God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible

by Candida R. Moss

From an award-winning biblical scholar, the untold story of how enslaved people created, gave meaning to, and spread the message of the New Testament, shaping the very foundations of Christianity in ways both subtle and profound.

For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture have credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators. Although they almost all go unnamed and uncredited, these essential workers were responsible for producing the earliest manuscripts of the New making the parchment and papyri on which Christian texts were written, taking dictation, and polishing and refining the words of the apostles. When the Christian message began to move independently from the first apostles, it was enslaved missionaries who undertook the dangerous and arduous journeys across the Mediterranean and along dusty Roman roads to move Christianity from Jerusalem and the Levant to Rome, Spain, North Africa, and Egypt—and into the pages of history. The influence of these enslaved contributors on the spread of Christianity, the development of foundational Christian concepts, and the making of the Bible was enormous, yet their role has been almost entirely overlooked until now.

Filled with profound revelations both for what it means to be a Christian and for how we read individual texts themselves, God’s Ghostwriters is a groundbreaking and rigorously researched book about how enslaved people shaped the Bible, and with it all of Christianity.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, History, Christianity, Theology, Biblical Studies, Christian

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2024

Reviews

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a problem that exists in the world of Christian scholarship that does not exist anywhere else. Speculations and guesses are normal with human beings, but not even the most imaginative fiction writer or even wizards can surpass many contemporary writers in their ability to conjure.

This book is one of the greatest examples of that tendency. It goes like this: read a passage of scripture, come up with a possible interpretation of a passage, sentence, or word. Make a protracted speculation on this novel reading, ignore the testimony of historical interpretation, and attribute the historical interpretation to powerful interests. By the time you are done, this tissue of speculation becomes a rock upon which castles of assertions are made.

The book is based on a simple and uncontroversial idea: many of the New Testament authors used enslaved people to write their books. That's it. Simple. But that by itself is not a good enough reason to write a book. Upon this simple idea, piles of speculations begin to be poured. Maybe Mark was a slave. Maybe some of the words in the letters of Paul were really chosen by the enslaved person who wrote it. Maybe the reason why the Gospels and epistles have a "slavish" tone is because they were all written by slaves. Maybe the reason why Mark's gospel does not have a birth story of Jesus is because Jesus, like Mark, was a slave. Or maybe because Jesus' mother was a slave. Or a sex worker. Or an enslaved sex worker.

These kinds of speculations increase until by the end of the book we are now told of the very possible problem of the faithfulness with which the New Testament texts have been transmitted based on the possibility that these books were copied by slaves who were not even Christians. Not only that. In fact, if we assume that these books were written by slaves then we can understand some portions of the New Testament better than they have been understood prior to now. It even gets better. If we assume these books were written and copied by enslaved people then this can explain variant readings not as mistakes or doctrinal corruptions, but as ways in which these slaves exercised their agency.

[MegHansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff good stuff

[Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the main writers in "God's Ghostwriters'' by Candida Moss is Paul. He too had helpful writers walking behind him. It can not remain unsaid. There are the enslaved who write too. Most of us love and respect Paul. We know about his life because he shares it in his letters. It is hard for us to believe he is disliked and terribly misunderstood by some people in Ephesus and other places like Corinth. His message just rubbed these people the wrong way. I suppose he wonders what will happen when he gets to Rome. For sure, the hate will grow louder. Chastity is not a favorite topic for most men and women. We do know he will find himself in a Roman dungeon. This book explains the lives of writers who followed along with authors. It also includes the enslaved. I wonder should these people not have a chance to hear a thank you from our Modern countries and cities. They were very needed and not easy to find. Not every person could write and read in Rome and elsewhere. If you have an interest in life in Rome, this book tells about those who lived there, known and observed by Ancient Historians.

[Antonis · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is premised on a simple and non-controversial notion: that, during the first centuries of the Common Era, most people, the writers of the New Testament included, used slaves to actually write their books. Based on this idea, the author piles speculation upon speculation (the book is full of “most likely”, “probably” etc. - I counted five “perhaps” and one “maybe” in one page alone): perhaps Mark was a slave, maybe the slavish language of some of Jesus’s sayings is due to the slave scribes, it is possible that the words in Paul’s letters were deliberately chosen by an enslaved secretary.
On the other hand, the author ignores alternative but equally plausible explanations (to give an example: In the description of Paul’s heatstroke during his journey to Damascus, Paul is helped by “anonymous attendants” who, according to the author’s “plausible guess” were slaves; the idea that these attendants were fellow travelers, given that in those days people seldom travelled alone for safety reasons, is never entertained).
All this in order to convince the reader that variant readings in the New Testament are not the result of errors in copying or deliberate doctrinal transformation but an expression of the enslaved scribes’ agency.
I was not able to finish this book. If you are interested to know who actually wrote the New Testament and who is responsible for the variant readings, try “Guardians of Letters” by Kim Haines-Eitzen; it is much better documented and does not rely on speculation.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of scribes assisting in writing the Bible is mind blowing and something that seems so obvious that I can't imagine why it hasn't crossed my mind before. It is something I will constantly have in mind as I study from now on.

I did feel like this book leapt to a LOT of conclusions without significant evidence. Though, it was always presented as such, and I do respect that she didn't try to pass off ideas as absolute fact. Studying ancient history is always going to require a bit of imagination and I do appreciate that it was clearly stated what was fact and what was idea.

I personally would have preferred to read a paper with just the facts rather than a full book with all the ideas and a few facts.

[JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super thought provoking take on biblical authorship. Really hammered home to me the harms of leaving out the humans responsible for compiling, translating, and organizing religious text in favor of giving credit to men in power.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot overstate how thought-provoking this book is.

