Search

Scholars have recently noted a reluctance in New Testament scholarship to accept and apply the most recent historical scholarship on ancient enslavement to our readings of the biblical texts. The last century has seen developments in historical and classical scholarship that have moved those disciplines away from an understanding of ancient slavery as benevolent and toward a recognition of the institution's violent and coercive nature. A similar movement can be seen in the study of enslavement among first-century Jewish communities, with recent scholars arguing that Jewish enslavement practices were not as uniquely benign as was once thought. In spite of these developments, scholars of the Synoptic Gospels continue to utilize outdated models for understanding slavery in the biblical texts as a benevolent institution. A handful of New Testament scholars are charting a new course, challenging the rest of us to adopt the new historical consensus and to see biblical enslavement for what it was. Allowing these new critical works to lay the foundation for our understanding of slavery as it appears in the Synoptic Gospels will move us away from tired clichés and toward a more accurate picture of the worlds in and behind these texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this essay is to give an account of John Chrysostom's views on the public appear-ance of female Roman aristocrats in the marketplace, and to ask what it tells us about the func-tioning of pastoral power. The focus is on John Chrysostom's 28th homily On Hebrews. The study argues that Chrysostom's rhetoric is aimed at pastoralizing the domestic somatoscape and manipulating the patria potestas. The pastoralization of the household ramified various patriar-chal operations in Christian households, and a potent programme of asceticization of the agoric space accompanies it. The asceticization of the agoric took place by means of a tripart campaign of metaphorization: firstly, metaphorical dedoulologization, accompanied by decosmeticization, and also psychic virginization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]