Ancient Slavery & Its New Testament Context with Dr Katherine Shaner & Dr Christy Cobb

Our [Music] guests this morning are Professor Katherine Shainer and Professor Christy Cobb. who are the co-editors of the recently released volume slavery and its New Testament contexts. So, make her debut to the program is Professor Katherine Shainer. Katherine is associate professor of New Testament at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership and Early Christianity, and it's a pleasure to have her on the show. So, Katherine, welcome. Absolutely. Uh very excited to have you on the show. Uh very much appreciate your work and we'll get further into that. Um and returning to the show is Dr. Christy Cobb. Christy is assistant professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author she is the author of slavery, gender, truth, and power in Luke Acts and other ancient narratives. So Christie, welcome back. >> Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. I thoroughly enjoyed this volume and um I'm looking forward to discussing it today. Um so let's just kind of get into it be but before we do um I feel like we need to kind of talk about the history of research for a bit. Um because and the reason why is because it's often shocking when people find out about the ubiquity of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world but u even more so um in the context of the New Testament. Um however most if not all of these uh early Christian writings were created using the invisible unpaid labor of slaves right um so as we shall see slaves acted as scribes corers uh servers and much more for prominent figures u most notably um Paul of Tarsus um but even after Christianity rose to prominence with Constantine um slavery never really went away there is this uh concept cept an idea in people's minds that Christianity became more egalitarian and slavery kind of just went the wayside. But I I I would argue that it morphed into different forms and justifications uh melding these arisatilian conceptions of slavery with ancient ethnographic concerns uh in later thinkers such as Albertus Magnets. Um, so, and I apologize for being long- winded, but um, through the work of scholars such as Jennifer Glansancy and more recently Candida Moss and our two guests here today, uh, the story of these voiceless and faceless are beginning to see the rays of light. So, Christie, Katherine, um, give us some background to the scholarship on ancient slavery in the New Testament and why it's important to utilize cross-disciplinary approaches in telling these stories. You can start with that one, I think. >> Well, I mean, so I think I'm gonna start with my own realization about ancient slavery back when I was in graduate school. Um, I was, of course, reading Jennifer Glansancy. Um, but I kept wondering, you know, I'm also, okay, let me back up. I'm also a literature nerd, right? So, I love Tony Morrison. I love historical fiction. Um, not that they're in the same genre, but you know, one of the things that became really clear to me was that we couldn't just talk about slaves um, in the ancient world because when we did that, we took away some of the humanity in in those enslaved people. And part of, you know, as a feminist historian, um, part of my job is to make us recognize and realize, um, that the voices we get in usual histories are often mar not marginalized voices. And there are so many voices that are left out. There are so many voices that don't show up in our usual texts. you know, the texts that come down to us are usually ones that are either preserved by the elite or written by the elite. Um, and the Bible is no exception to that. Um, so part of what I wanted to do was to help create a history um of enslaved people's reality and lives, right? Instead of what the enslavers thought of enslaved people. Um, and then to, you know, to kind of continue that, I think what Katherine's saying is exactly right, like New Testament, the history of New Testament scholarship has been one that has focused on the elite. And so if you go to sort of the bulk of New Testament commentaries um that were say published 20 years ago or you know even even um even sooner than that um you're going to read through and you're going to see that they're not mentioning enslaved persons, right? Um and and and often when they are it's in this um sort of the light of an analogy or a metaphor about slavery. And so that becomes it it it Yeah. it makes the enslaved persons invisible um within our scholarship and within our text and I think that's why um Jason the second part of your um question is important which is the why to use a cross-disciplinary you know reading in our work and that's because we the history of New Testament scholarship has not engaged within um enslavement or enslaved voices now recently we have so much you know good work as you've mentioned a couple of of scholars and in the last you know uh 20 25 years more and more scholarship has been written um within New Testament scholarship but um when we look at um say the field of classics we can learn quite a lot about ancient slavery and the realities of ancient slavery um within that literature and then as Katherine mentioned I think um you know um literature fiction can tell us quite a lot um I've been sort of diving in recently ly to the scholarship on transatlantic slavery. Um especially because that overlaps with my work on gender. There's just tons of scholars who've been working on um enslaved women in the transatlantic um world. And so reading that really helps me to um emphasize the agency of enslaved persons in antiquity and within the New Testament. >> Yeah. And I'm going to I'm going to pull one more discipline in here because we haven't talked about theology. And as a as a also a theologian, I feel like I need to pull in theology here because I think one of the things that's at stake for us in this history in this cross-disciplinary study of ancient slavery in the New Testament is is the foundation of Christian theology, right? And so part of once I started seeing slaves in the historical record, I started seeing how much slavery was inculcated into our basic theologies within early within Christianity. And for me there's a corrective um that we need to that we need to work on there. There's a reparation to be done to be made there. >> Absolutely. I think in I think in all things in terms of this um the approaches to slavery in antiquity, I think that the importance is always to um as with feminist theology as with the u using epigraphical evidence as opposed to this oration by Dio of Chrysm or Diors of Prussa or whatever or Plutarch on Isis and Osiris. I think it's important to uh read these um this evidence against the grain where possible and look for these aspects where it's important to um see that these uh slaves are letting their voices out despite being silenced by the uh major narrative that kind of encapsulates encapsulates the world uh that they live in. Um and that's what's great about the volume. like you said, uh there's a lot of cross-disciplinary approaches that are important in this. Um I think I froze up there for a second. >> Sorry, one second. What happened there? Maybe it's just me. But I'll I'll keep going. >> Your video is >> We're