With this tale, I open up another series at the Bard & Bible. I have a list of books oft left unread in your Bible. Minor prophets like Joel and Haggai, books mistakenly judged to be dull and meaningless like Numbers. I want to look at them and crack into the books of history, prophecy, and – yeah – even a few of those New Testament Epistles you might not have looked at in a while.
In this first one – I look at Philemon. I look at this book, which has historically been used by some as a justification for slavery because Paul never told Philemon he couldn’t own Onesimus. I want to show just how ridiculous it is to think that just because Paul didn’t say some specific words he’s fine with something so profoundly wrong. I want to talk about reading this book again as a guy armed with a ton of historical context that disregards the pain of generations of people – and put all of them aside to ask, “Yeah. Why DIDN’T Paul say ‘Hey, maybe don’t own people.'”
Podcast (bardandbible): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS