- verses
- 4
- first named
- Colossians 4:9
- last named
- Philemon 1:13
- period
- the New Testament
- role
- Man
Description
Who was Onesimus?
Onesimus was a slave who belonged to Philemon, a Christian from Colossae (Col.4.9). He ran away from his master and, in some way, came into contact with the apostle Paul while Paul was in prison (Phm.1.10). Through Paul's ministry, Onesimus became a Christian and proved to be a valuable companion and helper to Paul (Phm.1.11-13). Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon with a personal letter, urging Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave, but as a beloved brother in Christ (Phm.1.16-17). Paul also offered to pay any debt that Onesimus might owe to Philemon (Phm.1.18-19). The letter to Philemon is a powerful example of Christian love, forgiveness, and the transforming power of the gospel in human relationships. Onesimus is also mentioned as a faithful and beloved brother in Paul's letter to the Colossians (Col.4.9).
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Places
Where this happens
A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.
No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.
Not read yet
The pattern
Where Onesimus is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
4 verses across 2 of 66 books; 64 write the name nowhere. Named in Colossians (2) and Philemon (2).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 4, across 2 books.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources