Value-adding a slave, or, how much is an Onesimus worth?

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Abstract


Wool-production and its manufactured derivatives have dominated assessments of the Lycus Valley. The textile industry has however rarely intruded into the interpretation of the New Testament texts connected to the region, the letters to the Colossians and Philemon. This essay seeks to build on Peter Arzt-Grabner’s testing of the educational alternative to the gymnasium, namely apprenticeship contracts, here with special ref- erence to the training of a weaver and its echoes in the letter to Philemon. A review of the limited references to apprentices in literary and epigraphical sources in the east, yields a store of technical terms and hints of the structure of apprenticeship education which are then tested against the more voluminous references found in apprentice- ship contracts from Egypt. The resonances demonstrate that such contracts have sig- nificant family resemblances across the Mediterranean world, delivering confidence that the appearance of apprentice terminology in the letter to Philemon, that Peter has already identified, reflects a shared awareness of this level of training between Paul and Philemon. One aspect has not been identified, namely the apprenticeship training of a slave, an occasional appearance in weaving apprenticeship contracts. Not only does this change the understanding of returns on labour between the skilled artisan and the master, but the training of a slave in a particular industry is understood to increase the value of that slave. When applied to the letter to Philemon, a fictive restructuring of the dynamics of a slave’s absence from a master can be discerned, where Onesimus is placed into an apprenticeship contract with Paul to be trained as a brother in the faith and returned to his master considerably more valuable than he was before.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEveryday Life in Graeco-Roman Times
Subtitle of host publicationDocumentary Papyri and the New Testament
Editors Christina M. Kreinecker , John S. Kloppenborg , James R. Harrison
Place of PublicationLeiden
PublisherBrill
Pages165–89
Number of pages25
ISBN (Electronic)9783657794638
ISBN (Print)9783506794635
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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