Ancient Mediterranean literature and artistic depictions portray enslaved persons as diminutive, marginal, and non-descript—when they are portrayed at all. In this article, we ask how scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity might navigate texts that deal with enslavement and/or enslaved persons, and offer a guide to ethical translational theory pertaining to ancient slavery. We begin by offering an overview of key theoretical and methodological innovations from scholarship on slavery in the Atlantic World that might be applied to enslavement in the ancient Mediterranean. We then turn to four Greek terms—doulos/doulē, pais, paidiskē, and kurios—both to show how scholars have typically translated these words and to suggest how a ‘agency-centered’ translational approach might help validate the humanity of enslaved persons in antiquity as well as more accurately describe their experience of enslavement.
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