Loading...I’ve been talking about Paul’s view of slavery, in light of the book of Philemon; this seems to be a good time to talk about a very big issue connected with translating the New Testament from Greek into English. It may seem fairly straightforward, but in fact it is incredibly thorny: what English word is best to use for the Greek word that refers to a person who is owned by another and compelled (on every level) to do what the owner requires? It’s “slave,” right? How can it be complicated? Let me put it in a bigger picture.
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Should We Keep “Slaves” in the New Testament?
July 6, 2025
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Is it further complicated by the difference between a Hebrew slave who could leave in the 7th year and a chattel slave who couldn’t? The latter is surely more akin to the transatlantic slavery although I agree it wasnt race based.
Is the same word used in the Greek for both types?
The Greek word DOULOS is used of any kind of person who was owned by another. (In both the Greek OT and NT)
It may not have been American slavery, but read Exodus 21. Owners could keep the slave’s children, beat the slaves as long as you don’t kill them, and daughters could be sold as slaves, whose owners would then have sex with them (Ex.21:10) probably in hope of birthing more slaves, which of course could be kept or sold for profit. What a lovely system! I realize the nuances of language are challenging, but I feel like the NCC is just whitewashing what the Bible says.
Ah, right! I think they keep “slaves” in the OT, just not the NT. That too is a problem (for yet other reasons).
FWIW, owning another Homo Sapiens as property is perhaps not a good thing.
I’d say it’s W a lot… But it’s a modern concept.
Mr Ehrman, I am a servant of the holy Spirit, and I have been guided (for lack of a better term) to reach out to you. In my other comment here I alluded to Enoch being fulfilled in Luke, and Daniel in Matthew, these are spirit inspired discoveries that I believe you will find to be true.
Enoch from Qumran, roughly 100-200 years predating Jesus, they considered the upcoming and current generations that they were in to be the end times, expecting that judgement in the 70th generation from the flood.
I previously mentioned the holy of holies being divided by 12 and = 666, so that you see, this is something nobody else has ever made note of, and it is my spirit inspired discovery. (12 = the number of spiritual powers of darkness )
With Jesus being the 62nd generation of Matthew and the 62nd week of Daniel.. the abomination that makes desolate was set up at that time.
Rome = Kettim = Chaldea = Babylon= Egypt= United States.
When Rome destroyed the 2nd temple the abomination that makes spiritually desolate was set up.
It’s the church, and the masoretic system. It’s adding the niqqud and the Bible losing its polyvalence. Destroyed scriptures world over; The church under mans authority.
I recently took notice of the authors use of the word ἀνθρώπων in Revelation. In that he only uses ἀνθρώπων to refer to things on planet earth exclusively. In your book Armageddon, it appears to me that you are using humans (English) interchangeably with the greek words he uses for elders, nations, peoples, “slaves” etc. The issue I am having a problem with is that in rev 21 it he says “The tent of God is with ἀνθρώπων.”What is your view on how this could be possible if the new Jerusalem has came down from heaven already, and given that John only uses the word ἀνθρώπων in Revelation to refer to things on earth only?
I’m not quite following your question. When it says that God is dwelling among humans, it is only after the New Jerusalem has come down to earth.
Right, and John specifically only uses the word ἀνθρώπων to describe non-believes on planet earth. So at this point in time (post judgment, post New Jerusalem coming down to earth) of events how can these ἀνθρώπων (according to John in Revelation) still be on earth at this point? Given your view, how did you go about reconcileing this? Where are all of the δοῦλοι of God?
I”m afraid I don’t have a concordance with me just now to check it out. But the word ANTHROPOS simply means human being, and the verse is saying God will be among humans. Revelation clearly does have contradictions at this point, though. At the final judgment all non-believers are thrown into the Lake of Fire, but then we’re told that non-believers are not allowed to enter the New Jerusalem. Huh?? I talk babout this and related examples in my book Armageddon.
Have you been able to reconcile them?
Nope. I think he either has differing sources of information or just doesn’t have a big concern for consistency. I suspect the latter.
The apocalypse of weeks in Enoch lines up with Jesus genealogy in Luke, & the one in Daniel lines up with Matthew’s where he = 62.
Jesus fulfilled both, this is why the genealogies are in NT.
Each of the weeks of Enoch correspond to a 7th son, every 7 generations: Enoch, Shelah, Abraham (21st), down to Jesus who is the 78th in Luke, making him 70 generations after Enoch, and lining his generation up with the 10th week in Enoch, when sin is forgiven in heaven.
Luke shows that the apocalypse of Enoch ended with Jesus and his coming brought about the judgement of the angels that sinned. Then revelation takes place in the 3 days he is in hell and we see those elders begin to bow to Jesus after he took the scroll/ledger from the carnelian (red ) judge.