[Josh Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Moss' book is a fast read and broadly accessible to a popular audience. Those uber-wary of anachronism may not enjoy her imaginative narratives, but I believe that Dr. Moss is right when she says that "disinterested history is sometimes also morally negligent." For that reason, regardless of whether they are the most accurate accounts of what could've happened, her stories about Alexamenos (the subject of the Palatine graffito) and Felix (an imagined lector that could've provided the extended ending of Mark) add dramatic flair to her compelling arguments. As I am interested in orality and performance of the gospels, I especially enjoyed her chapter on the role that lectors played in auditory reading.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating view into the lives of the enslaved scribes responsible for recording the texts that became the New Testament. This is a solid study of the Roman world.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I feel it goes off into a slight series of tangents towards the end, this is another excellent book that takes a unique and unexplored aspect of history and takes it out for a spin. It leaves some interesting questions to contemplate, especially for those who have imbedded certainties around its primary topic.

[Torey Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s very thought provoking, however I have doubts about the amount of creative liberties that may have been taken.

[Julie Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and good food for thought. Once the author lays out how writing happened in Jesus' day, it makes total sense that enslaved persons would do much of the tedious work of writing.

[Tim Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about the forgotten, mostly unnamed, people, the majority of them slaves, who helped to create the New Testament by acting as scribes, secretaries, copiers of manuscripts and readers aloud for the main authors, and how they may have influenced the New Testament we have today. It has implications for our understanding of how other ancient literature was created as well.

Near the end of St Paul's letter to the Romans, Chapter 16 Verse 22 states:

'I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord'

a rare open acknowledgement that Paul did not physically write his own letters. We know nothing else about Tertius, although the name was one commonly given to slaves.

The authoress, Candida Moss, has had an academic career in the USA and UK. She is currently Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at Birmingham in her native England. (Edward Cadbury was a member of the Birmingham Chocolate manufacturing family). She is a Roman Catholic, although not the most traditional kind.

As normal in academia now, she uses the cumbersome but politically correct terms 'enslavers' and 'enslaved people' rather than masters and slaves. Supposedly, to call a slave a slave is almost to accept the justice of slavery and to define a person only as a slave, ignoring other aspects of their humanity. To me that is a word game. 18th and 19th Century writers with first hand experience of servitude like Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Booker T Washington had no problem with saying 'I was a slave', although all those I have just named strongly criticised slavery.

Despite years of studying the Bible and early Church, it was only when, aged around 40, Professor Moss needed reading glasses, that it occurred to her to ask what happened in the Ancient World when people's eyesight made it difficult to read, or arthritic hands made it hard to write for long periods, or to unroll the scrolls of which most books consisted then.

The solution, very often, was to rely on educated slaves, not just to write what they dictated, but often to read to them as well.

Indeed, most early Christians, whether because they were, like much of the population, illiterate, or because books, which had to be laboriously copied by hand, usually by slaves, were expensive, did not actually read the Scriptures but had them read to them, usually with others in a congregation or social gathering.

Reading aloud to an audience was considered a skilled task, often also performed by slaves, whose performance commonly included gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice to emphasise the meaning. Occasionally what may have been 'stage directions' to whoever was to read them aloud are preserved in the text.

Although we still have copies of the texts of the Bible much as would have been read to the early Christians, we have mostly lost these other aspects of these live performances that contributed to people's understanding of the Gospels, Epistles etc.

Slavery has existed in various forms for most of human history, probably before, since human tribes first realised keeping some of their defeated enemies alive as slaves could be more useful than killing them.

Modern Western ideas of slavery are dominated by one particular example, plantation slavery in the Americas from the 16th to 19th Centuries, especially the 19th Century southern USA. There, teaching slaves to read and write was discouraged or illegal. Hence, some people are surprised that in the Ancient World many slaves were not only literate but more educated than their masters.

However, in the 19th Century USA, printed books, reading glasses and improved lighting made it easier to read. The Romans had none of those things. Consequently, especially as masters got older, the only way they could continue to read or to write was to have a literate slave to read to them and write letters and books the master dictated.

Many small traders and craftsmen were illiterate or semi-literate, so it made sense for them, individually or clubbing together, to buy or hire a literate slave to deal with business correspondence, write business signs and business agreements for them, and to teach young slaves to read and write to enhance their value.

We should not be misled by the example of mostly illiterate SubSaharan African slaves transported to the Americas down to the 19th Century (I say mostly illiterate. A few Muslims among them were literate in Arabic) into thinking Ancient slaves were also like that. By the ruthless custom of Ancient warfare, if a city did not negotiate surrender terms in time and was taken by storm, not only everything but everyone in it became the absolute property of the victors. In this way, even royalty and educated people on the losing side became slaves.

Sometimes, if they pleased their master, they might be freed as a reward, but then they were often expected either to remain in their master's employment and/or to perform duties for him out of gratitude or client/patron relations. Even so, the Roman Senate periodically debated whether to re-enslave 'ungrateful' freedmen.

The life of an educated slave secretary in Ancient times was usually better than being, say, a plantation slave in the 18th Century West Indies. However, even Ancient slave secretaries could at any time be whipped or sold on the whim of their master.

It was in a way revolutionary that early Christianity taught that a slave's soul and reward in Heaven could be of equal worth to his master's. However, while freeing a deserving slave, as with other acts of charity, could be virtuous, there is no sign Christians wanted to abolish slavery completely. Slavery was so omnipresent It was probably too hard to imagine the World without it.

How far slave or freed slave secretaries and copyists influenced the texts they helped to create and preserve is often impossible to know, but Professor Moss suggests, and presents some evidence that, this occurred more than usually realised.

We don't know how often St Paul asked Tertius 'Is there a better way to phrase that?' or 'Who was that man in Corinth I ought to thank in my letter?' or how often Tertius may have misheard or misunderstood Paul's dictation, or quietly corrected his grammar or style in the writing, and subtly changed it, but it is likely that sometimes he did.

[I once listened to a recording of a debate in the British House of Commons while following the official written record of it in Hansard. It was striking how many changes the editors of Hansard had quietly made, to correct grammar, remove the 'y'know's and other 'fillers', unmix metaphors and finish sentences the speaker had allowed to trail off. Most of these we scarcely notice in ordinary speech, but they look glaring on the page. Yet until modern recording technology, the written record in Hansard was often all historians had, and often treated as though an exact record of what was said.]

