Review
"This book is a must read and helps the readers to gain a rich and balanced understanding about Paul's theology and ethics dealing with the most marginalized in society. Bryant's work is very original, compellingly persuasive, deeply contextual, and yet critical enough to dig in first-century slave experience in Rome and elsewhere. Placing Paul in Jewish prophetic tradition, he argues that Paul's self-identification with "a slave of Jesus" in Rom 1:1 is intentional addressing a particular congregation full of the most marginal slaves in a desperately hopeless district called Trastevere. I highly recommend this well-written, insightful, and incisive book on Romans and Paul's theology to all who take seriously who Paul was in dealing with the slaves in first century CE."
Yung Suk Kim, Virginia Union University
"K. Edwin Bryant, in The Rise of the Slave, has placed his finger on the pulse of the Roman Domination and Subjugation of the slave as subject. That pulse was created by the Apostle Paul when he employed the epitaph, according to Bryant, "Slave of Messiah Jesus" to identify prophetically with this class of human beings so that they too may be transformed and repositioned as "Slaves of Messiah Jesus." With a brilliant exegesis of Romans 1:1-2 and 6:12-23 and with "a moral and comic-philosophic tradition to reconstruct the socio-political milieu" approach, Bryant radically reconstitutes scholarly views that somehow missed or overlooked Paul's political, ideological, and prophetic engagement with this hegemonic system of oppression."
Larry D. George, Gardner-Webb University
About the Author
K. Edwin Bryant, PhD (2013), Macquarie University, is an adjunct professor of New Testament and Early Christianity. He is the Senior Pastor of Mount Pisgah Baptist Church of Dayton, OH, and serves as the Bishop of Administration for FGBCFI, Inc.
