possible, all the books in the world

39:15and make purchases and transcriptions.

39:18He brought to completion as much as he could the King's plan.

39:21Thus while we were present,

39:23and so Aristaius is writing to his bro-philocrates

39:28and he's like, hey, remember when we were there?

39:30We were present, he was asked,

39:32how many thousands of books have been obtained?

39:34He said more than 200,000 no king.

39:36I will hasten in a short time to fulfill the remainder

39:39of 500,000, but it has also been reported to me

39:43that the laws of the Jews are worthy of transcription

39:45and of inclusion in your library.

39:48And then the king says, what is there therefore

39:50to prevent you from doing this?

39:52And he says, for everything that you need

39:54has been provided to you.

39:55But Demetrius said, translation is still required.

39:58For in Judea they use their own characters

40:00just as the Egyptians use their own arrangement

40:02of letters and as much as they also have their own language.

40:05As always says, we need to translate this.

40:08We don't have the means to do that here.

40:10So the king writes to the high priest in Jerusalem

40:14and says, hey, you wanna send some translators?

40:17And so he sends six translators each

40:22from each of the 12 tribes of Israel

40:25from Jerusalem down to Alexandria.

40:29And this is a fanciful procession

40:32that they're received like visiting dignitaries,

40:36six times 12, 72.

40:39Round 72 off to 70.

40:42- I don't like it.

40:43I wanted it to be the sub to a do-a-gen.

40:47(chuckles)

40:48(upbeat music)

40:50- So that's where the name 70 comes from.

40:54And according to the tradition,

40:57they were all locked in tower.

41:00I think it's the pharaohs.

41:02I think it's the big lighthouse thing in Alexandria.

41:06- Okay.

41:07- But they're all kept on their own

41:09and they all translate the Torah.

41:12So just the first five books of Moses,

41:14and this is gonna be a point later on,

41:19but they're all alone translating the entire Torah,

41:23the entire Pentateuch, all five books of Moses,

41:26take some 70 days.

41:28And at night, they translate during the day,

41:30then at night, they get together with the king

41:32and they have these feasts,

41:33and they pontificate on the law and philosophy

41:37and stuff like that.

41:38And it's kind of an apologetic look how hip

41:42the Jewish folks are.

41:44We understand your philosophers.

41:47We also can show you how the Jewish law

41:50fits into Greek philosophy very well.

41:53So there's an awful lot of that going on

41:55at these feasts that take place at night.

41:5870 days are up, they all bring their work,

42:02got 72 translations, took 70 days to translate,

42:06and they all match word for word.

42:10To quote the great poet, word for word identical,

42:15but this time actually word for word identical,

42:19at least according to the tradition.

42:20- Okay.

42:21- And this is taking-- - It sounds unlikely.

42:23Or rather, it sounds like one guy just started dictating

42:28and everybody else just wrote what they heard.

42:30- Well, if you historicize it,

42:32but this is the stuff of legends.

42:35- Right, right, right.

42:36- And they take this as a sign of divine approbation,

42:41and then they have this grand party

42:42and pronounce blessings on everything,

42:47and then pronounce curses on anybody

42:49who should take anything away from,

42:50add to or take anything away from this text

42:53in a very deuteronomistic style,

42:55and then a very apocalypse of John's style.

42:59- Right.

43:00- Which is basically a way to say,

43:02this has God's sign off.

43:05- Stamped approval. - This was all miraculous,

43:08and so this is a good thing and don't nobody change it.

43:12And one of the things this does is this is a way

43:15to make Greek speaking Jewish folks feel like

43:19their translation, their non-Hebrew scriptures

43:23are actually A-OK, that they've been given

43:26the divine stamp of approval.

43:28And so in some sense the letter of Aristasis functioning

43:32as an apologetic. - Right.

43:33- Not only for the quality of the translation,

43:36but also for the use of the transits,

43:38the existence of the translation.

43:40This is still scripture.

43:42This is still the inspired word of God,

43:45no matter what you, you know, anti-Greekites are saying

43:51about the anti-dentites and the rest, but.

43:55- It's basically a reproof against the Robert Frost quote.

44:00The poetry is what's lost in translation.

44:05They're saying, scripture is not what's lost in translation

44:09when it's this translation.

44:11- Yeah, God, if God has their hand in it,

44:13then screw you, Robert Frost.

44:19- Reminds me of the old Simpsons episode

44:22where Homer meets his mom, but he thinks she's buried

44:26in the tomb on the top of the hill.

44:28And the guy's like, you ever gone up there?

44:32And he goes up there and pulls away the vines

44:35and the ivy and everything, and it says Walt Whitman.

44:38And he's like, Walt Whitman leaves of grass my ass

44:43and starts kicking the head stone.

44:49Okay, so Robert Frost, I shake my fist at the.

44:49- That's hilarious.

44:54So that's the legend that was probably written

45:00not too long after the setting.