Scribes copying a text often had to work from old, damaged or faded manuscripts and sometimes had to try to reconstruct what a damaged original text had said. Sometimes they missed out whole passages, whether by accident, to finish the work more quickly so they could be paid or stop work for the day, or because they did not like what the passage said.

At least one ancient Gospel manuscript contains mistakes that should have been obvious to a Christian scribe, such as getting the Lord's Prayer wrong. This suggests that, even if copied for a Christian master, the copying was done by a non-Christian slave.

What happened to slave scribes when their own eyesight failed, I don't think the authoress tells us.

However, she does speculate that some parts of the New Testament may have either been composed or influenced by slave secretaries and copyists. The cruel bodily punishments imagined to await sinners in the next life may have been influenced by the punishments to which slaves could be subjected. The fact that the New Testament emphasises that rewards and punishments in the hereafter will fall on the rich and masters as much as on the poor and slaves:

'The first shall be last and the last shall be first'

must have appealed to many downtrodden slaves.

Finally, especially since this book encourages us to think of those other than the official authors who played a part in creating and disseminating books, I comment on the reading of the Audiobook.

I only began listening to Audiobooks in the last year or so, but in my limited experience to date, Audiobook versions of books by women are most often read, if not by the authoress herself, then by other women, so the listener gets a sense of the book speaking with a female voice and female point of view.

I prefer that, especially in a work like this in which a female writer challenges a scholarly consensus of generations of mostly male academics and clergy.

I might forgive the absence of that here if the male narrator had a rich voice and gave a particularly eloquent reading. However, the narrator here, Elliott Chapman, while quite adequate, is nothing special.

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

That I picked up this book was mostly on the basis of the cryptic title, and the question as to whatever could the author be writing about.

It turns out that Moss has mostly written a sociological take on how the gospels came to be a physical object, as most of scribes and secretaries of the Roman empire at the time in question were slaves, before looking at the nature of how that reality would condition the work of the apostles. This is as the original apostles do not seem to be literate men, apart from Paul, who had to dictate their thoughts for transmission to a broader community, and it seems likely that the literary works of the early Church are best regarded as collaborative efforts.

Suffused through all this are the realities of Roman slavery, how that is a background to the New Testament, and how this impacted what was really being preached in the early Church. This is as new believers were being called to be slaves of God, with manumission only coming with the resurrection.

Seeing as we really only have fragments of Roman history that have been teased out over time, Moss makes no apologies for turning the mismatched pieces into a construct of her imagination; this is merely the job of the historian. She also makes no apologies for contesting what she sees as the misuse of the Bible, as a tool to justify the self-serving behavior of the self-anointed "saved" at the expense of those whom they would exploit.

Finally, Moss also has little use for the notion that the Bible is effectively written in stone, but is a lived tradition that is rewritten as need calls for, be it for better or worse. She also makes a plea for more imagination in our social relations, as imagination is what leads to empathy, which leads to the sense of mercy that those of us who call ourselves Christians should be trying to exercise. So yes, this book is as much an exercise in advocacy as it is a work of history.

How to rate this book was a tough call, as it is rather speculative and it is a polemic. Moss mostly conducts herself with enough care that I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[Becky Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars This was a thought provoking book, and I appreciated the author’s information about the unseen and misunderstood part of the population who played a part in writing the Bible. I agreed with other reviewers, however, who said that the author used “perhaps” and “maybe” too many times throughout. For someone who is in no way a biblical scholar, this left me with many more questions than answers. I’m looking forward to discussing the book in a book club with people who have a better grasp of the Bible to see what they think about the author’s conclusions.

[nat hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Moss is a WONDERFUL writer and articulates her ideas boldly and critically, God’s Ghostwriters falls short when the author dives into speculative narratives in lieu of focus on evidence. I understand why this choice was made—as the book is made more palatable for a wide readership—but believe that it takes away from the otherwise fascinating, challenging, and informative argument Moss crafts.

[francee · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely not the content i was expecting, but the content i certainly needed. will be contemplating some things now.

[Julles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Troy Borst · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author states at the beginning that the work is a fabrication. That is a completely true statement and perhaps the only possibly maybe theoretically and contextually most likely true statement on the whole book. Maybe. Perhaps.

[Bob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sensationalist-tabloid writing, slanders NT, and fails to mention chief cultural difference

This is another strange book (see Christy Cobb’s book Ancient Slavery, my 1-star review). Candida Moss appears to claim to be Christian (a Catholic scholar), but then she writes here with a hostile, loose cannon, anti-Christian slant, and a foul mouth. She uses a cuss word toward the lower part of page 245, which is prohibited (Mat 12:33-7; James 1:26; Col 3:8; 1 Pet 1:15; 3:10; Lk 6:45) – the “s” word; apparently, she views the New Testament as something that should not be followed. There appears to be nothing sacred for this corrupt scholar in this book as she assaults the NT; here, she fires a disrespectful loose cannon on apostle Paul and his view of his Roman citizenship, conjecturing “perhaps” an arrogance or social hierarchy from Paul: “If he was a citizen, perhaps he could have worn his status on his sleeve – or perhaps it would have elicited eye rolls from his new colleagues” (page 57). Further, Moss conjectures that Mary the mother of Jesus may have been a sex slave (!) (surprising to hear from a Catholic! isn’t Mary supposed to be a perpetual virgin in Catholicism?): “The absence of a legal father for Jesus might suggest that his mother was a sex worker, enslaved, or (more probably) both” (page 96; cf. 98). That would also mean that Jesus was a slave, too, because children born from a slave are also slaves (generational slavery): “Mark .. omitted all reference to a human father in order to make his primary theological point that Jesus is the Son of God … the authors of Mark were willing to allow space for even the possibility that Jesus was enslaved or illegitimate” (page 98). The writer of the Gospel of Mark wrote tales: “deftly interwove biblical quotations and allusions into an accessible tale about an unlikely hero” (page 68). There is a lot of slander and disrespect to the Scripture in this book (and coming from a “Christian”?): “The Bible speaks across time, but it has not aged well” (page 15). Moss also uses the neo-Marxist vocabulary that has infiltrated US culture being used to turn Americans against logic and America: colonialism, white supremacists, white and privileged, belonging (pages 52, 7, 4, 15).