Daniel lines up with Matthew: Enoch is 7th, and Jesus is 62nd, lining him up with the prophecy in Daniel (anointed one will be cut off; abomination that makes desolate set up).
Take the holy of holies 20×20×20 cubits and divide it by 12 (the # of spiritual authorities) and you get 666. The mark is man’s heart under the influence of…
Makes me wonder what other words or phrases the admin overruled and changed in the NRSVue. Are you aware of any others as egregious as this?
I’m afraid not! It’d be interesting to know though…
Bart, Do you have an opinion on taking a contextualized approach in deciding how to translate doulos? For example, it seems more appropriate, given the comparison Paul makes in Gal. 3:28 with a “free person” (NABRE), to translate it as “slave.” But in Mk. 10:43-5, “servant” might better convey some (at least defensible) connotations of Jesus’ admonition?
I think context is almost everything when it comes to translation. But there is a clear word in Greek for servant (a free person serving another) and another for slave. In the word “servant” occurs in 10:43 and the word “slave” in 10:44. If you want to be great, you need to be a servant; if you want to be even greater (“the first”) you need to be a slave.
Very interesting account of the votes on “servant” and “slave”. I have always strongly objected to “servant” for doulos, because a servant — no matter how downtrodden — has the option of quitting, of leaving that master to try to find a better one. A slave does not. Granted, in many societies at many times servants had very few good options, but the basic premise remained: A servant was hired to fill a particular position, and could resign from that position. A slave was a piece of property, no more able to “resign” than any other piece of property.
Aristotle’s definition of a slave as an “animated tool” comes to mind. Most tools (e.g., a plow) are inanimate and therefore cannot respond to orders to work on their own. A slave is a tool that can respond to orders. It has always seemed odd to me that Aristotle would come up with that blood-chilling definition in a society in which any person could be enslaved if their city was conquered, so any human could at any moment become an “animated tool” — but that’s what he said.
One more thought on doulos — I think it’s worth noting that Mary’s response to the annunciation (in Luke) is to say Ἰδοὺ ἡ δούλη κυρίου: ‘Behold the [female] slave of the lord’. A few years ago I read an article (unfortunately I cannot remember the author or journal; senior moment . . . ) pointing out that in slave societies, a young female slave can be , and often was, impregnated at her master’s will and has no possibility of refusal. The article suggested that this is the underlying image Mary is drawing on, as an indication of her complete subordination. The King James translation “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” doesn’t get that across at all; nor do translations using “servant.”
Right! Good point. Yup…
Lets also not forget that the seven year rule for a fellow Hebrew slave can be overturned because if the slave is given a wife by the master, and shall we put to like this…. he enjoys her company….. he can relinquish his Hebrew (non chattel status) and declare, “I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,’ then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life”
EXOD 21 5-6
Seems like “enslaved servant” would solve it.
Ugh. I knew the ESV had made this change, but it’s disappointing to see the NRSVue go down the same path. The politics behind such changes are depressing obvious.
duolos in the NT is just anyone who has a master or a lord and obeys their commands. It can be voluntary or involuntary. As Paul says in Romans 6:16
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
That’s right. A slave was owned by someone else and was obliged to do what they asked/demanded. But they were not necessarily enslaved involuntarily. One common form of slavery involved selling oneself as a slave. You were still someone else’s property,but for a variety of possible reasons (almost always financial) you could take it on yourself. Paul talks about himself as a “slave of Christ” for example. Dale Martin has an important study on this, Slavery as Salvation.
My understanding is what made the NCC queasy were passages like Paul’s intro to Romans where he describes himself as “a DOULOS of Christ Jesus”, effectively creating a category where slavery is portrayed positively, offending modern sensibilities convinced Christianity always led the effort to overturn the “peculiar institution”.
Not germane but we’ve had the “Revised” Standard Version. Then the “Newly” Revised Standard Version. Now we have an “Updated” Edition. What will they call the next iteration do you suppose?
I don’t know if that’s true or not (about the NCC). Ther is, though, a very good study of Paul’s used of the term “slave of Christ, in Dale’ Martin’s, Slavery as Salvation.
When the NRSV was being done, and the committee wsa debating the issue (I was taking the notes), the option I much preferred was RSVP.
Why not simply retain the Greek word doulos in Bible translations?
Translators could preserve the term doulos instead of rendering it as “servant” or “slave,” and then provide a footnote or glossary entry explaining its meaning and cultural context. This approach invites readers to wrestle with the original language’s nuance and better grasp the layered implications of the term.