live just fine. >> Okay, that's so strange. One second. Let me try this. I don't know. Well, um, you'll have to look on this not so flattering picture of me while I keep going, but uh, The Volume approaches the subject from several different angles. Uh, Christie, you approach it from gender and sexuality. Katherine, you talk a lot about the household codes and the philosophical concepts that went into the, um, running of the household. Um, but also it tackles the subject from the, uh, angle of economics and material and cultural history. So can you discuss these uh subjects and angles uh a bit further? >> Yeah. Um so we when Katherine and I were planning this volume, we were really thinking about how it would teach, right? Um so um my much much of my experience in the classroom is with undergraduate students. Um though my now teaching graduate students as well, but I have a lot of experience in undergraduate classrooms. And Katherine teaches um at a a divinity school, right? And so masters of divinity students as well. And so we both of us taught taught slavery in the classroom and both of us there we didn't we were struggling with exactly which text to use and how to do it. So we set this book up to work in a classroom really well I think. Um and so the first section of the book is the sort of historical background. So we see this as these are the kind of things you need to know um before diving into a sort of critical analysis of passages in the New Testament that deal with slavery. So um it begins with these two sort of what we might call mini chapters um that talk about the language of enslavement um and just how to approach slavery. And then we have several chapters that give this historical background. So the slavery in the Roman world, a chapter on law and material culture. Um Jew ancient Jewish slavery which is really important to the context of the New Testament as well. Um this how slave labor and the slave trade. So how did people become enslaved? And then we move into these sort of like top let's say topical approaches or thematic approaches as as you mentioned. So gender and sexuality. Um there's a chapter on race and ethnicity, um on metaphors, um the household codes, right? And then the very end of the book turns to what we might say is sort of the repercussions of of slavery. So what happens in early Christianity? What are early Christians and the church fathers doing with this? And then we even have a chapter on um the influences of slavery like around the globe, right? Um so >> so so that's that was our our sort of thought process behind the the volume and what chapters we included which we thought through um you know pretty carefully. Yeah. Do you want to add something to that Katherine? Well, I would say throughout, you know, one of the other features of the book that I think is really interesting that that touches on Christiey's and my research both um is that you're right, Jason, that's about material culture, right? So, you know, enslavement isn't just a theoretical concept or something that's found in literature. There are ways to trace it in the material world as well. Um, and that's that's been part of what I've been what I've done as a scholar is to say, "Hey, wait a minute. we've got some material evidence here and we need to juxtapose that um a lot of times with our literary evidence and that gives us still a different window into how the world of um ancient Roman slavery actually worked. >> Absolutely. Um I I think that we're going to talk a little bit more about that. Um and uh looks like my camera's working so uh uh it's a good thing. Um but you know before getting into the case studies because I thought this would be an interesting um exercise. Um but before we get into the case studies themselves um that I have prepared uh we should probably discuss briefly the historical millia of the high Roman Empire which is roughly uh the first to late 2 centuries common era. Um the time during which the early Christian texts were written and transmitted. Um so tell us about the importance and ubiquity of slavery um as a wheel of the mach machinery of the the empire you know economically uh super important um and like you said Katherine and and Christie there's a lot of material evidence there's you know uh owners manuals you know on how to treat your slaves um you know there's evidence on how you would buy a slave maintain a slave um of course the household codes uh Katherine so um tell us a bit about this. >> Yeah. I mean, so one of the things that um I want to go back to the scholarship a little bit because comparison with um new world slavery with transatlantic slavery is often one of the things that folks talk about, well, we can't really do that. But it's no accident that when you go back to read Ko's on agriculture or when you go back to read um Ver's David Rustika, it's no accident that it sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson, right? And so, um, our the the the architects of New World slavery, of the transatlantic slave trade, the architects of that were reading all of this stuff within the Roman Empire. And why? Because the only way that the Roman Empire can get to be as wealthy and as powerful as it is, is through a system of enslave enslavement. Right? So, you've got wars on all the peripheries of the Roman Empire, and that's just feeding the slave trade because all the war captives who aren't, you know, to be celebrated in um victory marches in the city of Rome, they're the ones who um then go to the slave markets. So, and then you start to see you sort of see another phenomenon happening um is in the on the Italian peninsula particularly as the as the empire is getting rolling you start to see um consolidation of estates and once you have consolidation of estates you have bigger and bigger groups of enslaved people who are needed in order to run those estates profitably. Um, and so that's where you get some of these instructions from say Kato where he's like, "Yeah, you know, only give a certain amount of wine and if it's fig season, drop down the rations because they'll just eat some figs anyway." Right? It I'm I'm embellishing a bunch, but the consolidation of wealth that happens in the Roman Empire can only happen with enslavement as um the labor structure. And I'll add to that that I mean I think the all all of this is so important to know and also um there has been some research done by by scholars that have shown that um you didn't have to be super wealthy in the Roman world to own a slave, right? you could um you know a a sort of I don't know low middle class family might have even been able to afford one maybe two especially a domestic enslaved worker inside the house and then of course um women and we're going to get into this in a little bit but were often used for breeding for um so in addition to the ways that you know Catherine just mentioned about sort of obtaining enslaved workers and that labor force um um if you have one enslaved worker in your house and that person is female, then she has a child. Then you have a second enslaved worker in your house, you know. So, um there then there there was a way that slavery touched sort of every facet of the Roman world. >> I think that's a great point, Chris Christie. And and even in