Instead of a strictly historical review of the subject, Candida admits to projecting onto the text on page 6: “.. might be seen by some as symptomatic of the grave historical error known as ‘normative presentism.’ That is, some might argue that I am anachronistically projecting contemporary ethical norms (i.e., that enslaving other human beings is deplorable) onto the past rather than treating this ancient phenomenon on its own terms. To such critics, I simply say this: … [if] I break this rule, I am content.” She seems to be on a “social justice” crusade, which justifies her imposing modern culture onto the ancient (the ends justifies the means). So, Moss admits she is projecting onto the text on pages 6-7, but she also criticizes others for projecting onto the text on page 4 (“We have imagined them and projected our .. habits into antiquity”). That’s hypocritical. This book seems to serve more of a Cultural Marxism cult ideology purpose, which tends to violate logic, instead of presenting a rational, historical survey of the subject. One could just as easily say the reverse: ancient slaves, not being abolitionist, may look at us strange for wanting to get rid of it, projecting their view onto us! And, she fails to mention the enormous cultural difference that even if they were slaves, ancient slaves were not against slavery (-this is what the modern abolitionist mind does not understand – more about this below). Moss seems to treat all slavery as the same when actually it's not (projecting onto the text!). The Bible was addressing a culture where slavery was welcomed by slaves; it speaks against abusive slavery (Eph 6:9; Mat 24:45, 48-51). One of the reasons she gives for her projecting is because, “.. contemporary societies still wrestle with the devastating effects of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade ..” (page 7). She seems to equate ancient slavery with US slavery. But, such a projection misses the key distinction / misunderstands ancient culture. Candida seems to have a political/social cult agenda; at least she does admit she’s being dishonest in her writing about history.

She writes on page 15: “The Bible .. encodes and reproduces the violent and bloody tyranny of slavery, and has generated a pro-slavery legacy that has .. shaped human history for the worse” – she appears to be referring to NT slavery there. But, again, the Bible speaks against abusive slavery (Eph 6:9; Mat 24:45, 48-51), and Candida’s book fails to mention, again, non-abusive slavery was welcome in ancient culture – even by the slaves (!). The Bible can’t be used to impose or justify slavery on a culture where slaves were abolitionist / did not want slavery itself (US). I consider this to be the chief example of where critics misunderstand this subject. We like to impose abolitionism onto the text today, but, and here’s the little known secret, ancient slaves were likely not abolitionist, but had a general welcome of slavery (unthinkable today!). What was the view of abolition by the ancient slaves themselves? This is almost never considered on this subject. What about ancient culture? Chris de Wet, Ph.D., mentions, “.. slaves who owned their own slaves, a common phenomenon in Roman society ..” ( - Ancient Slavery, 2025, page 190; co-editor: Christy Cobb, Ph.D.). Slaves own slaves? Doesn’t sound like ancient slaves were abolitionist. Mary the mother of Jesus describes herself as the slave of God and rejoices; also see Simeon in the Temple, and apostle Paul the bondservant of Christ (Luke 1:38, 48; 2:28-9; Rom 1:1). Our modern mind tends to read the Bible and thinks it’s talking about US slavery, so get rid of their slavery, too – we look at ancient slavery and treat it like American slavery; US slavery is superimposed onto the Bible (Abraham refers to Abraham Lincoln). But, American slaves were abolitionist. It’s a complete reversal of custom/culture.

Criticizing the Bible for not promoting abolition is putting the target in the wrong place; their ancient slaves did not promote abolition, either! Ancient slave revolts were not about abolition. Abolition was not the issue back then like it is today. Certain Greek and Medieval laws/figures can be found that were abolitionist (and others), but in general the ancient cultures welcomed slavery, even among the enslaved! Glancy notes in her book, “No abolition movement existed in antiquity” ( - Slavery in Early Christianity, 2002 Oxford University Press, page 150; by Jennifer Glancy, Ph.D.; second edition 2024, page 223) – see my 2-star review for the 2024 edition (cf. Shaner in Ancient Slavery, 2025, page 172). Glancy also writes, “.. a former slave who had become a bishop .. wrote a letter excoriating a local ruler for stealing and selling massive numbers of Christians into slavery … Patrick, bishop of Ireland in the early fifth century .. was kidnapped and sold as a slave in Ireland .. for six years before he made his escape. Years later, in a letter to a British king, Coroticus, he described himself … Patrick’s letter holds special interest as a rare document from a former slave commenting on the evils of slavery, but he did not condemn the institution of slavery itself” (ibid., 2002, pages 79-80; 2024, page 118). Moss echoes the “translation” of 2 Peter 2:1 as “the Divine Enslaver who purchased them” on page 235, instead of the standard, precise “Master” – apparently in an attempt to make the NT look in the worst way possible, aligning the ancient view of slavery with American slavery to get an emotional response from the readers and our modern abolitionist mind. Yet, it’s not the same idea of slavery as our modern abolitionist mind that immediately thinks of US slavery and assumes that all slaves at all times, as well, are automatically abolitionist. “.. we should understand that slavery was seen as a necessary institution alongside others like marriage and imperial government – slavery was therefore part of an imperfect yet necessary social ecosystem” ( - Ancient Slavery, 2025, page 181; ibid.).

