Virtually all modern commentaries on Philemon agree with the interpretation from late antiquity that the letter treats the case of Onesimus, a pilfering runaway slave, who Paul is attempting to rehabilitate in the eyes of Philemon, his rightfully angry master. In this commentary, however, Allen Callahan tells another story. His reading of the rhetorical situation and reconstruction of the historical context provides a new narrative for the letter. He interpretation for which he argues is that of several nineteenth-century American abolitionist interpreters. Here, then, is not the story of a runaway slave but a story of the estrangement of two Christina brothers, Onesimus and Philemon. Professor Callahan proposes that his alternative reading of the letter