Philemon is as important a letter from an African American perspective as Romans or Galatians have proven to be in Eurocentric interpretation. Here the editors gather critical essays by a constellation of African American and other scholars, highlighting the latest in interpretive methods and troubling scholarly waters, interacting with the legacies of Hegel, Freud, Habermas, Ricoeur, and James C. Scott as well as the historical experience of African American communities. Onesimus Our Brother opens surprising new vistas on Pauls shortest and, in some ways, most troubling letter.

In Not Like Those Who Have No Hope, Nestor O. Miguez brings the insights of historical-critical study and political analysis together with incisive theological reflection. Taking on European philosophical interpretations of Paul, the North Atlantic consensus regarding social stratification in the Pauline churches, and the distortions of rapture theology, Miguez situates Pauls mission in the political context of Roman Thessalonica and reads his first letter in engagement with Latin American realities. The result is a surprising rediscovery of Paul as an organic intellectual for whom hope is...

Israel Kamudzandu explores the legacy of how the Shona found in the figure of Abraham himself a potent resource for cultural resistance, and makes intriguing comparisons with the ways the apostle Paul used the same figure in his interaction with the ancestry of Aeneas in imperial myths of the destiny of the Roman people. The result is a groundbreaking study that combines the best tradition-historical insights with postcolonial-critical acumen. Kamudzandu offers at last a model of multi-cultural Christianity forged in the experience of postcolonial Zimbabwe.

Applies the insights of contemporary diaspora studies to address much-debated questions about Paul's identity as a diaspora Jew, his complicated relationship with a highly symbolized homeland, the motives of his daily work, and the ambivalence of his rhetoric.