Very recent research into the letters of Paul has seen a powerful complaint to the effect that the moral problem with the letters is not interpretive malpractice by later readers, but bad faith on the part of Paul himself (see, in particular, Cavan Concannon, Profaning Paul). This complaint sprang to mind as I read in Lisa Bowen's new book a quotation from one of Frederick Douglass's speeches against the Fugitive Slave Act:

Nowadays, more or less all parties agree that, whatever the Bible may or may not say, we must not countenance the enslavement of other human beings. But it remains a live debate whether, or to what extent, we should concede that the Bible (or any given part of it) is in fact ‘on the side of slavery’. In this remarkable book, Bowens effectively argues, in the tradition of Douglass, that we should not. So great is the hermeneutical power of the reader, Bowens reasons, that even the canonical Paul – whose fateful line ‘Slaves, obey your masters’ (Colossians iii.22; Ephesians vi.5) has done such catastrophic harm down the centuries – need not, and ought not, be ceded to the side of slavery.

The proof of Bowens's claim is her rich reception history of the letters of Paul in African American interpretation from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on her own herculean feat of archival research, Bowens shows us a kaleidoscope of readings of Paul by black Americans from across these centuries. They come in the form of slave petitions, autobiographies, conversion narratives, letters, sermons, speeches and other genres beside. The interpreters range from the extremely well-known (like Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr) to the well-known (like Jarena Lee and Howard Thurman) to the hitherto little known (like the enslaved petitioners to the colonial governments of Massachusetts and Connecticut).

Their interpretations of the letters of Paul are as diverse as the interpreters themselves. But one red thread that emerges very clearly in Bowens's history is the persistent appeal to Paul as a resource for liberation. The alternative reading strategy – also attested in some of Bowens's sources – that reads Paul (as slavery-apologist) against Jesus (as liberator) is by far the minority report, even if it is perhaps the best known in our own day, due in particular to the influence of Nancy Ambrose and Howard Thurman as interpreters of Paul.

One fascinating test of Bowens's central claim about the hermeneutical power of the reader is the tally of just which Pauline texts black American interpreters have enlisted in the struggle for liberation. Interestingly, Galatians iii.28, ‘In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free’ – a favourite of many liberationist-minded readers in our own day – gets very short shrift. Meanwhile, though, the First Epistle to Timothy (to cite one remarkable example) turns out to have been a tremendously important resource for black antislavery interpreters in the nineteenth century. Thus, for instance, Frederick Douglass – when defenders of the Fugitive Slave Act cited Philemon in support of their cause – argued that Paul sends Onesimus back as a free man, not a slave, because according to Paul in 1 Timothy i.10, ‘man-stealing [andrapodisteia] is contrary to sound doctrine’. If Paul expressly condemns man-stealing in 1 Timothy, then he cannot be made to endorse slaving elsewhere. Another example: David Walker, in his Appeal, in four articles, together with a preamble, to the coloured citizens of the world, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America, written in Boston, state of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829, identifies white, pro-slavery Christian preachers with the demonic false teachers prophesied in 1 Timothy: ‘The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared’ (1 Timothy iv.1–2). Upon reflection, I actually cannot think of a better interpretation of this passage than Walker's.

Nancy Ambrose was of course well within her rights to insist that, once freed, she would choose never to hear the letters of Paul preached to her again. But the reason why her resolution is so compelling is precisely her own power as an interpreter, not any naked feature of the letters themselves. And the same is true of Frederick Douglass's reading of man-stealing in 1 Timothy 1, or David Walker's reading of the conscience-seared liars in 1 Timothy iv. We may be very grateful that the author of 1 Timothy (whether Paul or, more likely, ‘Paul’) wrote these lines. But we have Douglass and Walker to thank for putting them to wise, urgent, ethical use in those dark days of the American republic. Lisa Bowens has given us a wonderful history of this all-important period in the reception of the Bible. But she has also given us, equally importantly, a master class in hermeneutics.