The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts by R. Charles (review)

The study of slavery, both ancient and modern, has become a theoretically rich and robust field, exhibiting numerous inter- and multidisciplinary approaches to try to "get to the bottom" of texts and contexts related to enslavement. The study of slavery in biblical and extra-biblical material is no exception to this move. Ronald Charles's interesting and important monograph situates itself fully in this critical theoretical stance with regard to ancient slavery, successfully using the work of Michel-Rolph Trouillot, specifically Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995). The principle in this regard is that within historiographical production, various voices are lifted up, while others are silenced. In order to give voice to the voiceless slaves in some of these historical texts, Charles engages in subaltern readings—reading from below and from the perspective of the oppressed, against the typical elite and imperial/colonial tendencies in the texts. The important contribution of such an approach, for the study of ancient slavery, is that it once again warns us that we cannot take texts about slavery at face value and as adequate representations of the "majority" of ancient life and its inhabitants. What I enjoyed about the book is its reading of seemingly "small tales" of slaves, in order to give these due significance and meaning through imaginative reading. Charles writes:

My task is to uncover small tales constructed around slaves, or better, to consider how particular narratives could be understood differently if the reader pays attention to enslaved persons in their characterizations in the texts. Slaves are, for the most part, silent or silenced in the narratives. One may wish there were more precise ways to get at their voices, desires, activities, and personal thoughts in the texts we investigate. The alternative reading of probing silence and of trying to understand unspoken utterances is not an easy task. Reading against the grain requires alertness to the gaps in the texts. Making silence speak requires much patience and attentiveness to minute details by proceeding tentatively and noticing passing or dismissive comments. It also requires a commitment on the part of the historian to actually see the presence of marginalized and enslaved peoples that are rendered invisible, and hear their voices that are made mute in the texts, around the texts, and outside of the texts.

(12; his italics)

In my own research on slavery (see De Wet 2015; 2018), I have often experienced the same challenge that Charles highlights here. Because of the fact that slaves are usually not the primary actors in ancient texts, we often need to fill the gaps of silence we see in the historical record. This is not an easy task, and sometimes it is accomplished with more success than at other times. But it remains a necessary task. The implication is that, at times, we need to "read in," or eisegete, certain plausible possibilities into a text, which does hold risks. For instance, Charles allows for the possibility that figures such as Hermon in 3 Macc 5 or Epaphroditus (in Philippians) could have been slaves or former slaves, in the case of the latter, although there is very little evidence to actually confirm or deny this. So, at times, there is an engagement in imaginative reading in order to retrieve some of the possibly lost voices of slaves. Nevertheless, the theoretical approach in the book is a welcome addition to the study of ancient slavery.

In terms of the coverage of ancient materials, the book is very ambitious. The book covers slaves in the pseudepigrapha, Pauline literature of the NT, slaves in the Gospels and Acts, slaves in the martyr narratives (specifically the works related to Felicitas and Blandina), and finally, slaves in the Acts of Andrew. The chapter on the pseudepigrapha looks at the Sibylline Oracles, Testament of Joseph, Testament of Job, Letter of Aristeas, Jubilees...