Dr. Chance Bonar

@chancebonar

Advisor @ UVA Working on early Christianity, slavery, & Roman Palestine Cat dad | Minnesotan | 🏳️‍🌈 Books: bit.ly/3R8LXbo + bit.ly/4iMBSwy + bit.ly/4dBmCSk

1,824 Following5,797 Followers1,660 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and chancebonar.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 8h

Today’s house project 🫡

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 16h

Anyone on Cville’s FB marketplace looking for a light read?

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 2d

The classic Cville parking ticket

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 2d

Proofs day forمدرسة غزة للبلاغة والفلسفة : مختارات من كتابات روادها في آواخر العصور القديمة! (The Arabic translation of A Workshop of Eloquence: A Collection of Gazan Literature from Late Antiquity)

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 3d

Rare sighting of a ring-necked snake right outside the front door

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 9d

Ft. a snippet of @vox-magica.bsky.social

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 9d

Course packet for my ancient magic class is put together! Looking forward to getting to teach first-years about the history of science, medicine, justice, and religion

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 21d

Today’s odd attic find: a Polish municipal water treatment and microbiological threat map

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 22d

I love walking into the theater and seeing a 30-foot @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social on the screen All movies should start like this

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 23d

Reading the final proofs for @fortresspress.bsky.social & so grateful that _From Slave to Saint_ has received such kind words from scholars I admire, including @maklelan.bsky.social @candidamoss.bsky.social

Praise for From Slave to Saint
Bonar's From Slave to Saint is a significant contribution to our understanding of the historical reception of the figure of Onesimus and to apocryphal studies. By focusing on Onesimus tradition, the study demonstrates that the writing of Christian apocrypha did not end in antiquity, and shines light on how Onesimus has been used in the service of both oppression and liberation throughout the centuries.
—Mary Ann Beavis, professor emerita, St. Thomas More College,
University of Saskatchewan, and author of The First
Christian Slave: Onesimus in Context
In From Slave to Saint, Chance Bonar traces two thousand years of apocryphal storytelling that leverages the letter to Philemon and the figure of Onesimus to structure explorations of slavery, mastery, and Christian piety. Bonar expertly navigates a complex academic field and a diverse pool of primary texts to bring to the surface a tension inherent in the historical deployment of the character of Onesimus to alternatively justify or deny Christianity's role in the practice of enslavement. In the end, Bonar's careful review of Onesimus's rhetorical utility challenges future storytellers to engage in more honest and intentional explorations of Christianity's relationship with enslavement and to consider how they can better facilitate repair and support moving forward.
—Dan McClellan, author of The Bible Says So: What We Get Right
(and Wrong) About Scripture's Most Controversial Issues
In the burgeoning field of Enslavement and Early Christian Studies, Chance Bonar deftly reveals the historical afterlives of Onesimus, a seemingly minor New Testament figure. From Slave to Saint demonstrates to what extent Christian traditions—across many geographical areas and historical periods—relied on enslavement to craft theological concepts.
—Luis Menéndez-Antuña, associate professor of
New Testament, Boston University

With characteristic brilliance, Bonar shines a light on an Onesimus largely lost to modern scholars and lay readers alike. Ranging widely across centuries and cultures, he traces the rich and surprising reception history of this enigmatic figure both within and beyond the Anglophone world. Learned, engaging, and deeply thought-provoking, this book reveals how a seemingly small character from the New Testament became a site of enduring theological and cultural imagination.
—Candida Moss, Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham and author of God's Ghostwriters:
Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible
We do not know very much about the historical Onesimus, a Christian slave mentioned in Paul's epistle to Philemon. The literary figure of Onesimus, however, has had—and continues to have—a fascinating afterlife. To trace the story of the remembered (and, in part, abused) slave Onesimus, Chance Bonar not only brings little-known apocryphal and parabiblical traditions to light, but also presents modern debates surrounding Onesimus, illuminates their historical context, and thus describes the breathtaking journey of a character who has grown increasingly complex over the course of history.
Outstanding!
—Tobias Nicklas, professor of New Testament and director of the Centre for Advanced Studies Beyond Canon
at Universität Regensburg, Germany

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 24d

Everyone should go buy Dana Lloyd’s new _Native American Religions_ and read @historianca.bsky.social’s wonderful chapter on Indigenous kinship, gender, and intimacy!!

