Was Onisimus a Slave

[James]

We are considering the Epistle to Philemon is Sunday School next Sunday.

The overwhelming traditional interpretation of the letter is that Onisimus was a slave belonging to Philemon. He ran away and somehow met Paul who led him to Christ and then interceded with Philemon to accept Onisimus back on a somewhat higher relationship than master/slave. The key verses seem to be 15&16. Our teacher holds to the traditional view. I do not know if he is aware of any alternative view.

Following a suggestion in the notes of my New Interpreter's Study Bible, both in the Introduction to the Epistle and in the notes on verses 15-16, I see that there is another point of view. First is the point nowhere in the text of the Epistle, not even in 15-16 does Paul state unequivocally that Onisimus is a slave. Second, in 16 Paul states that Onisimus and Philemon are bothers of flesh. So where does this take me?

When I consulted the New Interpreter's Commentary on which the comments in the Study Bible are based, I am confused. The Commentary acknowledges that the text of the Epistle does not identify Onisimus is a slave and that what is described is that Philemon treats Onisimus like a slave (15) rather than the brother by flesh (16) that he is. The commentator's take on this minority view is like a football game replay--there is not enough evidence to overturn the ruling on the field, I. e. tradition.

I am intrigued by the minority view. If the traditional view is correct, than I see little value in Philemon for the 21st century Christian. We do not have legal system of slavery (for house slaves) like the Romans had. If Philemon and Onisimus were brothers in flesh than the Epistle hits me right in the gut. My brother stole a significant amount of money from me just a few years before my children went to college. We did not reconcile for some 10 years when my brother called and asked my to be his death coach during the end phase of his terminal fight with cancer. This is a little more than an academic question for me.

I am not fluent in koine greek and cannot speak to the accuracy of the RSV translation.

Any comments?

P.S. From another source, either Wikipedia or the Catholic encyclopedia I learned that in the Roman Legal Code on slavery there is a provision allowing a slave who feels mistreated to leave his master temporarily and seek shelter with one who could be an advocate with his master just as Onisimus appears to have done with Paul.

[Haruo]

If you have a chance to get hold of Borg and Crossan's The First Paul before Sunday (I know it's short notice) I'd recommend reading the pertinent section of that book, which takes off mainly from the slave-fleeing-to-an-intercessor approach you mention in your final paragraph. I'd have to see some convincing argumentation to buy the "not a slave to begin with" line.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

I'm relatively certain that we cannot be certain about Onisumus' slavehood.

[Ed Pettibone]

[James]

Thanks for all the response. The minority view is that Onisimus was not a slave but rather his brother by birth who had terribly wronged Philemon, perhaps in matters of money. Thus he was working off his debt to Philemon who, on his part, was treating Onisimus has a slave. In the KJV and the RSV the word spirit (16) is to be taken literally, brothers in Christ. Since the text is "flesh and spirit," if spirit is to be understood as real, then flesh must be understood as real. At this point I have read about 20 different commentaries on these two verses. All the commentators seem more inclined to base their views on what the text does not say rather than what it says. One of these commentator's offered a word for word translation of the Greek and he translated one of the words as flesh. This brings me back to a precept pounded into his students at least once in every class. In the long version it gave credit to history, archeology, anthropology and ethnology as shedding light on various troublesome texts but he always ended with this. "Gentleman, the text is the text is the text and sooner or later we have to deal with it." This seems to be one of those cases where the text is not dealt with in a meaningful way.

[James]

We had a good discussion on Philemon this morning. One of the moor outspoken members asked why the letter was even included in the Bible. That led to a discussion of Paul and his place in the formation of Christianity and the strategies required for Christianity to survive in a Roman world. Our resident expert on the early history of the church and the early history of the Roman Empire led us to see that if Onisimus was a slave, she said that is doubtful, he was not a fugitive slave. Not only was it legal seek an advocate (Paul) to intercede, it was also legal to appeal to the nearest Roman magistrate for help.

So we moved on to 1st Timothy. We concluded that Paul did not write it and that it was written late 1st century after Paul's death. We all agreed that that the writers views on women in the church may have suited the context of the day, but has no relevance in today's church.