Exploring Philemon: Freedom, Brotherhood, and Partnership in the New Society

Exploring Philemon offers a new, sociorhetorical interpretation of the Letter to Philemon that uses up-to-date rhetorical, sensory-aesthetic, intertextual, social and cultural, ideological, and theological strategies to interpret this short but influential biblical document. This book shows how this letter entered the world of the ancient Mediterranean and the early church with a dramatic and powerful rhetorical force by analyzing the visual imagery and the range of textures interwoven with each other to produce a profound effect on an early Christian (Philemon) and on the church that met in his home. It demonstrates that many striking and subtle features work together to present a rhetorical argument that the new Christian society must be one of freedom, brotherhood, and partnership not just for the powerful, but for all.