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 25d

Love getting my biannual St. Olaf classics newsletter & seeing Groton rightly treated as a celebrity for her textbook

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· 27d

First look at my contribution to Uden & Várhelyi's _Pain, Trauma, and Suffering in the Roman Empire_! Looking forward to sharing thoughts on Eusebius's production of Palestinian Christian identity via shared trauma + the effects of spatial confinement that produced death-bound subjects

Mines and Prisons as Sites of Insecurity and Confinement in Eusebius’ On the Martyrs of Palestine

Chance E. Bonar

Introduction

Composed in the 310s, Eusebius of Caesarea’s On the Martyrs of Palestine (περὶ τῶν ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ μαρτυρησάντων) narrates the martyrdoms of numerous Palestinian Christians during the reign of Diocletian. In many of the accounts, Christians are not only exposed to various degrees and types of torture narrated in gory detail by Eusebius, but are also incarcerated or condemned to the mines in Palestine, Egypt, or Cilicia. My aim in this chapter is to explore how mines and prisons—as discussed in both classical scholarship and through theoretical interventions offered by carceral and slavery studies—functioned as sites of both insecurity and containment, meant to control the movements and sensory experiences of individuals. Through this type of embodied control that could induce both somatic and psychological trauma, Eusebius’ narration of Diocletian’s persecution highlights how individuals marginalized by the sovereign state may be subject not only to bodily discipline, but also to economic exploitation and the embodied consequences of being crafted as a death-bound subject.

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jul 9

Today’s find: a very old garment bag

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 29

I'll be talking about the Negev village of Nesanna / Auja el-Hafir – what its papyri and inscriptions reveal about Palestinian Christians in the early Islamic period, esp. Christian-Muslim relations and intergenerational leadership of particular families in both church & governmental contexts

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 28

The Jesus and Slavery conference will bring an international group of scholars to address what we view as a neglected topic within historical Jesus studies: the relationship between the historical Jesus and the realities of slavery in first-century Roman Palestine. In recent decades, historical Jesus research has incorporated findings from multiple fields to ask new questions and shed new light on well-worn topics. This conference intends to fully incorporate developments within slavery studies into the quest for the historical Jesus.

We seek papers that approach questions within historical Jesus research from the perspective of slavery studies. This includes questions about the social and economic realities of first-century Galilee, revealing hidden figures within the Gospel texts, investigating the interplay of metaphorical usage of slavery imagery and the realities of slavery as an institution, and new approaches to old questions within the quest for the historical Jesus.

We seek a broad range of submissions, especially from early career scholars and underrepresented groups within the guild of New Testament studies. We especially seek proposals from scholars in Africa, Asia, and South America. There may be limited funding for travel to Cluj-Napoco, as well as the option to present in an online seminar.

Please submit proposals here by 31 August 2026: https://forms.gle/qR3eUZthTZiLnueB7

For any questions, please email mbrandon.massey@gmail.com.
Brandon Massey
Annette Merz
Norbert Nagy

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 28

🚨 conference CFP 🚨 Come join us in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania for a conference on slavery, the historical Jesus, and Roman Palestine! CFP on the next post and link here: forms.gle/qR3eUZthTZiL...

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 26

Mostly because y’all are sick of me, I’m also in the midst of copyedits on _Religion and Slave Revolts in the Roman Mediterranean_ for Wisconsin 🦡 Lots to say about religion, race, diaspora, memory, and archives

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 24

One of the Vacation Bible Schools in town is Rome-themed this year, and it made me think immediately of this

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 23

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 22

✨ proofs day ✨ for From Slave to Saint: Onesimus Throughout Christian History with @fortresspress.bsky.social!

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 21

Guys why isn’t my dad responding to my Happy Father’s Day text with a “👍” today

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 21

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 19

Reposting this wonderful image of Michael 👼🏽

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 18

One of my fav texts I’ll have students read next semester: Christian medicinal recipes & a noncanonical Jesus dialogue

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 16

Do you work in late antiquity? Like church councils? Appreciate northwestern Anatolia? Then you should submit a paper for this Sept '26 online conference on Nicaea hosted by the SBL Greco-Roman Religions unit! www.samreligions.org/virtual-conf...

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 15

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 14

The bisexual pinwheel is barely holding on in this wind

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 14

Also Titus Kaphar!!!

Dr. Chance Bonar@chancebonar· Jun 14

I call this one “lower back pain”