Glancy further points out the ancient Roman slave revolts were not about abolition (2002, page 139 top half; 2024, page 206). That is the direction the Bible points to, as well. The problem ancients objected to was the misconduct of certain owners (1 Kg 12:4, 7, 10-11, 16a, 18). Israel had its own civil war over slavery in 1 Kings 12, started by the slaves, and they were not attempting to abolish slavery. There is an absence of abolitionist movements for a reason (notice the Exodus from Egypt did not call for abolition). Exodus 12:44, 51 gives a Passover law for future slaves in Israel on the day of the Exodus from Egypt. The type of slavery Israel was under in Egypt is described as “harsh slavery” (Exo. 6:9), suggesting non-abusive slavery was welcome in ancient culture. On their return to Israel/Judah after exile they brought their slaves with them, including slaves for the Temple (Ezra 2:1, 43, 65, 70; Lev. 22:11). Abolition was not the issue like it dominates us today. Abolition seems to have been a more widespread issue starting with the later British and American times. For the New Testament/church: “During this period, virtually no one was calling for the abolition of slavery. In fact, when slaves became free and acquired means, they often bought other slaves for their own use. Rome had repressed three earlier massive slave revolts, ending in bloodbaths without freedom; the purpose of even these revolts was to provide a critical mass of resistance against the slaves’ oppressors, but not to abolish slavery in principle [1 Kings 12:4]. Even if someone wanted to abolish slavery in principle, such an issue would be addressed in a philosophic treatise, not in a letter giving advice to slaves” ( - NKJV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, 2017, page 2142). (also see my 1-star review for “Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery?,” second edition 2023, by Joshua Bowen)

Yet, there are clues in the New Testament that seem to nudge against slavery. Hartman notes, “.. we have come in the modern, post-slavery context … [while] the earliest Jesus movement was not focused on the abolition of slavery .. it does contain the ideological seeds, such as Galatians 3:28, that would be used as scriptural support for later generations to abolish enslavement as a social institution in the modern world” ( - Ancient Slavery, 2025, pages 194-5; ibid.; contributor: Midori Hartman, Ph.D.). So, why did slavery continue throughout church history until the modern? It can be shown believers did not always live up to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles; for example, the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 that addressed Jewish converts imposing old law portions onto gentile converts. Immorality is reported in the Corinthian church, 1 Cor. 5:1. And, Jesus seems to challenge the slaveholding mentality by ordering foot washing – the work of slaves – to His followers; as if be slaves to one another (John 13:14-5). Apostle Paul mentions not holding one as a slave anymore but as a brother (Philemon 16). A case can be made that “church” history did not conform.

Moss also seems to undermine the entire premise of her book, which is “Writing a history of enslaved literate workers and the ways in which they shaped the Bible and early Christian history” (page 3), because “Human trafficking continues to take place in our own day, contemporary societies still wrestle with the devastating effects of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade, and a rising tide of white supremacists define themselves through appeals both to Roman history and the Bible” (page 7) (-more neo-Marxist vocabulary), misequating ancient and modern slavery. But then she admits the New Testament transcribers may not be slaves, but a hired worker (pages 72, 77, 145, 54), or former slaves (page 13, 92) “we should assume, one of the authors was enslaved or formerly enslaved” (page 92). So, she admits they may not have been slaves. Further, these “enslaved collaborators” (pages 240, 256, etc) conspired to subtly alter words in transcription, but it’s “impossible to prove” Paul’s secretaries conspired to twist the meaning of Paul’s words, but “they might have” (page 77). Even if what she posits is accurate, she agrees it does not neutralize the Bible: “The fact of enslaved collaborators’ contributions to the New Testament does not bankrupt the Bible … it does not divest it of meaning” (pages 256-7). She seems to overstate and then reverses direction, as if playing a charade or a bait-and-switch tactic. She portrays it as slavery is involved and then it’s more of an “oh, I didn’t mean it, I just meant it may have been involved, just sayin’ ya’ll” scenario. This practice sounds carried over from her 2013 book “The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom” – so, the book title makes it sound like the church was not persecuted by Rome. Then she writes here on page 295 they were persecuted; that book title overstates or misleads: “While I am skeptical about the extent to which Roman authorities deliberately targeted Christians before the Diocletianic persecution, I maintain that some early Christians died as martyrs during this period.”

On pages 68, 176-8, 149-151, the end of Mark (16:9-20), and the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11 are invented by slaves, because they show in the Greek later. But, both are in the astonishing, earlier Hebrew New Testament manuscripts. See books Sons of Zion, vols. 1-2, by Miles Jones, Ph.D. Early church fathers also describe original Hebrew parts of the NT (page 93).

Frequently, the book reads like a soap opera or tabloid newspaper against the New Testament (The NT relied on slaves for writing! Gasp!) (bypassing the part about ancient slaves were not against slavery). The first pages of chapters 1 and 6 read like novels, as she overconjectures fictional scenarios. In tabloidic style, this projectionist book appears to be an attempt at defamation, slander, innuendo, and insinuation against the New Testament by Moss – she constantly attempts to point out that slavery was involved inside and outside the New Testament (see, look, the NT relied on slaves for writing, the NT is bad). She has a lot of hyper-speculation or conspiracy-minded “may have”s. She writes on page 168, “The copyists who toiled in ancient bookshops in the first and second centuries were not the conspiratorial figures some have imagined them to be,” but then she maintains slaves conspired (or independently commandeered) to change certain words: “Enslaved scribes had subtle ways to subvert the despotic dynamics of texts they worked on, and to craft their own networks of belonging” (page 15). As a protest while writing for Paul: “Perhaps .. Paul’s anonymous secretary .. found a way to capture Paul’s meaning while also inserting themselves into the letter. Perhaps they let slip a wry smile as they inscribed the words” (pages 86-7). “There may be hints that enslaved coauthors modified the …” (page 242). For Luke 5:17-26, when Jesus healed a paralytic man lowered through a roof, Moss says the 4 men carrying the man were enslaved workers sent by their owner, which may have been the paralyzed man himself who “may also have been rich” (page 90). And, she says Jesus focused on the faith of the 4 men for that which “has saved them” (page 90; cf. 92), while it may have been their faith/loyalty to their owner that saved them (yes, really!). But, if you read the text itself, it says “some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed” (Lk 5:18 ESV), which sounds more like volunteers helping a person in medical need. Nor does the text mention the 4 men being saved, but rather “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” And, “their faith” (5:20) sounds more like the group of 5, not just the four men. Further, Moss doesn’t explain why the 4 men, if they were slaves, didn’t run away as they were in the superior position, perhaps family ties stopped that (page 124), but they still could have “accidentally” killed the owner.

