Philemon: Imagination, Labor, and Love

Description

This guide explores and summarizes scholarship on Philemon, acquainting beginning students with what has been said about Philemon, and equipping them to understand the larger debates and conversations that surround it. It explores how different initial scholarly assumptions result in different interpretations and “meanings;” these meanings always have ethical implications. Reading Philemon challenges us to rethink the process of commentary and the communities interpretation creates. Though only one chapter long, Paul’s Letter to Philemon has generated a remarkable amount of commentary and scholarship over the centuries, figuring in debates over textual reconstruction, the formation of biblical canon, the culture of ancient Rome, Greek language and its translation, and the role of the Bible in Western politics and economics. The focus of this short letter is labor, love and captivity. Tradition since Chrysostom has argued the letter is an appeal to Philemon on behalf of a fugitive slave Onesimus, now a convert to Christianity. Yet this interpretation depends upon several assumptions and reconstructions. Other equally plausible contexts could be – and have been – argued. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction : On Reading Lost Letters Of interpretation, there is no end The plan of this book 1 A Quick Overview of Paul’s Letter to Philemon Character and outline of Philemon The characters in Philemon Paul and Timothy Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus Onesimus Luke, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Epaphras Philemon’s trouble spots Whose church assembly? Why this roundabout rhetoric? What does Paul really want? Who is the real center? How are they related? Conclusion 2 “I Appeal to You for My Child, Onesimus” Traditional interpretations of Philemon Slavery in the Greco-Roman world Comparisons to modern slavery Paul and slavery Philemon, Paul, and the ethics of slavery Paul’s pragmatism and indifference Ethics of interpretation Sex and slavery Conclusion 3 Rethinking Onesimus and Philemon Troubling the “standard reading”: John Knox and modern reimaginings Not quite the parallel Not just a slave Not so obvious John Chrysostom and the patristic reading of Philemon Reading Philemon and the master class Resisting Chrysostom and the “master class” Conclusion 4 Labor and Love: An Affect Reading of Philemon Erasing Paul: F. C. Baur and a pseudepigraphic Philemon Forged letters and lost letters Philemon’s authenticity and canonization A letter without origin or ending Affect theory and Philemon: Emotional labor and invisible slaves Turning to affects Emotional labor then and now Love works: Love, faith, and labor Conclusion Conclusion: Letters Lost in the Mail Commentary and/as story: On the building of backgrounds Reading Philemon again for the first time Works Cited Index of Biblical References Index of Subjects