On Poverty and Abundance

Even in the mid first century CE, Roman Philippi was still marked by its colonization by Roman veterans from the civil wars at the time of Augustus. One example of this is the cult of the god Silvanus there, a cult rarely attested in the East. The Silvanus cult celebrated its members’ donations, including the small donation of fifteen denarii offered for a painting. The small donations of this cult allow us to investigate poverty and economics in the Roman world. The Letter to the Philippians is full of financial language, indicating complex business ties between Paul and those to whom he wrote. The inscription and the Letter to the Philippians reveal economic engagement at low levels, evidence of the ways in which the less than elite sought to contribute to each other and their God(s). This theological and economic imaginary resonates with critiques of neoliberalism today.

On Slaves and Other Things

This chapter argues that the letters of Paul are thoroughly infused with the slave-trading mentalities of the Roman world. Greek and Roman law and literature present the enslaved person as being both person and thing. Onesimus, a slave passed between Paul and Philemon, appears as such a person and thing in Paul’s letter to Philemon. Ephesos was a likely location of the household of Philemon. Within the city, we find evidence of slaves, slave traders, and the regulation of the lives of the enslaved. Additional evidence from Corinth and Delphi indicates the complex lives even of manumitted slaves, who retained ties to their former masters. The chapter concludes by arguing that those who first received the letters of Paul and their language of slavery and discussion of slave status would have been provoked to consider their own legal and social situations and the possibility of being slave, free, or in between.

Introduction

The letters of the apostle Paul contain the earliest evidence we have of followers of Christ. Archaeology and the Letters of Paul is about these letters, and, even more, about the social, political, economic, and religious lives of those to whom and with whom Paul wrote. This book uses archaeological materials to consider specific, local contexts among the cities of the Roman Empire. It engages in the imaginative work of history, amassing details from archaeology to build cases of the rich, complicated, embroiled lives of those adelphoi, the brothers and sisters whom Paul addressed in his letters.

Epilogue

This book has investigated not Paul but his letters, not only his letters but his letters in their place. Its focus has been the possible lives of those to whom Paul wrote: their conditions of poverty and relative wealth, the political struggles under which they operated, the “biographies” or stories of the cities in which they dwelt, the choices of theology-philosophy and praxeis they had at hand.

On Method

Those who use archaeology to interpret New Testament texts run the risk of reintroducing past problems: Orientalist underpinnings that assume that the Mediterranean is static, unexamined feelings about the numinous nature of an object, the idea that archaeology gives a clear window onto the past. In addition, “biblical archaeology” has often served historical positivism, with object or inscription used to “prove” some biblical text or character. Yet, despite these problems in “biblical archaeology,” archaeological materials are necessary for a full study of antiquity. Evidence from material culture allows for a deeper understanding of local contexts and fuller, if imperfect, information about the lives of the less than elite. Moreover, by paying attention to material culture, we enter into a larger conversation about how to write history, particularly in conversation with feminist materialist historiography and recent theories that take seriously the idea that objects themselves have agency.

On Time, Race, and Obelisks

The Letter to the Romans has been interpreted as articulating a new understanding of history: “messianic time,” in Agamben’s words. In addition, the letter’s language of ethnicity has been used to support Christian supersessionism, rather than read within the context of Paul’s Jewish identity. This chapter investigates the themes of race and time in the Letter to the Romans within two ancient contexts: evidence from ancient papyri and literature which show the precarity of Jewish life under the Roman Empire and the Mausoleum complex of Augustus. The Mausoleum reveals a shard of Egypt at the heart of Rome: an obelisk that marks Roman power and time, as it serves as a gnomon. This chapter argues that interpreters should guard against doing to the Letter to the Romans what Mussolini did in his “excavation” of Augustus’s Mausoleum complex: stripping its context, making it into an “authentic ruin,” collapsing history between modernity and antiquity, promulgating anti-Semitism.

On History and Love

Early Christians acted “out of love” for Paul—to quote a phrase from Tertullian—producing other texts and stories in his name or associated with him. Such pseudepigraphical writings should be understood in the context of Roman “practices of history” found, for example, in the spheres of education, entertainment, and literature. Pseudepigraphical and other references to Paul are found in Thessalonikē: 1 Thessalonians becomes the grounds for civic pride in the apostle over several centuries. Letters in Paul’s name (like 2 Thessalonians) or stories about him (as in the Acts of the Apostles) indicate ongoing engagement. These are improvisations that complicate the categories of history and fiction. Such texts and practices, for which we also find archaeological evidence in Ephesos and Philippi, must be understood within the context of “epistolary narratives” in antiquity that sought to expand the life of a famous figure, not as instantiations of forgery or lies.

On Grief

Judith Butler and Claudia Rankine investigate grief as political, asking who is grievable. Corinth was characterized as a city of grief because of its destruction by the Roman general Mummius, an even that was also a political grief. This chapter investigates how grief was memorialized in the city. For example, Corinth's Fountain of Glauke recalled Medea’s murder of her children. Evidence from Roman Corinth also indicates higher than average child mortality. These become contexts for understanding a Corinthian practice of baptism on behalf of the dead. Allying with the dead can be a political choice and response to oppressive power. The Corinthian ekklēsia, itself a political term of assembly, may have been transformed from death to life in their new statuses in Christ, and would reasonably have wanted to connect not only with the death of Jesus, but also to bring present transformation to their (many) dead.

On Travel and Hospitality

The apostle Paul is often depicted as one among other apostolic heroes who traveled the Mediterranean to spread the gospel. The Letter to the Galatians indicates conflict between these travelers, whose visits and absences result in turmoil and social fractures within the community. A contemporaneous inscription from Galatia demonstrates a local attempt to control the exploitative practices of Roman imperial travelers who demand housing, food, animals, and help during their move through the region. The power differential between Roman officials with diplomata and early Christian travelers is considerable. Nonetheless, the inscription provides a context for considering the cost and consequences of hospitality for the many Christ followers who hosted apostles and itinerant teachers.