Pauline Slave Welfare in Historical Context

An Equality Analysis

by W. H. Paul Thompson

Book cover: Pauline Slave Welfare in Historical Context

Extent: 380 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Biblical Studies

Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe

Series volume number: 570

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(March 2023)

ISBN: 9783161612145

9.09 x 6.06 inches

Price: $130.00

In stock

W.H. Paul Thompson engages in an equality analysis of ancient ethics on slave welfare – how slaves should be treated in comparison to free persons. He reconstructs a Jewish numerically equal treatment ethic for slaves and free persons which Paul reorients into a Christocentric framework.


W. H. Paul Thompson critiques modern scholarship on Pauline slavery for failing to define and reason consistently about equality. Instead, he engages in an equality analysis of Aristotle and Seneca in their Greco-Roman contexts, the Torah and its Jewish reception, and selected Pauline texts. Focusing on slave welfare – how slaves should be treated relative to free persons of the same historical context – rather than on abolitionism or reinforcement of slave submission, the author argues for a distinctive Jewish ethic of numerically equal treatment between slave and free that imitates Yahweh’s impartiality. The Apostle reorients this ethic into a Christocentric framework to intensify both the quality of slave obedience and the degree of slave welfare required relative to the prevailing Roman ethos.

  • By (author) W H Paul Thompson