. . . early Christian texts, including New Testament texts, often
indicate the slavery system or the presence of enslaved people through more
subtle vocabulary. For example, Matthew 8:6–8 uses the word pais or “boy” to identify a slave of a
centurion (cf. Luke 7:7). Some commentators suggest that this term may signal
that the person in question is a child or a young boy, perhaps even the
centurion’s son. Yet the infantilizing of enslaved people was not invented in
the American South. Calling an adult enslaved man “boy” was commonplace in the
Roman world (Hatter 2021, 102–19). (Katherine A. Shaner, “Slavery,”
in Behind the Scenes of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical
Contexts, ed. T. J. Lang, Elizabeth E. Shively, and Bruce W. Longenecker
[Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2024], 477)