um the cities themselves had slaves. I was having discussion with a classicist named Jerry Toner who wrote a book called uh the the Romans guide to slave management and it's a fictionary account but he takes the evidence from Varro from Kato to uh create this uh slave guide and and Katherine was saying she was she was kind of exaggerating when she was talking about the rations but it's it's really not off by much like it really is kind of you know you only give them one cloak every you know six months or whatever or one pair of uh when it's the summer, give them more grain, but you know, otherwise they'll get too uppidity. It's it's it's really there's a an anxiety and this elite um male um culture of uh of leisure and rhetoric and all these things that we're talking about that most scholars draw on when they talk about antiquity that is reflected in these manuals. Uh which is very interesting. Um, so in the book it's really interesting because after every chapter there are questions for the students. Um, I assume this book was written for mostly the classroom if I'm correct um from reading it. If y'all could kind of talk about that a bit. >> Yeah, that's right. >> Oh, right. Yeah, we so KY and I um we got we were on a Zoom call over the pandemic and so way back when remember we were on a Zoom call together and realized that neither of us had a textbook that we could just sort of pull off the shelf and hand to our students. And so part of the reason we wanted to write this um was not only to get experts to talk about the thing they were expert in. So, you know, Roth writes the chapter on on slave trade and labor, and she's incredible, an incredible scholar on those particular topics, but we also asked them to write only 5,000 words, and we asked them to let us edit it. And so, part of the the goal of this book really was to make readable pros um so that an 18-year-old can pick it up and understand it, which is not always the case with scholarship, right? So, um, we were very, very focused on making sure this was an accessible book. >> And I'll just add to that, we, um, I mean, we also did hope that it would be a resource for, um, you know, for people outside the classroom, too, right? U, because it is the kind of book you could just read one chapter in one sitting if you're interested in knowing more about a particular aspect of slavery. Um or you can read the whole thing if you're if you're unfamiliar with u the intricacies of ancient slavery and interested in it in the New Testament. Um, for example, you know, a person, a pastor who might be preaching sermons and have real has realized that, you know, they're the sermons are engaging texts that discuss slavery, then they might grab this book and and then be be um able to understand the sort of foundational aspects of slavery um which can impact, you know, their ministry or their their personal life, you know, all of those things, right? >> Wonderful. Well, yes, I think that uh it did a great job. And in the spirit of the pedagogical uh uh mission of the book, I thought we would take some uh kind of uh case studies. Now, I want people to keep in mind that these case studies uh when I talk about the um hold on, add the stage. Sorry, I don't use Google Slides. So, I think that's what's issu the issue with the uh the Streamyard, but uh please bear with me everybody. I'm not tech techsavvy. Um but in the spirit of this uh kind of ped pedagogical uh mission I thought that it would be good to uh look at some case studies. Now please keep in mind that these slaves are usually we don't know their names. Um their stories are only hypothetical from the epigraphical evidence or otherwise. Um but I thought we'd look at you know three case studies of uh women who were enslaved in different situations within a household. So this first one um Chris Christie this will actually go back to our first talk on uh women you know power you know the voice uh voice in the New Testament text um but I decided to call this person who's holding the mirror down here >> uh Fortunata. So Fortunata is a longtime slave of an elite woman in Asia Minor. Um so tell us a little bit about what her hypothetical situation would have been like. um how would power dynamics, what is defined as kurarchy in the in the uh the volume and by um other scholars, h how would that have defined her relationship with her owner? >> Um I think when looking at these kind of depictions, one of the first things to note is the sort of size of the two figures, right? Um so when we look at this particular image um the you know taller elite woman is is in the center. She is you know she is the focal point of thiserary monument. She's the deceased. Um we can tell a little bit about her from the clothing um from you know the way in which she's presented right with this head covering and um sort of her full body um dress and then also the way she's sort of standing facing the viewer right um the enslaved woman um which is you know she is much smaller and we might even look at her and think that's a child right and that depiction was intentional by the artist who made this. Because what um the technique that art historians um used to call this is uh hierarchical hierarchical scaling which is basically that um the the people uh who are viewed as less important um on the hierarchy are usually minimized. And so in this particular image, we see this enslaved um you know person and she looks very young. And um one of one of the things I would say is let's not assume that the enslaved person or enslaved woman who's enslaved to this elite woman is young. We don't know for sure. We know, you know, it's hard to know, but um these images were often made to be smaller purposefully in order to decrease her importance, which addresses the power dynamics at play. Um do you want to add something there, Katherine? I don't want to take over the >> No, I mean, this is I I think you're more familiar with this monument than I am. Um and so I'm just I'm looking at the image and observing a few things, and you've already pointed some of them out. One is that the the taller woman is has so much more volume to her clothing, right? And textiles are really expensive in the ancient world. So, this is a woman, at least in terms of the rhetoric of her depiction, who has a lot of cash because she can afford um not only an undergarment, like the the undergarment, but then that that wrap all the way around. And you notice the only thing that's showing is the one hand and her face. Um, and a little bit of her hair. Um, but her hair is fairly complicated in its hairstyle, too. So, we get we get signals, rhetorical signals, I would argue. Um, and or not argue, but point out these are rhetorical symbols of how this woman wants to portray herself. And we don't know anything about the real woman who's behind this picture. And that's that's what's really interesting when we start to move to archaeology because sometimes we start to think that these images tell us more than the texts do because they're more like windows into real life, but they're just as rhetorical as our texts are. Um, and Christiey's pointed some of that out with the shorter um the shorter woman looking like a child, but that's a rhetoric of enslavement, right? Because enslaved