45:02Like it's not historical.

45:04Scholars don't think this is at all historical,

45:06but that's what gave the Septuagint its name.

45:10At least the Torah, at least the first five books.

45:15So there are a lot of folks who'll be like,

45:17push their glasses up on their face

45:19and say Septuagint only refers

45:22to the first five books of Moses.

45:24And technically that's true.

45:26That's, the name comes from the legend of Aristaeus,

45:29which is just about the books of Moses.

45:31It is not about Isaiah, it's not about Kings,

45:33it's certainly not about a Haggai.

45:36So, but those all--

45:39- The Haggai thing is right out.

45:40- That is rejected from the jump.

45:44- Yeah, don't make me laugh.

45:47And so this is the name that was given

45:50to the first five books of Moses,

45:51but before too long it gets expanded

45:55as a reference to everything.

45:57So like either usage is fine.

46:00If you wanna be a very pedantic about it

46:03and you know, far from me to yuck anyone's pedantic yum,

46:08but it would only refer to the--

46:11- Being a pedant yourself, you would never--

46:13- Yes, I-- - The strange on the pedantree of others.

46:17- And so, yeah, sometimes you'll see people say that though.

46:23And technically true, but you know,

46:27let's all live by the Golden Rule, don't be a dick.

46:31- Yeah.

46:32- And so the Septuagint is I use it

46:34and a lot of other folks use it to refer to the entirety

46:37of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible,

46:41which was probably executed shortly after

46:44the first five books of Moses.

46:45And most scholars think the first five books of Moses

46:47were definitely translated first

46:48before everything else, but everything else

46:51followed shortly thereafter.

46:52And this was the Bible, this was the scriptures

46:56for the earliest followers of Jesus,

46:58for the authors of the New Testament,

47:01for the earliest Christians.

47:03And there's a wonderful book written by my thesis supervisor

47:06from the University of Oxford, T. Michael Law,

47:09called when God, excuse me,

47:11called when God spoke Greek,

47:14the Septuagint and the making of the Christian Bible,

47:16which I think is a wonderful discussion

47:18of the dynamic of the Hebrew Bible

47:23to the Septuagint to early Christianity,

47:25to what's going on and how it ultimately changed.

47:28So if anybody's interested in learning more about

47:31the role of the Septuagint in early Christianity,

47:35that's a wonderful book.

47:37And then there's also, if you want an introduction

47:39to the Septuagint, there's a wonderful book

47:43by Jennifer Dines, D-I-N-E-S,

47:47just called the Septuagint.

47:48And I think it's got to be probably from 2003 or 2004.

47:53- Okay.

47:53- And it's a great introduction.

47:57It is pretty detailed,

47:58but if you're looking to get into the weeds a little bit

48:02on the background of the Septuagint,

48:03that's a great discussion.

48:05- Let me just, I'm still wrapping my head around

48:09the sort of timeline here.

48:12- Okay.

48:13- So you said that this appeared somewhere

48:17in which century, the second century B.C.?

48:20- So no, third century B.C.

48:23is when most scholars date the earliest translations.

48:27So that would have been like the books of Moses.

48:29- Okay.

48:30- So 250, 225. - Okay.

48:32- In there somewhere.

48:33And then other parts are being added

48:36over the next 200, 250-ish years or something like that.

48:41- Sure.

48:42- So yeah, it's not completed until

48:45around the turn of the era, maybe a little before.

48:49And there are also other texts,

48:50like the Apocrypha is part of the Septuagint.

48:54- All right, that's fair.

48:54- Right.

48:56- Yeah, and there are other texts as well.

48:58- So my question is at what point,

49:01I mean, surely, because it was translated,

49:05there were Hebrew versions of it

49:08that existed at the same time for quite some time.

49:11- Yes.

49:12- And then we lost those, like when did those disappear?

49:16- Well, what happens is,

49:19and we've talked a little bit about this before,

49:21Jewish folks are copying and transmitting their manuscripts.

49:28- Right.

49:28- But when a manuscript gets old and is no longer

49:32able to be used in a service or something like that,

49:36do you remember where we put it?

49:38- Yeah, in the room.

49:40- In the room, right.

49:42The room where it happens.

49:44- The bad scroll room.

49:46- In the Ganesa.

49:49And so-- - That's what I said.

49:51- And so what we don't have are,

49:56and these are on scrolls.

49:58Most of them are not on codices,

50:01and with the scrolls, each book is on a different scroll,

50:05except for like the minor prophets.

50:07Those are shorter books,

50:08and so the 12 minor prophets might be on a single scroll.

50:11And so if those survive,

50:14they're mostly going to survive in a Ganesa,

50:17and we've got to find the Ganesa.

50:20And so we do have Ganesas with manuscripts

50:22of individual scrolls, but not,

50:25they didn't have the extra long scroll

50:28that had the entire Hebrew Bible on it.

