Board index ‹ Slavery in the Bible

[Playing with Pigs]

Hi Christians.

This question is specifically for Christians who do NOT support or defend slavery.. if you believe that slavery can be justified, or can be considered moral (in whatever circumstances) then please do NOT reply. I do not want to talk to people trying to justify slavery, its vile, and if you can't accept that, please stay out of this conversation, I find talking to slavery apologists disgusting.

Secondly, although there are lots of references to slavery in the bible, I am focusing on Exodus 21, which contains explicit instructions on how to own slaves, and what level of violence is acceptable towards them.

I'm making this post because I have been watching a lot of videos recently of the atheist experience, and have seen numerous apologists attempt to defend what I consider indefensible. As I hope most of you will concede, the bible has been used many times to justify owning slaves. It is "weaponizable" in support of slavery. Even if you believe that the people using the bible this way are wrong, you hopefully can concede that people have been and continue to, justify slavery using the bible.

So, assuming you agree that slavery is immoral, that it always has been wrong, always will be wrong, then here is my question:

Will you actually physically remove the relevant verses from your copy of your bible? Will you take a pair of scissors and cut out the offending passages? Or scribble them out and put a note in the margin saying "this is evil, please ignore"?

If not, why not?

[jimwalton]

The foundation of slavery as an immoral practice rests on the concept of the fundamental inequality of human beings, and that it is both right and good to treat some people as less than human. From the outset, I can say with confidence that the Bible teaches no such thing. The Bible teaches that all humans are made in the image of God and endowed with the dignity that status confers (Gn. 1.26-28; Joel 2.29; Job 31.15). As such, owning another human being and treating them like property is contrary to the value God has made inherent in every individual of the human race.

Israel had been a slave nation for centuries, and they emerged from that slavery in Egypt with the worldview that slavery was inhumane bondage against the values and morals of God himself (Ex. 1.13-14). Their slavery was to be the horror against which God would work His great act of liberation (Dt. 4.32-40), because one of God’s self-defined roles is to set captives free (Isa. 61.1). It’s part of the biblical theme of salvation in which God is always at work to redeem people from bondage, and so owning another person is wrong. It’s unthinkable that God would endorse slavery. Consequently, Israel’s legislation and the covenant are founded in their personal and national freedom consistent with the reality of having formerly been slaves, but now recognizing that all people should be treated with dignity and recognition of their fundamental worth. Though in Israelite society there were people of differing social statuses, as a culture they recognized equal personhood in everyone. The dignity of all people was to be guarded, even in their servitude. Slaves (more properly "servants") in Israel were afforded rights commensurate with having the dignity afforded any human being, as well as rights within the larger familial structure.

Despite what the Bible sounds like it’s saying, there is no evidence of chattel slavery in ancient Israel. Words change in their meaning through the eras. Slavery in ancient Israel didn’t mean what slavery means to us. With this accusation we need to distinguish between what we as moderns mean by “slavery” and what the ancients meant by slavery. Dr. Paul Wright, the president of Jerusalem University College, says, “When we think of slavery, the first thing that comes to mind is either slavery in the pre-Civil War U.S. or slavery as we hear it in places of the modern Middle East (via ISIS or such groups).

“The textual evidence that we have for slavery in the ancient world (—by this I mean the ancient Near East, the context in which ancient Israel arose, not ancient Rome) shows by and large a different kind of ‘institution’ (that’s not the right word to use). For this reason, the Hebrew word, eved, is better translated ‘servant.’ The overall textual evidence from the ancient Near East shows that slaves had certain rights—they could own property, for instance, or determine inheritance. Or they could become free, as the Bible allows, given certain circumstances. They were typically not bought and sold, opposite as the case in the medieval and modern worlds. ‘Forced Labor,’ or the corvée, is a more complicated issue, essentially a tax on person by the government for a certain period of time (e.g., 1 Kings 9:15). Note that the servants that Israel is allowed to take from among the foreigners are able to receive inheritance from their ‘owner’ (Lev. 25:46).”

Dr. Craig Blomberg rightly assures us that “the most important matter is [in what the Bible] actually says, and there is not a single text anywhere in the Bible that commands slavery.”

Ancient Israelite society allowed debt and corvée slavery, but total domination of one human being by another (chattel slavery) was not permitted. Rather, slaves were seen as an essential part of an Israelite household. They were more like employees than what we think of when we think of slaves. In fact, there are cases in which, from a slave’s point of view, the stability of servitude under a household where the slave was well treated would have been preferable to economic freedom.