people are not mature enough, right? don't have enough rationality, reason, don't have enough virtue to be full adults, right? And so you see that rhetoric. And then to add to that, um, as far as the the the whole the enslaved woman that she is pictured there, the whole purpose of this rhetoric that Katherine's pointing out is to uplift the female enslaver, the deceased woman. So her whole the whole purpose there she's facing her she's holding two objects um a fan um on her like lower arm and then a jewelry box on the upper arm. Both of these are meant to show like I she is there for the beauty um and the comfort of her enslaver. That's her her purpose of being there. um she's also sort of looking up in this way that um might impact a viewer in the ancient world might have looked at this and said, "Oh, um this enslaved woman really cared about her deceased enslaver." Um so it's uh performing virtue, right? Um it's saying she was a good um enslaver. She was a kind a benevolent enslaver. And all of that is rhetoric as Katherine is saying like we can't know but you know exactly what was happening behind the scenes but we can read this and it can it can um provide for us the information that we can say well if we want to read this against the grain just like we might read a text. >> We might say that we should resist that view that this enslaver was kind. We should recognize that enslavers were manipulative in lots of ways. were violent in lots of ways, right? Um and that even if this image portrays to us that the enslaved woman is looking up and is is, you know, um sad that she has died and is here with her, you know, um objects of comfort and beauty and right um towards her enslaver that she was still in, uh you know, trapped in a situation of enslavement in this woman's house. And I'm glad that you brought up the um infantilizing aspect of this image. And uh but actually before I get into that, I think that it's extremely important to point out that yes, these f the theerary monuments just like the epigraphical habit of this period of time are all um performative. They're all trying to express something about how you either fit in or don't fit into this empire as a whole. Um I had a discussion with a scholar uh named Lindseay Mazurich on uh Isizc uh portrayal how women portrayed themselves in Isiziac Garp on theirerary monuments and how this was used to express alterity. Um so yeah all these all these uh visual texts so to speak are saying something uh about how the viewer wants to be remembered and how they want to project themselves and their family. Um and uh but just to get to the infantilizing aspect of this image, I think it's also reflected in the the names for the or the what these slaves were called, right? Like uh like a female slave is a pibiske um you know and you know the the um the male slaves are like you know a pis like you know like a boy you know like in that derogatory sense. So I think it's reflected in the language as well and how these um slaves were referred to. So, um, if you wanted to add anything to that. >> Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's actually one of the issues with studying slavery in the ancient world is how do you decide on the vocabulary about it? And just like in English, it's slippery, right? I mean, you know, if you read antibellum literature, they talk about the servants on the plantation. Well, they're not servants, they're slaves. Um, and you have the same issue with Greek. You know, the word dulos is often translated as servant, but it really does mean slave. Um, and pes pedis those could be either way, right? It could be young child or it could be enslaved person. I think technon is sometimes used in that in that sense also, but it's slippery because especially with pes and pisqueke and technon um they can also refer to free children, freeborn children as well. So, um, it's slippery in that that rhetoric is trying to show that, oh, look, the slavery must not be so bad if they're just like our kids. >> Except that you might call a 40-year-old woman a pedisk, right? Or a 30-year-old man a technon. Um, which isn't so great just generally speaking. Christie, did you have anything to add to that before we move on? >> No, I mean I could talk about the language stuff for a long time. Um well I let's see what I could add here is well even when the language for the enslaved person is also um is infantilizing as we've talked about but also I think we can problematize the language of enslavers. So thinking of uh curios curier um this idea of the enslaver um which is often is translated as lord and that's a part of where the metaphors of enslavement come into into play when um when the disciples call Jesus their their lord they are embodying that language of enslavement because that word can also mean enslaver person who enslaves right enslaves others and so that that kind of language age is also really important to um discuss and to sort of like pick apart. >> Absolutely. Thank you both for that answer. Um so we're going to move on to our next slide and our next hypothetical case study. So this I named this one uh Felicitas. So Felicitas is a servant. And Katherine, this question is uh more tailored towards your work on the household household codes um household codes. Sorry, I can't speak today. um in your um previous book and in the volume here. Um so Felicitas is a servant in a wealthy household in southern Italy. Um so what would her situation have been like? Um where would she fit into the hierarchy of the household the household code? >> Um yeah, so I'm I want to just note I'm I'm sitting here admiring the mosaic, right? This is a skilled mosaicist who's who's created this particular image. Um, one of the things that I want to note is that this this particular enslaved image is of a woman who's holding a big urn on her back and it must be heavy if she's holding it on her back instead of in front of her. Um, so one of the things that I think we need to think about when we think about enslaved women in the household is that they weren't doing just nice little uh domestic tasks like, you know, wielding a a spatula in the kitchen or um, you know, they were doing heavy heavy, sweaty, strength kneading kinds of labor. when I look at at Felicity's house as well and I I realize that the image isn't on the screen anymore um because I think we might have lost Jason but I'll keep talking about her because when we think about enslaved women who are in a household one of the issues that comes up is to whom are they beholden right so the in the rhetoric of slavery in the laws of slavery whoever owns you whoever is your enslaver is the person to whom you're beholden for your livelihood. Um, and they have the power under Roman law of life and death over you. Um, but your father also has the same power if you are an unmarried daughter. Your husband, if you are married, um, could possibly have that same power over you as well if you're a woman in antiquity. And so all of a sudden what we start to see is an issue with the household codes because this woman perhaps she has a father. Perhaps she was born into the household that she's working in. She's got a father but she's also got an enslaver. What happens if she needs to maybe care for her sick father who asks