Enslaved people wrote the Bible, carried the messages of the apostles and spread the word of Jesus around the Roman empire, according to a shocking new book by the theology professor Candida Moss. God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible argues that apostles and early Christians used enslaved scribes, secretaries and messengers to write the New Testament and shape the very foundations of Christianity.
“The overwhelming literary and archeological evidence shows that this kind of work was done by enslaved or formerly enslaved people,” says Moss, the Edward Cadbury professor of theology at the University of Birmingham. Scholars think only about 5-10% of Romans were literate: the very wealthy – and the people they enslaved.