“Another indication that slaves were not simply viewed as property to be treated however the master wished can be seen in the fact that slaves sometimes shared rights of inheritance (Genesis 15.2-3), where Abraham’s servant will inherit his property if Abraham dies childless, and Genesis 30.1-13, where the sons of Leah’s slaves become equal heirs with the sons of Leah and Rachel in the family of Jacob.”

And lastly, there is absolutely no extrabiblical data on any slaves in Israel itself. The private and public documents of the ancient Near East from 3000 BC to the times of the New Testament are full of references to the practice of slavery in the parallel cultures, but nothing from Israel. Cole agrees and says that “slavery in Israel was rural, domestic, and small scale. There were no ‘slave pens’ of imperial Rome, or the racial subjugation of colonial America.” What seems likely is that slavery hardly existed in ancient Israel, and what did exist is better understood the way we understand employment.

So let me comment on your selected text of Exodus 21.21, where it seems to say that an owner is allow to beat his slave, and as long as he doesn’t kill him, there is no punishment.

The worldview, as has been mentioned, is that there is no chattel slavery, and their worldview was such that all people are to be treated as human beings—none is to be treated as property. The context is one of casuistic law: giving hypothetical examples to guide a judge in his verdicts. With that in mind, the whole understanding of the text changes.

The whole segment (Ex. 21.12-36) consistently teaches that killing a person results in capital punishment for the perpetrator. The segment also consistently teaches that lex talionis (an eye for an eye—make the punishment fit the crime) is a guiding principle in every situation.

Lex talionis in the ancient Near East was not necessarily physical harm for physical harm. Various ancient law codes allowed for other forms of retribution and restitution, especially when we think of the law casuistically (hypothetical situations to offer legal wisdom). In some cases the restitution could be monetary, sometimes it would be physical, or sometimes in terms of property. The point was not that the perpetrator be physically hurt like the victim, but that he feel the proper amount of “pain” (whether financial, familial, or in property) commensurate with the offense. In Judges 15.11 Samson burned the Philistines’ grain stacks because they had deprived him of his wife. In that sense Samson is saying, “I gave it right back to them, injury for injury.” The basis for such laws was to insure legal and practical restitution, and thereby avoid the culturally disruptive necessity of seeking private revenge.

Back in Exodus 21 we see the same principles at work. Motive and circumstances should be taken into consideration (v. 13). In verse 15 we learn that “attack” is not necessarily only physical attack, but also treating someone with contempt, cursing them, or treating them disrespectfully. In verse 18 we read that if someone loses their temper and strikes another person with a fist, or throws something at them to cause injury, the perpetrator was responsible to pay for the victim’s medical expenses and to compensate him for loss of time. The attacker could potentially be executed for his crime if the victim dies, but if it turns out that the victim lives, the punishment then is not execution but whatever restitution or retribution is appropriate. The judge can decide.

It is in this context that the writer now turns to slaves, and the same rules apply. If an owner beats his slave and the slave dies, the owner is to be executed. In verse 20 the term “he must be punished” (Heb. naqam) implies capital punishment. After all, the victim was not a piece of property but rather a human being.

We are to take “but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two” in the same way of verse 18: If the victim doesn’t die, then the owner is “not to be punished” (v. 21, same term naqam). In other words, the text is not saying that the perpetrator gets off scot free, but only rather that he will not be executed. Instead, as vv. 26-27 relate, lex talionis becomes the guiding principle: The punishment of the perpetrator is dealt out to fit the extent of his crime, and the slave gets to go free as restitution for the damage done.

Exodus 21.21 says that these laws are made “since the slave is his property.” The Hebrew word translated “property” is actually the word for “money.” In other words, given the worldview of the Israelites and the context of the law, we have to conclude that in the event of injury the laws of just recompense, just restitution, compensation, and lex talionis are brought to bear (vv. 26-27) just as they would be in situation where money, people, labor and property are involved.

Despite what many detractors accuse, the text does not allow or justify the beating of a slave by his master. The Bible doesn’t say it’s OK to beat him, it doesn’t say that there is no punishment as long as he doesn’t die, and it doesn’t claim that the slave is just a piece of property, anyway. Those are all misreadings and misinterpretations of the text.

So we don't have to scribble out any verses or ignore them. We just have to understand what's really going on.