Houston Christian University
Plenary Session 1
Slave Women and Freed Women in Pauline Communities: Manumission and Freedom in Christ
Manumission of slaves was a feature of the institution of slavery in the Roman empire, and scholars often focus on the male slave and freedmen experience. This paper explores the daily experiences and legal context of female slaves and freedwomen, with special attention given to Ephesus, the Letter to the Ephesians, and Xenophon’s Ephesiaca.
Plenary Session 4
‘The Body’ in Paul: Christ’s Body, the Church as Christ’s Body, and Bodily Resurrection
How does Paul understand ethnic and sex differences within the church in the present age, and do these particularities continue in the eschaton? This paper explores the eschatological importance of Jesus’s Jewishness as marked on his body by circumcision, and pursues the question of whether believers’ bodies will retain ethnic and sex distinctions in the resurrection.