Moss attacks apostle Paul again on page 234 pitting the Gospel writers against Paul. Here, she has a scenario concocted where Paul might have excluded sex workers/slaves from church membership, so the four Gospel writers are against him to protect the sex workers. Yay Gospel writers! Candida’s conjecture sounds more like emotional nonsense. There she maintains the woman who puts fragrance on Jesus is a sex worker (Mk 14:3-9, Mat 26:6-13, Lk 7:36-50), and “in none of the versions of the story does he condemn her profession or behavior.” Moss appears to be saying that sex workers still active in the profession can be members of the church in the four Gospels. She summarizes the conspiracy as: “Paul .. may have excluded sex workers and enslaved people .., but if that was his intention, then the evangelists and their enslaved collaborators undercut it” and “If Paul established regulations … the evangelists gently rejected them. Perhaps an enslaved scribe familiar with the dilemma highlighted the woman’s behavior to offer a corrective to Paul.” But, Moss fails to mention that one could just as easily say the woman is a former sex worker that repented. She agrees “the woman is explicitly identified as a ‘sinner’ ” and “Luke’s Jesus explicitly forgives the woman” (page 234). Further, the Hebrew Matthew is dated to c AD 40, which is earlier than Paul’s writing.

Not to be outdone, Candida then seems to endorse more of such conspiracy, or commandeering of the text by copiers, to invent new meanings for the text (apparently negating the original intent). She writes: “Modern readers, too, might feel empowered to make similar kinds of revisions, to push back against despotism, to read against the grain, and to craft new worlds of meaning … For those Christians worried about the legitimacy of this kind of rereading, it might be meaningful to know that it .. began before the ink had dried on our first copies of the Gospels and the Pauline epistles” (pages 234-5; cf. pages 266-7). But, her endorsement seems to do away with ethics or honesty. One wonders if she would allow or approve of people doing that with her own writings, as well. Would Candida agree to people commandeering her writing to say something she did not want or mean? She should have no problem or complaint if someone wants to misquote her or rewrite her books to say the opposite of her intent.

Shortened review due to space limit.

[Melia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting perspective on the aspects of early Christian history that have less documentation than others. Candida Moss presents an aspect of Roman society that is inextricable from it, and therefore inextricable from the Empire's history in Christianity.
Several other reviews of this book have taken umbrage with Moss' suppositions that the Apostles would have used enslaved labor to transcribe the gospels, and that enslaved writers made intellectual and stylistic contributions to the Bible. This objection mainly comes from the fact that Moss does not present concrete proof that this occurred, and some of her suggestions rely on, well, suggestions. And it is true that there is nothing outside of a single reference to a scribe in one of Paul's scriptures which says CONCLUSIVELY that they did. However, Moss' research does make this theory quite PLAUSIBLE, which is nothing to ignore.

With the type of history we're dealing with here - lower class, enslaved, nitty gritty history - the threshold of proof is hard to hit. Records have no reason to document whether a slave transcribed a scholar's writings because it is so commonplace to do so. In two thousand years, we probably won't know if a modern researcher used Google to look up details because today we have no reason to explicitly say that we did; it is simply the way things are done.

In this vein, Moss suggests not that the Apostles were secretly and extraordinarily exploiting slave labor in a way never before seen, rather she gives ample evidence that this practice was ubiquitous in the Roman empire, and we should not assume that the Apostles were different. This suggestion, while rooted in the day to day aspects of early history, is not nearly as banal in modern implication. She opens us up to the suggestion that there were contributors to the earliest existing versions of the Jesus story that might have had very real influence on what metaphors were used, what turns of phrase, and how the gospel itself presents the narrative of Christ.

Now admittedly, I don't think this book can be read as a new absolute truth to take as, for lack of a better term, gospel. Some of the images put forth here are educated guesses. The view of the imprisoned Paul dictating his letters through a gap in his prison to a scribe who is taking it down is compelling, but it is a guess. Much of her evidence that the writers used enslaved scribes relies on 1) the ubiquitousness of this practice, and 2) the argument that aged or infirm disciples might not have been able to write on their own. This is amble evidence to suggest that it is very possible; it's just not enough to say that it was DEFINITELY true.

Discounting the theoretical aspect of the book, Candida Moss did have valuable insight into the language of slavery and its influence on the New Testament. The metaphors of slavery are often seen as calls to servitude by a reader who has never experienced slavery, but this puts into context how these words might have sounded to one who did. I do not believe a different perspective on the language of the Bible dampens it or dilutes its potency. Theologically, this book's claims do challenge a Sola Scripta point of view, however they are foundational to an examination of the Scriptures as a living document.

[Greg Motter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned alot from this one (3.5 stars), but to me it definitely did not live up to Moss's prior book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom, which is one of my all time favorite history books about early Christianity.

I think some of the issue with this book for me was, as others have mentioned, the title gave me a false impression. I think a more accurate title (but would have sold fewer books) would have been. 'Slavery in the Roman Empire: and how that may have impacted the writing of the Bible, but certainly impacted the formation of Christianity.' Also at times, for me as a non believer, there was just too much theology and not enough history, and too much guessing how things could have happened. I was just expecting a bit more pure history.

With that said, I learned many very interesting things. A couple of my favorites were:

I think the most interesting thing I had never thought of was about how different slavery was in the Roman empire compared to how slavery was after the invention of the printing press. In the Roman empire some slaves could read and write as a big part of their responsibilities. As it took much more time and effort to create a book there was a huge need for forced labor to do the copying. But they did not just do the copying, in a world where many did not know how to read and eyeglasses were still 1000 years from being invented many slaves were needed to read to the masses and owners, as well as help the aging scholars of the day. It truly was just something I'd never even considered.

