Board index ‹ Slavery in the Bible

[Drunk Armadillo]

Owning other human beings is immoral plain and simple. You can try to justify it all you want but the fact is that God has no issues with treating people as property. The very fact that chattel slavery is condoned in the bible proves the "servant" argument false. Their are clear laws permitting the treatment of humans as property in and of themselves, there is absolutely nothing humane about subjecting a human and their descendants to being enslaved for "all time." Also you could beat your slaves so long as they recovered in a few days do you have any idea how savagely beaten someone has to be in order to be incapacitated for several days??

[jimwalton]

As I said, slavery in ancient times is not at all the same as slavery in Greco-Roman or colonial times. I can see you've jumped immediately to "owning other human beings," and that's an anachronistic mistake. Dr. Paul Wright says, "There is no evidence of chattel slavery in the ancient Near East. While slavery was known in may cultures there, the type of slavery was debt-slavery, punishment for crime, enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves."

> God has no issues with treating people as property.

You must not have read my post very carefully, because you're just jumping to default conclusions rather than interacting with what I said. There is no law in the Bible to suggest that God commands slavery or approves of it, or in any way endorses it. And the Bible distinctly speaks against treating people as property. The slaves had rights and dignity. They could own property, for instance, or determine inheritance. They could even become free. They were typically not bought and sold, opposite as the case in the medieval and modern worlds.

> Their are clear laws permitting the treatment of humans as property in and of themselves, there is absolutely nothing humane about subjecting a human and their descendants to being enslaved for "all time."

I think you're talking about Lev. 25.44-46. Most of the so-called slavery of the ancient world was debt-slavery—working to pay off a debt. We do the same thing today, but we call it employment. They didn't have a word for employee, so they use the word slave. It's a misnomer.

The Israelites didn't own other people; they owned their labor. Lev. 25.44 is about buying their labor. In chattel slavery the person was property, the slave owner's rights over the slave's person and work were total and absolute, and the slave was stripped of his identity. This does NOT describe so-called "slavery" in ancient Israel.

Jacob Milgrom agrees: "The false assumption here is that the alien is a chattel-slave, not a debt-slave. 'Canaanite slaves are permanent possessions.' This law merely indicates that the jubilee does not apply to non-Israelite slaves; it does not imply that the slave is a piece of property at the mercy of his master."

Mendelsohn also agrees: "[Leviticus 25.46] does not imply that the slave is a piece of property at the mercy of his master."

> Also you could beat your slaves so long as they recovered in a few days do you have any idea how savagely beaten someone has to be in order to be incapacitated for several days??

Again, you misunderstand. You seem to be guilty of just reading the words and making assumptions rather than doing any research about it.

Now I'm guessing you've jumped to Exodus 21. There are many factors here you don't seem to be seeing.

1. This is casuistic law: made-up situations to guide a judge in how to make his decisions.

2. A slave is not a piece of property. Ex. 21.12 says, "Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death." That includes a "slave." The slaves had rights, and were not considered as property.

3. If people quarrel and one strikes another, but that person is injured (not dead), restitution is to be paid (Ex. 21.18-19). This is the situation for free people, but also for slaves. The slave has just as much rights and dignity as the free person. They were persons, not property.

4. Specifically speaking of slaves, since someone may think they are in a different category, we find that they are NOT in a different category. Ex. 21.20 says if a person kills a slave, it's the same as if he had killed a free person, and capital punishment is the sentence. Also notice there is nothing in this verse to suggest that God commands, endorses, or approves of such behavior.

5. But, just as we saw earlier with free people, if the slave is injured by not dead, the punishment to the owner is that the slave gets to go free (Ex. 21.26-27). If the injury is minimal (v. 21) there is no further repercussion other than the loss of the man's labor for the day or two. Even though v. 21 is translated, "since the slave is his property," the Hebrew word is "since the slave is his money." It means he loses the profit he could have had during the days the servant is incapacitated.

All of these laws were meant to show "masters" that they debt slaves were still people and were to be treated as people. The laws are written to protect them from the kind of abuse that happened in the slave pens of Rome and the plantations of the antebellum South. Whenever evil intent could be proved (Ex. 21.14), or the slave died (20), the master was liable to punishment. If the master’s intent was debatable, an injured slave at least won his freedom (26-27) and the master lost his loaned money (21.21).