her to do that and her enslaver says no you need to be moving the wine empire today. um who does she listen to if she's uh underneath some of this rhetoric of the household codes? The truth is that I don't think the household codes really have much to do with everyday life. I think they are more about a rhetoric of political organization that uplifts the master, right? Uplifts the the patriarch, the male head of the household so that he can have leisure. so that he can be a scholar, so that he can govern in a democracy, right? I mean, so all of our rhetoric of democracy is often dependent on enslaved labor because you need folks who have the time to deliberate um and the time to study governance decisions. Um, we see a lot of that in in Plato's um in Plato's politics, and I could talk about that if you want, but um the point is that this enslaved person um first of all, this is a rhetoric. She's being a good slave, right? So, whoever is portraying her is portraying her as um good and workworthy. But then the reality of her life, if we take her out of this mosaic, the reality of her life is not simple in terms of um sort of the hierarchy of demand if you want to talk about it that way. She is beholden to so many different people that it would often be confusing to her. Um, and I'll let Christie I'll let Christie weigh in because I'm sure you've got some other observations. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm particularly drawn to kind of the thing you noted about her labor being hard and difficult. Um, and also the sort of varying jobs that a person might have. When we think about say the New Testament and um Roa who's in Acts chapter 12 and she's always noted to be a doorkeeper and we might imagine oh that's the only thing she does all day is open the doors but no the reality is that she was likely running around carrying water cooking cleaning right errands um doing all sorts of other types of work and responsible for answering the door um when um you know guests were coming when there was a gathering such as the one described in Acts chapter 12 and so this woman um who we're calling Felicitas um you know it it's similar right um and I like that you pointed out Katherine that the labor is not always was would not have always been easy um and this uh goes to Mera Green's chapter from our book where she sort of talks about um the kitchens and the material culture um the material evidence that we can learn from examining an ancient kitchen, which is that um an average person would have had to been stooped over, would have, you know, would have been in a room with with fire close by, you know, would have um this would have taken a toll on a person's body, an enslaved woman's body as they were um preparing the meals. And that's only one part of their job in most cases, as you were saying. I think it's worth also noting that those who have women's bodies are often conscripted for reproductive labor, whether that is, you know, that they need to be having babies to replace the slaves or grow the slave population in the house, which means that they're beholden sexually to their enslavers or to whoever their enslaver gives them to. Um, but then of course there's the danger of child birth. Um, and then once they give birth, they become wet nurses, which means that they're not only nursing their own children, but any other children who are in the household as well. So, you know, the the toll plus they of course have all of their other labor. So, the toll that it takes on a female body simply to exist in this space is I think not something we should take for granted or something that we should diminish. >> Yeah. So true. Sorry. Absolutely. And I think that that's a great point to make about again the uh the these elite males who have these vast estates and who now because they're not in the Senate all day arguing over rhetorical matters. They have all this time uh to work on their OTM or their leisure and how best to manage their slaves and their estates and things like that. And the a good example that always comes up for me is somebody like Plenny the younger if you look at his epistles he's always constantly u trying to juggle in in his mind uh you know how best to balance work and leisure and how best to balance you know how does an elite person spend their time. So, um, yeah, great point to make, great points. Um, and we're going to move on now to the third case study. Um, and this one, um, I just want to point out for some people, um, it might be a little bit more, um, uh, just because it's going to be talking about sex work. So, um, it might be, if you have younger people watching, it might be, uh, appropriate to kind of, uh, watch what we're, um, going to be talking about now. So, um that they're not watching. But, uh so this is um I called this one Perseus. So, Perseus is a sl a sex laborer, a pornet in a brothel in Pompei. Um so, tell us a little bit about what her situation would have been like. Um how would she have found ways to subtly resist her situation with her clients and her enslavers? So, um, yeah, we've learn we've learned a lot recently about brothel, um, from the work of Sarah Leven Richardson, who has, um, this book where she sort of goes into this purpose-built brothel in Pompei and, um, and explores it and analyzes it from um, all sorts of angles, but especially thinking through um, the the sort of the the experience of a sex laborer. Um this one is female. There would have also been male um um sex laborers, sex workers um in a brothel as well. And so um what Sarah Leven Richardson says is that um we should you know at least in the brothel Pompei which can give us insight to other brothel as well. Um imagine the space is lively. Um people coming in and out right um um uh sex is happening of course um and other sort of sexual services are being purchased as well. But then there was also um people doing their hair um helping each other um you know with their with their body, with their makeup, with their hair um you know going to fetch water um and bringing it back into the brothel, eating, drinking. As you can actually see on this image, there's a table with some cups and it looks like maybe a bowl, right? So um so we can imagine the brothel as a space where all of these things are happening in addition to to sex, right? Um and and and really we should say forced, right? Forced sex um in these situations. Um, and another aspect that Sarah Leven Richardson does is analyzes the graffiti from the walls of this brothel. And um, she notes that many of the names um, this is going back to our conversation, Jason, about the names of enslaved persons as well, but um, and the sort of language um, many of the names were of people who were enslaved, but there were some enslaved um, or some sex workers who would have not been enslaved. um according to her research, right? Um so a percentage that might not have been and so we might have a variety of statuses inside of a brothel. Um you know enslave many enslaved persons in addition to some who might not have been and have found themselves in this situation. And then of course the the uh customers that come into um the brothel in order to um you know to to find their their sexual needs met through this youth, right? Um, and so