Becuase it’s not an English word and the translation is a rendering of the Greek text into English.
In some cases, certain words are retained in their original language in English translations to preserve their nuanced meaning. For instance, the Aramaic word “Abba” is often left untranslated, rather than being rendered as “father,” because “Abba” conveys a deeper sense of intimacy and closeness that might be lost in translation.
Since “doulos” also loses it’s meaning when translated into English, why not just keep it Greek?
Because these other words are foreign words in the Greek translation themselves, and so are retained. DOULOS is not a foreign word for the authors; it is simply the Greek word for slave.
I am curious to know how much influence the National Council of Churches had in the final wording of the NRSVue. A criticism of the NIV translation is that it is decidedly evangelical in some areas. DId the same thing happen with the NRSVue and the NCC?
I’m afraid I don’t know. THe NCC leadership tends to be mainstream Christian, not conservative evangelical, but I don’t know what it’s other involvements were in the translation. And I was ssurprised by this one, because it was hands off for the NRSV itself (I worked with them when I was preparing the translation for publication)
Dr. Ehrman, what reference would you recommend if someone really wanted to understand the institution of slavery as practiced in the ancient world?
YOu might start with Dale Martin’s book Slavery as Salvation. Or check out the articles (more recent) in the the Encyclopedia of Ancient History (available online I believe)
Given that translating from Greek to English is a huge problem, then it should also be a huge problem translating from Aramaic into Greek. Since Jesus spoke Aramaic, how accurately does the Q material, written in Greek, reflect the actual Aramaic sayings and teachings of the historical Jesus?
And, how much of the Q material do scholars think actually reflects the teachings of the historical Jesus?
What hard-core scholars interesteed in the question do is translate teh Greek back into Aramaic to see if it makes sense, no-sense, or better-sense. You get some of each.
That’s really interesting. What got me interested in this question is your soon to be released book about how the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus influenced western civilization. As far as I can tell, most of the moral/ethical teachings of Jesus resides in the Q material. So, it’s fair to say that the Q material is largely responsible for those moral/ethical influences on western civilization attributed to Jesus. If the Q material didn’t come from the historical Jesus, then those influences on western civilization have to be attributed to others — instead of Jesus. That’s why it’s important to find out if the moral/ethical stuff in Q translates to sensible stuff, or better, when going from Greek to Aramaic. I’m not sure to what extent your new book examines those transitions, between Greek and Aramaic, for the Q material, but I’d love it if you could provide a quick explanation here in the comments. Or if this issue needs a blog entry, then may I please ask for a blog on it.
Right! I won’t be getting into the linguistic weeds in the book or even dealing with Q per se at any length. But what I’ll be arguing is that htere is a core set of teachings that we can almost certainly trace back to Jesus that cohere with one another. They are not just from Q. Many are found, for example, in Mark; others in M and L (Matthew and Luke’s special materials). I take all these sources to be independent of one another, and they all point in precisely the same direction; they are instantiated as well in ohter NT authors (Paul, James, etc.) who were not reliant on Gospel sources and are not quoting Jesus about them, but yet they represent the counter-cultural teachings of Jesus anyway, suggesting they were firmly embedded inthe CHristian traditions from the outset, not as a later development based on Gospel stories of Jesus. So I think the case is pretty strong that they go back to Jesus himself.
It seems to me that John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth both emphasized an imminent apocalypse and advocated self-evident moral truths. Those two things would have caught on in a big way with followers of both of those men and their followers would have created all sorts of self-evident moral teachings and then attributed them to both Jesus and John. So, just because Jesus was a highly moral person doesn’t mean that most of the New Testament moral teachings attributed to him are actually from him. In fact, since Jesus made his movement a duplicate of John the Baptist’s movement, it could be argued that most of the moral teachings from Jesus actually came from John the Baptist. In that case credit for the moral transformation of western civilization goes mostly to John the Baptist. A strong case can be made that Jesus was a highly moral person. But I don’t think a strong case can be made that the moral stuff in Q, M, L, Mark, actually goes back to Jesus himself because they were written decades later, in a different language, by people who didn’t know him, etc. Like remembering President Obama’s exact speech.
Bart wrote: “For a very long time I’ve been interested in the question of how to translate ancient texts, such as the Greek New Testament, into modern languages.”
This reminds me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask. Which translation of the Bible would you recommend for those of us who are old enough to have learned grammatically correct English instead of politically correct English, and who find politically correct English jarring?
I still thing the New Revised STandard Version is the way to go. It does use inclusive language, but only when a term is being used in reference to men and women both. For “men” they use men and “women” women, etc.
The modern Greek word, douleia, means work or job. It is derived from doulos.