50:31And so you don't have the full copies of the whole Bible

50:34until the medieval period,

50:36when they start copying them on codices.

50:39So the Aleppo Codex, the Leningrad Codex,

50:42that's actually a departure from the traditional practice

50:46of copying the Hebrew Bible on scrolls.

50:49That's where everything was written into a Codex.

50:51And so those are the oldest codices, codices.

50:55Oh my gosh, I'm usually so careful about that.

50:58Those are the oldest codices that have survived down to us.

51:02But before that,

51:04and all the way back to the Dead Sea Scrolls,

51:06pretty much everything was on scrolls.

51:08And so if we find a Ganesa,

51:10maybe we find some, you know, a copy of Isaiah

51:13from 500 CE or something like that,

51:15but we don't have the full Hebrew Bible.

51:18Was the original Septuagint on scroll?

51:22- It almost certainly would have been.

51:26This is why the books would have been translated independently.

51:29But by the time Christianity transitions to using the Codex,

51:34and this was quite a significant technological innovation.

51:38- Right, I remember I was talking about that, you know,

51:40we mentioned it when we talked about Codex Vaticanus

51:44and all that sort of thing.

51:46- Yeah. And so by the time we get to the use of the Codex

51:50and our, what we call our great unseal manuscripts,

51:53St. Idicus and Vaticanus,

51:55and the rest in the fourth century CE,

51:58the Septuagint is being copied onto codices.

52:02And so yeah, our earliest versions of the Septuagint,

52:07at least like full copies or mostly complete copies,

52:10are on codices.

52:12And our earliest full or almost complete copy

52:15of the Hebrew Bible is on a Codex.

52:19And so the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

52:22was quite fortuitous because that was the whole cache

52:25of all of it. - Right.

52:28- And so we get to see, you know,

52:30virtually the whole Hebrew Bible,

52:32at least all the books of the Hebrew Bible

52:34in one fragmentary state or another.

52:37- So is Codex Vaticanus, is that one in Latin?

52:44- No, no, that's Greek.

52:47- Okay, so it is just a version of the Septuagint

52:51all together on a Codex.

52:53- And the New Testament.

52:54- And the New Testament, right, right, right.

52:56Okay, got it.

52:56All right, man, keeping it all straight.

53:00I don't know, it's like you almost have to get a PhD

53:05in the damn thing to keep it all straight.

53:07- Actually, I know St. Idicus has the whole,

53:14no, St. Idicus is missing some of the Pentateuch.

53:19I'm pretty sure Codex Vaticanus,

53:24the majority of the Old Testament.

53:26Okay, so it's not the entire thing.

53:29617 sheets of the Old Testament.

53:33Yeah, so it preserves the overwhelming majority of it.

53:36- Okay.

53:37- Well, there you go.

53:39- Indeed.

53:40- It's fascinating, and like you said,

53:43like this Septuagint, this Greek version

53:48is what the people who wrote the New Testament

53:55would have been, that's how they would have read

54:01the Hebrew Bible, right?

54:04Because they were writing and reading in Greek

54:07rather than in Hebrew.

54:09- There are some indications that some writers

54:12may have had some facility in Hebrew,

54:14and were maybe consulting with some Hebrew as well,

54:17but overwhelmingly, where we can identify

54:21where it is distinguished from the other,

54:24the Septuagint is what we see in the New Testament.

54:28So folks like Paul probably could deal in Hebrew,

54:33but were generally using the Septuagint.

54:37And this is still debated too,

54:39so, but the majority of scholars would agree

54:43that the Septuagint is the Old Testament of the New Testament.

54:47- The Old Testament of the New Testament.

54:49- There you go, I like it.

54:53- Well, I think that's a great place for us to end it.

54:57Thanks so much to all of you for tuning in.

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55:19Just go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma

55:22and sign up there.

55:24Do it on the web, not on your phone,

55:28because if you're on an iPhone at least,

55:30and you're on the app, they'll charge you extra.

55:34And woof, that's frustrating.

55:36- Yeah.

55:38- And if you want to just try it out, by the way,

55:40I haven't ever mentioned this before,

55:42but all of our after parties, recent after parties,

55:46a new thing happened on Patreon.

55:48They're for sale, you can just buy a single after party.

55:51- Oh, really?

55:52- And just check it out, see if you like it.

55:55But I recommend just signing up and being a patron,

55:59and then you're helping us out,

56:01and you're also getting access to all of that cool stuff.

56:05If you're interested in coming to any of the live shows,

56:08when we go on tour in April and May,

56:11you can find the link here in the show notes to go and do that.

56:15We'd love to see you out there on the road,

56:17if you want to contact us.

56:18It's contact@dataoverdogmaopod.com,

56:22and we'll talk to you again next week.

56:24- Bye everybody.

56:29- Data Over Dogma is a member of the Airwave Media Network.

56:32It is a production of Data Over Dogma Media LLC,

56:35copyright 2025, All Rights Reserved.