this is one way we can kind of peek inside of an ancient brothel and think about um the dynamics inside of there from this research from analyzing um what you know what the brothel looks like as well as the graffiti and images such as this which are again rhetorically presenting a certain image of of an in of a of a sex worker or sex laborer. >> Yeah. And you asked Jason about resistance. Um, and as I'm as I'm listening to and and learning more and more about sex workers, I can imagine that there's some subtle forms of resistance um that could be at work here. Um, you know, we often think about um well, first of all, it it's worth saying that in the ancient world, nudity was everywhere. Like, so nudity isn't the shocking thing to people. Um, but we often forget about how vulnerable people are when they're nude. Um, so I can imagine that a sex worker, a sex worker is actually seeing a client in some of their most vulnerable spaces. Now, that's not to say that the sex worker would take advantage necessarily of every vulnerability because, of course, the backlash is awful. Um, but a savvy sex worker might know how to take advantage of someone's vulnerability while they're while they're nude. Um, you could also sort of you also see in some other graffiti that they the the sex workers will make fun of their clients, right? They'll talk about, you know, solitire really likes blah blah blah instead of, you know, normal sex or, you know, they'll have these jokes about their clients and you can you can see where that could subtly start a whisper network within the city um that might actually damage somebody's reputation. Um, you could also I could also see a sex worker um using some of the tactics that we know from New World Slavery um from Annabel slavery. Um things like taking a few extra coins, right? Sort of telling the client it's one price, but really their enslaver is only expecting them to get another price and their price was a little inflated so they get a couple extra coins in their pocket. or there'd be a slowdown, right, of you know, well, you know, that client took a while to do what he wanted to do and so I just had to slow down a little bit, right? And so then you you subtly resist by slowing down the pace of work. >> Yeah. You know, a great Oh, sorry, Christie. Go ahead. >> No, no, I was just going to add to that. I'm think that's really great. Um, but the the money piece is a really interesting part of this that Katherine's sort of mentioning because there there are a couple of sort of Roman writers who mention, oh, the fear of a sex laborer purchasing her own freedom, right? Um and and this this idea that um you know what it you know either her sort of taking more um more money than than it the job technically costs or whatever or but also her being you know paid a percentage um in the form what we call a peculi um in the ancient world where her she's getting a percentage too and then saving it up. And so there's I love this this sort of aspect of talking about resistance in this what would have likely been a pretty difficult situation for these these people. >> Absolutely. And I I think that um as you you both were kind of going through the resistance the the subtle resistance I think um this is of course a problematic uh um piece of evidence from antiquity because of course it's from an elite male but uh I think of something like from the literary evidence uh Lucian's dialogue of the cortisans which is um you know it's all about like these different gossipy uh discussions between um uh uh the women about you know their lovers and things like that. Uh but yeah just very interesting. Um so I let's get into the early Christianam literature examples and um sorry everybody my camera's having issues for some reason tonight. I think it's the uh uh the slides but uh you know we we soldier forward. Uh so there is a rhetoric of enslavement to Christ and God in these texts especially in Paul. Um however Katherine as you point out in a fantastic article that um I read recently uh we have evidence of this being quite a common occurrence in antiquity. Um so utili you utilize epigraphic evidence such as a a petitioner of de demeter calling himself a slave and suppliant um as well as an inscription um from Apollo's temple in Dima uh where it calls the slaves the boys of the god. Uh so can you tell us about this and especially if you could draw in some weak compar uh weak comparison to how Paul uses this language in Philippians and Galatians. Yeah. Oh, wow. >> Yes, I can do all that. >> Um, no, I mean, so this the the the lead inscription in this article um that's in the it's in um Roman religion religions of the Roman Empire. Um the lead inscription in this is a petitioner who's who's saying to Demiter, look, I'm your slave. Can you help me with my slaves? Right? And so you've got that juxtaposition of this is an enslaver who is petitioning his god for help with his enslaved people. Um and so part of what I wanted to point out was that you have this tension of enslaved laborers in the dinema temple, right? So it talks about these the boys of the temple. Well, they are listed along with material supplies for building that temple, right? So you need five marble stones and 10 iron pins and 15 slaves, right? 15 boys in order to do that day's task. Um, and so you have these these enslaved laborers who are owned by the god and the sanctuary, but then you also have folks who are saying, "But I'm a slave to the god even as a free person." Um, and so once we get to when we get to Philippians and Galatians, we hear a lot of this language from Paul about Paul being a slave to Jes Christ Jesus. And he um, he calls himself that in Philippians, he calls himself that at the beginning of Romans. Um, but he's also really clear that he owes nobody anything, especially in Galatians, right? So, we don't think Paul was enslaved um in real life like IRL as the kids say. Um he wasn't legally enslaved to anyone, but this metaphor of enslavement becomes a really important piece of Paul's own self-identity. And part of it is he's trying to show how dedicated he is to his work, how dedicated he is to Christ Jesus. But he's also willing to use that metaphor to wield it especially in Galatians in ways um that then objectify particularly women and particularly women's bodies. And u Marian Cartzo talks about this in our in her chapter in our book about metaphor and sexuality or metaphor and women in the um New Testament. And one of the things that I think is really difficult for folks to come to terms with in the New Testament is that Paul isn't innocent in using that enslavement metaphor. Neither are the folks in the ancient world. The metaphor means something precisely because readers know exactly what enslavement is and they know about the exploitation of enslavement. Absolutely. Thank you for that answer. Um, so let's get into the gospels themselves. Um, slaves of course are all over the gospels, but Luke especially stands out. Um, especially after reading this volume. Um I was actually I was although I was aware of it I was not aware of how strongly slaves and the viewpoint of the enslavers were portrayed especially in these parables that Luke gives. Right. Um so can you discuss the many parables found in Luke and especially how