Enslavement
Norway’s Bible Society has decided to use the word ‘slave’ more broadly in a translation to be published next year. The decision is pondered; indeed it has been the object of a clickable internet survey. It is fascinating that the Word of God can be interpreted, as it were, by census. But is not even the learned debate somewhat abstract? Dare we assume that our notions of slavery render the thought and practice that underlay Greek usage in the New Testament? A Norwegian thrall at the time of Olav Tryggvason is hardly comparable to a character from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Is St Paul, who calls himself Christ’s doulos, aptly described as a ‘slave’ given the word’s contemporary resonance? Today the Catholic Church celebrates a Sudanese Saint, Josephine Bakhita, who spent twelve years as a slave. She was sold five times. She was subject to unconscionable abuse of body and soul. She was a non-human until she was declared free by a court decision in 1889. It enabled her to realise a deep desire: to be baptised and confirmed, then to join an order of sisters. In the Church she had learnt what freedom means. I wonder what Josephine had clicked, had she received an electronic questionnaire asking whether ‘enslavement’ is an adequate modern description of the Christian condition.