At one point in the book, Moss goes though a list of passages that make much more sense once you understand slavery at their time. I found this very interesting also. Reminded me of when I first read The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature and finally understanding what was meant about the levels of heaven.

Another thing I'd not really thought about, was just how prevalent the metaphor of slavery is in the Bible. I do remember it being there, but while a believer I think I mostly swept it to the side. But the idea that the Christian is a slave of God's is absolutely there, and the idea that the unbeliever is a bad slave cannot be avoided, even if God is not enforcing the pentalties... yet. Moss makes the point that Christians have to consider this when thinking about the origins of Christianity and how it's been used to enslave people over the centuries.


Moss's writing style is always a pleasure to read, and this is a very interesting read, despite my initial frustration of it not being quite what I expected. Also for a Christian it'd be more interesting and relevant than it even was for me.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not read…

God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible by Candida Moss is a highly speculative work of academic fiction that relies on assertions and suggestions of what likely happened without any significant support…

This book is a testament to the idea of “come up with a theme and stick to it”.

Starting with hypothetical Christian slave schoolchildren during Jesus’s crucifixion to describing apostle missionaries as enslaved laborers, the book takes some wide leaps with little academic support.

Sure, you could look at the 30 pages of footnotes and think the author knows what they are talking about, but when most of the sources are after 2000 (outside of scattered lines from the Bible), it starts to make you question it.

The author started form a flawed premise and chose to focus on that and avoid any actual evidence of what they were taking about.

On numerous occasions the author says essentially “we can’t know what happened here” and the. Goes into great detail about (wink wink) what happened…

This was a pretty rough book to get through…

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moss brings together research on the history of labor, book history, clerical labor, Atlantic slavery, psychology, archeology, and history of medicine, all cited on a phenomenal companion website that will change the way that public scholarship is done. The book is written beautifully and clearly, has a compelling argument that makes you want to keep reading more, and offers the kind of evidence that you can't "unsee" when you read the Bible and other ancient texts. What is more, God's Ghostwriters makes explicit connections to social and economic practices in the present so that we all must reckon with the impacts of forced and uncredited labor not just on the writing of the Bible, but upon the world we inhabit. Because of that this is a must read not just for people who are interested in the Bible and the History of Christianity, but for anyone who is interested in enslavement, labor history, human rights and cultural history.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are too many “what ifs” “perhaps” and “maybes” being used to justify arguments in this book. Some arguments are borderline sacrilegious. The idea of enslaved people assisting in the writing/copying/distribution of the New Testament was explained well, and for that it gets a second star. This history lesson on its own could have been a shorter, more complete, and better book. The wild assumptions and house of cards assembled on top of this baseline is where it lost me.

[Missa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really brought to light the historical and social context in which the new testament was written. The author theorized a lot but always made it clear when this was the case and why they made the assumptions they did. A bit long for the point it makes.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

God’s Ghostwriters? Fair amount of disappointment, especially given that Candida Moss’ book on the “Myth of Persecution” was pretty good. About 35-40 percent through, I was thinking this can’t be more than 3 stars. By 60 percent or so, I’m thinking, it can’t be more than 2. But, at around the 75 percent mark, I’m thinking, well, it can be 3.

Contra many low-star reviewers on Goodreads, my issue is not primarily with some of her conjectures, but with some godawful mistakes on biblical criticism — mistakes that people below her academic pay grade, and below mine, know are wrong, at least in the first case.

First, she gives the appearance of thinking Paul was a Roman citizen. WRONG! Never mentioned or claimed by Paul, of course.

Second, she thinks the last one-quarter of Acts, from Paul’s temple arrest on, is historical, or at least historical enough to have him getting to Rome. WRONG! Go here for the particularly "high" ahistoricity of the last one-quarter of Acts, as well as comments on Paul not being a Roman citizen.

Third, she seems to give some credibility to the historicity of Papias. Not.Even.Wrong. Based on a scribal slave of Cicero’s, and his veneration, if you will, she claims that an enslaved Mark would have testified to the veracity of recording Peter. Well, beyond this being based on one enslaved scribe and anecdotal comments about him, rather than a collection of statements to that end from patrician Romans, it’s also of course dependent on giving credibility to the historicity of Papias.

OK, with that said? My thoughts about her explication on ancient Roman slavery, New Testament slave imagery and its literalness and more are long, and behind a spoiler alert.

The general slavery issue? Best estimates outside of Italy are that 10-20 percent of the provincial Roman population was enslaved. That’s well below the 1860 US South’s 30 percent, despite slave importation having been banned (on paper, at least) for more than 50 years. The high side is probably no higher than the three non-Delaware border states. In other words, yes, there were a lot of slaves in ancient Rome; there weren’t THAT many, and many freemen who weren’t Roman citizens and weren’t agricultural landlords might well not have owned any. Even in Italy itself, they weren’t more than one-third of the population. Wiki’s article on Roman slavery also estimates that half of all slaves were owned by the “elite,” for which it offers a demographic determination — less than 1.5 percent of the Imperial population. In other words, the picture that Moss paints by insinuation — that most freeborns had at least a couple of household slaves? Taint so. Wikipedia's Slavery in ancient Rome piece has more. (Side note: Failure to dive more into demographics is one reason "Myth of Persecution" got 4 stars, not 5.

Also related to demographics? Moss presents an issue of Imperial Rome as towns and cities (and those humongous slave farms as assumed in the background). Well, in “Pagans and Christians” Robin Lane Fox reminds us that it ain't so.

Scribal work by currently enslaved having deliberate errors as “an act of resistance,” as she claims with naming errors in the Old Latin Bobiensis? Tosh. That first makes the assumption we know the scribe was working for a particular owner, rather than being for hire. It secondly assumes we know the scribe was an ardent Christian-hating pagan. Third, it assumes he knew that he could get away with it. A pair of anecdotes about Aesop doing somewhat similar, taken from a biography written 600 years after his death, doesn’t really prove much. It’s also not clear how historical — or ahistorical — that bio is if Moss is referencing “The Aesop Romance.” Yes, parts of it may have been written “only” 200 years after his death, per Wiki, but 1st C CE for the final, and probably 3rd CE for current MSS? Oh, parts of it also borrowed from Ahiqar, at least in some versions. “Nice” of Moss not to mention any of this.