they portray slaves and the likely perspective of Luke's implied readers? Um would they have been more sympathetic to the slaves or the enslavers? Um yeah because I like I said I just found this very fascinating especially um I I felt this was important to point out. Um so Luke 17:7 um Jesus has this saying and and people tend to think of Jesus as this very egalitarian person who's um inclusive of everybody and there are of course sayings like that that do say that you know tax collector sinners um are um welcome into the kingdom of God but he also he also has some uh Luke also writes something like this where Jesus says who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field. Come here at once and take your place at the table. Would you not rather say to him, "Prepare supper for me. Put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink. Later you may eat and drink." Do you thank the slave for doing what it was commanded? So also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, "We are worthless slaves. We have done only what we ought to have done." That was so hard to hear. >> I apologize. >> I mean, even if I've written about it, it's so hard to hear that in Jesus's voice. Um, and yet, like, look, look at the the ways the ways that he's entering into enslaver rhetoric. He's assuming the disciples would operate this way, right? He's assuming that the disciples would not um ex would expect their enslaved people to um serve them. He's also assuming that um enslaved people are you should get as much labor out of them as you possibly can. Um he's also assuming cleanliness, right? I mean, think about coming in from this the field or being with sheep all day, right? You're going to not smell real great. Um but of course he wants the enslaved person to put on their apron and you know serve nicely um probably while the enslaver gets to clean up um clean themselves off right and feel a little bit better about um who they are in the world. And it's so frustrating then to see Jesus also say this is worthless work. It's only reifying so many of the enslavement exploitation moves and and rhetorics of enslavers in antiquity and even today. Um, so I that that particular saying is just such a difficult one because we want to see it metaphorically, but there's so many ways in which it trades on all of the literal exploitative labor practices of enslavement in the ancient world. >> Um, I'll just pipe in here. I mean, I think that that's that's exactly right. and these especially with the parables that's what's happening right is that it is um perpetuating this the economic exploitation of enslaved workers right and um and we see that over and over again and then another but another example from Luke which is not in a parable but that Katherine and I use in our introductory chapter is the story of Malchus who's this um basically this enslaved a man who's enslaved to the high priest and he comes with the group that's going to arrest Jesus. He is there in all four gospels, um, the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and also John. Um, and one of the things we do in the sort of opening of the book is to talk about this story because, um, well, it's not a it's it's not exactly a parable. It's a it it's at least within the Gospels, it's describing uh, no, an enslaved person who would be forced to come along in this uh, moment. And um one of the disciples um slices his ear off, right? And this is again in all four gospels. Um and only Luke has Jesus heal the man's ear, right? So Matthew, Mark, and John, this guy is this this person is left with, you know, no ear, right? Is really violent. We should be a ma, you know, this is a really violent scene. And then Luke has Luke's Jesus reaches down, picks up the ear, heals it, right? And often this is interpreted as sort of a Jesus that's being caring, right? That he Luke's Jesus is caring for the oppressed. Um, but I think one other way of viewing it is that Luke's Jesus is healing him in order that he might go back to work so he can be a better enslaved worker, right? or a or a complete one, right? Um because he's not freed in that scene. Luke's Jesus doesn't free him, he heals him. Um and so we we sort of I think Katherine and I are using that story to question like there's a variety of ways we can view these texts and these stories. Um and we should be aware of these moments that u this could be an an act of healing by Luke's Jesus. could also be further exploitation, right, of the enslaved worker. >> Absolutely. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. C. I say before we move off of Luke, I want to I want to add one piece to this story around the scholarship because um I you know we can talk about the exploitation of of enslaved people in Luke, but I have to note that this is about a context that we're trying to um uh interject our interpretations into, right? The white feminist context. So for me the white Protestant mainline context in particular because I want to note the work of Miss Mity Smith um who's a womanist scholar who's arguing um that Mary when she sings the Magnificate Mary is admitting to being an enslaved woman and therefore Jesus would be enslaved as well. um and she she creates a a way in which that interpretation is absolutely necessary for her community um and for the solidarity of her own community as a womanist scholar. And I just want to note that we have to allow the possibility for those kinds of multiple interpretations. Um, and that Christy and I are very aware that we are working for a particular audience who wants to diminish the impact of slavery for our own sake, right? Versus to wants to um find some solidarity in slavery with Jesus. >> Yeah, that's a great point to make. And I I think actually I want to stay on on Luke for a bit longer because Luke is also the author of um Acts and uh Chris Christie and I had a conversation last time about um the uh various ways in which servants were or slaves were portrayed in in Acts and there there's one very particularly striking uh situation that always stands out to me um when Paul uh rebukes the the lady the slave with the spirit of the Pythia and uh where they kind of uh you know he he kind of takes away her livelihood just cuz she's proclaiming them as you know they're they're uh servants of the most high you know so it's like Paul's like annoyed by this and that strikes that strikes me as well and u you know just this perspective of how of course we can't possibly know but it seems very strongly to me I'm strongly convinced after reading um this volume that um Luke is written more from the perspective of the the enslavers than the enslaved. So I you kind of wonder who the readers would have more sympathy for and all these parables and all these portrayals of the slaves. Um yeah, just one thing that I found very striking about it. Yeah, I mean I think um that that in the enslaved sort of fortune teller in Philippi in Acts 16 is one that you know she keeps um like popping up in my writing and in my um you know teaching as well because that story has so many different facets to it f and things that we've already addressed in this conversation such as the economic exploitation because the the writer of Acts does say um the enslavers made a great deal of