ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that when interpreters want to find out more about ancient slavery systems or slaves in the Bible, they need to pay close attention to how ideas, concepts, and figurative speech may function in very complex ways to reinscribe, legitimize, or even encourage slavery. It discusses how the first hearers/readers may have constructed meaning from the slavery metaphor. The book shows that female characters too could be connected to the slavery metaphor. It also argues that these texts challenge the research field by emphasizing intersectionality, that slavery cannot be studied as either metaphor or reality without paying attention to gender. The slavery metaphor became a core metaphor for early Christian thinkers because it worked so well. Insights from intersectionality and metanarratives have helped to understand the individual, relational, and shared dimensions of metaphorical conceptualization.