Also, no, Candida, Tyrannio was NOT a “manumitted … slave” other than in a purely technical sense. He was a prisoner of war. Your own description makes that clear. Ergo, we don’t know, if you don’t offer proof, how he was treated within Cicero’s late Republican Rome. Yes, he was technically “emancipated,” but per his Wiki page, Plutarch faults that as not the right action. Wiki also notes he reportedly became an acclaimed teacher, including of Strabo. (She mentions Strabo three or four pages later, but not in conjunction with Tyrannio!)

That said, Chapter 7, The Faithful Christian, was good. It set enslavement’s actuality within Christian language of being a slave to or of Christ, used many a time by Paul, of course. From there, Moss talks about pistis/fides, and how this faith, or faithfulness, which is a better translation of the famous Habakkuk passage, that the righteous, or just-living, man, or person, will be saved by their faithfulness (with “saved” also NOT meaning “eternal life” in that passage), is a relational issue, and that cuts both ways between enslaved and enslaver.. And, of course, and as she notes, Luther basically blew this, not just on “faith vs works” but the whole relational nature. On the both ways, she notes a little bit, but not as much as she could, how many Roman masters went “relatively” light on punishments and knew this usually produced slaves who were relationally better, or more faithful. She also discusses the idea of a spirit taking over a person, then the Holy Spirit. From this, she makes the claim (no, really!) that many Christian denominations today, because of this, still practice a “minor exorcism” before baptism. (No, really!)

One other interesting note? Moss references Jesus telling his hearers to forsake everything, in Mark 10, as the family details are omitted in Mt/Lk, interestingly, and that in turn they would get back mother and brothers and sisters, as well as other rewards, but NO father, perhaps because of the tyrannical nature of the paterfamilias, and no, not just because god is the father of all.

One other good thing I got? Whether Paul was tentmaker, tanner, or general leatherworker, in larger cities, there probably was a guild for that. Per a Jesus Seminar derived book of a few years ago, I had the light bulb go on that the ancient Greek mysteries in all likelihood were NOT the source of Paul’s creating the Lord’s Supper (create it he did, the “what I received” language is always an introduction to something he’s claiming to have by divine revelation) but rather, the Hellenistic Greek guilds’ monthly, or whenever, dinners, complete with invocations of their patron deity, as in Ephesian silversmiths and “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (I discuss that in some detail in my piece about Paul and the Eucharist, "Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism.") Well, Paul’s brainstorm would have been easier for him with a few such guild dinners being attended by him.

And, with all that?

The last tipping point down to 2 instead of up to 3 stars? This book could have been tighter, as well as less speculative, on its theme, as well as not having the errors in biblical criticism.

Related? There's too much food for thought for this to get the "meh" tag, let alone the "bs" one. But, Moss apparently is going to be headed more toward modernist sociology critiques of the New Testament and its world and I'll probably not ride that bus any more.

[Birty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a biblical scholar and am not in a position to question the author's credentials, but I do question some of her assertions. According to Moss, the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was not actually physically written by the accredited authors (Matthew, Mark, etc.) but by enslaved or servant persons related to the authors or to future Christians as copyists and servants. And through these "others," the New Testament text was written and rewritten with added comments and quotes related to their servitude, omitting and/or adding text at their whim. The author also questions the notion of Christians as "slaves" to their beliefs, and not in a good way.

I have no doubt that enslaved persons or servants helped with the copying of the New Testament. I do not question that. I do question how some "possible situations" are portrayed as "actual" situations. There is also a great deal of information about the treatment of enslaved people and their lives. But the author is so focused on "her" message that the truth of her assertions is hard to understand or accept.

This is clearly an academic book, and as a lay reader, I struggled with some terminology and language. (Kept my college dictionary faithfully at my side.) It was also recommended as part of a women of faith reading list to enlighten my spiritual growth. In as much as I have sympathy for the enslaved and marginalized people, past and present, and work to change their circumstances, this book did not add to my spiritual growth as a Christian believer or fighter for justice and equality for all peoples. Thus the 3-star rating. I did not want to give 1 star if the book had merit for someone more biblically scholastic than me.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible and accessible history of writing in general and the writing of the gospels specifically. Within the context of the theological aspirations of the New Testament to document the life of Jesus, the meaning of his death and resurrection, and God's intervention in history through Christ, Moss creates a detailed history of how the Gospels and Epistles would have come to be written and the status of their Authority, both in terms of who wrote them and to whom authorship is credited. This is a materialist tour de force in biblical reading, as it shifts focus away from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, etc... and casts an eye, instead, on the slaves and servants tasked with taking dictation, copying, editing, and reproducing of biblical texts, as well as the institutions that supported their enslavement. This is an excellent companion piece to The Origins of Early Christian Literature, The Apostle and Empire, and Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark when trying to think about how the New Testament was written and transmitted in the first centuries of the common era.

[Daddy Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tough book to finish. If you’re looking for an academically supported read, this is not it. The author fills in the chasms that exist in her premise between the little evidence that is provided with large amounts of speculation. The vast amounts of speculation take on a fictional narrative, and as the chapters pile up, the read ultimately feels like the author wants her premise to be true so badly, but just can’t quite get anyone else to believe her, that she drops all notions of respect for the material.

Summary: Woman author (trust me, she wants to this to be a prominent feature of the book), argues that the non-documented but presumed to be enslaved, (however, well-educated), unnamed book workers of the New Testament encoded their oppressed reality into the words to illustrate that the Christian God of the New Testament is ultimately an omnipotent enslaver of all believers and followers, exhibiting the same treacherous behaviors that the enslaved who were forced to write these letters, (again presumably, against their will,) were subjected to by their Master/Lord/Owner.