money from her labor. So it's this, you know, it's all it's already there that they are um you know uh capitalizing on her labor. And then of course it does also uh point to the treatment and the infantilizing of enslaved persons because she is called a padisque. um that word that we've discussed earlier. Um and also Paul's treatment of her which you know as as you mentioned is really sort of just because he's annoyed it seems right that he is going to um remove her ability to work and then finally she disappears right we don't hear the this the whole story just moves to Paul and Silas and their treatment and the enslavers and the way they are feeling and she just is you know we don't know anything about what happens to her after the story. And so there's so many elements to that that story in Acts that I don't know it just can't it does hasn't let go of me yet that story. >> Katherine, did you want to add anything? >> I mean, you know, one of the things and Chrissy Chrissy pointed this out, right, that that the Piscate she held the truth. Um, and she uses the metaphor. So, here here again we go back to this metaphor, right? She uses the metaphor of Paul and Silas being slaves of the most high while she's an enslaved person. Um, and of course, there's no relief for her from her enslavement, even if the metaphorical enslavement to God is a relief for Paul and Silas. And I that tension is just one you got to sit with for a good long while. Like >> for me, I think it's it's very um the tension is extremely pronounced especially after my studies over the past couple of years of this subject. Um just the um the empty rhetoric almost of an elite person being an enslaved of of a deity but also still maintaining their power structures. Whereas somebody who is an enslaved person has no recourse to saying no to their master if he wants to have sex with them whether that's a boy or a girl right um they have no recourse to not doing backbreaking labor in the fields on the the latundia right um so I think that it it's become an extremely problematic aspect of reading these texts um um over the past few years but uh I wanted uh I know we're running low on time so I wanted to know if I could ask one more question before we go >> of So, we're going to end on a a kind of a interesting note. Um, everybody loves the book of Revelation. Uh, right. So, uh, >> do they >> well certain people more than others, right? Um, but, uh, the book of Revelation in chapter 17 through 19 portrays the uh, pornet of Babylon, the uh, the uh, prostitute of Babylon. Um, so tell us about how Revelation uses the imagery of an enslaved sex laborer for a bit um to denigrate the empire um but also what does it kind of tell us about um attitudes towards this profession as well? >> Yeah, this I mean this the use of porn here is certainly meant to be um negative, right? um to associate um you know Rome let's say uh Babylon with a an enslaved sex labor is meant to be degrading right um language to be used there and there um and that section is pretty kind of graphic in its especially misogynistic language um used there and so I think that is you know really important to note Um, a number of scholars have talked about the ways in which um, you know, some enslaved persons were um, branded or tattooed on their forehead and the writer of Revelation uses that image as well. Um, again negatively associated um, with that. But then there have been um some scholars such as I'm thinking of Chanel Smith's work um who does a a womenist reading of of this passage and and provides um I think what she calls like al alternative readings um of this passage that can show this woman of Babylon to be a more complex figure than um than at first glance. Right. >> Do you want to add to this Catherine? Well, I was going to say it's it's also worth pointing out that in those very chapters where uh John the Seer is trying to um is using that metaphor of the porn of Babylon to desecrate the Roman Empire. He's also, you know, when he gets to the cargo list where the kings of the earth who had who um committed fornication with her, like the this the kings of the earth are weeping because their cargo in their ships is going up in flames, right? Um, and one of the at the very end of that cargo list, it's this really dramatic list of like grapes and gold and myrr and fabric and spices and you know all the really cool stuff wormwood and human souls that is enslaved people, right? Um or bodies soma that is human souls. And when we get to that point in 1813, um it's one of the few places where we actually get a critique of enslavement, right? Because there's a there's a critique of the excess and the exploitation of the Roman Empire. And with it, it's a critique that they will buy and sell broker bodies. Um, even as John the Seir is willing to use this female sex worker image as a way of of tearing down the Roman Emperor. I mean, the fastest way to to destroy someone's reputation in antiquity and maybe even in today is to accuse them of sexual immorality. Um, which may or may not have been true, right? I mean, so John's just using that that very triedand-true trope in order to destroy the Roman Empire. Um, and even in ironic ways to try to show the exploitation in slave in enslavement in the Roman Empire. >> Absolutely. And I think that um you know you can extend this metaphor and see the um complicated ways that these um supposed um most likely male authors are using these um concepts of enslaved um sex uh sex workers as um even to the no mi corpus right there's a lot of imagery of the soul being this uh fallen uh prostitute that is uh you given this way and that way to all the different and it's it's a spiritual metaphor right eventually at the end of the day but um you know it's very interesting you could apply this to a lot of different texts and especially apocryphal texts um but Christy and I have a talk on that already so please go watch that one um you know uh justice for Uklia um but uh Katherine Christie this has been so uh so fun I I apologize for the technical issues I had with my camera But otherwise, it's been a great talk. Um, if you have anything you want to plug or if you feel we missed, it's a vast topic. We didn't even get into the concept of uh race and antiquity and how that tied into um slavery or um you know, the later reception of of this, we touched upon a little bit, but the later reception of this and the the antibbellum south and thing things like that. So it's a vast topic but uh if you all want to touch upon anything or plug anything feel free to use this time >> buy our book [Laughter] >> with it's withd um for anyone who's curious where they can find it. Absolutely a great introduction to the topic. Um for sure um very uh accessible um for you know if you're not on the nerdy side like me and and you just want you know uh some clear reading and and um an introduction to the the concepts it's it's a great book to look at. Um likewise as well for scholars and and undergrads. It's a great um resource. So um yeah everybody go check that book out. Um but uh you know Katherine Christie this has been fantastic. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. This was a great conversation. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. [Music]