Philemon: A Transformation Of Social Orders

Abstract

Rarely does one construct an entire ideological edifice based on a short portion of Scripture. Yet, evident in Philemon is a high concentration of multiple Pauline themes, intermingling in the dynamic life of a house church, prompted by relational friction between a paterfamilias and his slave. Launching from the central claim that the Gospel has the capacity to transform the relationships between powerbrokers and the disenfranchised, this dissertation identifies power disparities in the relationships between masters and slaves in the first-century CE Graeco-Roman world and across the ages. It engages Philemon’s history of interpretation from the Early Church to the present day, underlining how a society’s understanding of slavery is inextricably linked to the ever-shifting events in front of the text. A (re)construction and description of historical and societal matters, linked to Philemon’s context, is drawn up giving higher definition to the silent contextual matters at work in the letter’s occasion. Distinctive literary features, deliberative rhetoric, and a description of Social Identity Theory and Social-Scientific Criticism are harnessed to execute a hybridized exegetical and theological inquiry of the text linked to the project’s central theoretical claim. After critically correlating the Graeco-Roman milieu with the Southern African context, via the auspices of a derived etic, the exegetical and theological findings are appropriated in the relationships between Christian employers and Christian domestic workers, heralding a transformation of social orders. This project identifies the anti enthusiastic attitude as the preferred stance on slavery from the Early Church to the Reformation, diminishing with the rise of abolitionist activity. With Paul using slavery as a metaphor for Christ followership, it navigates the complexities and nuances latent in Philemon’s portrayal of the phenomenon. Furthermore, in discussing ancient and contemporary power disparities this research is translated into different contexts. Accompanying such possibility, this dissertation adds a voice from the Majority world to Pauline scholarship, an area dominated by Occidental figures and perspectives. From this treatise it is hoped that the elevation of the slave into a beloved brother(Phlm 16),would serve as a prompt leading to the transformation of the guild, as the church and academy strive to realise Paul’s therapeutic vision, the Gospel, in context.