Board index ‹ Slavery in the Bible

[Worm Hat]

Christians, how do you justify the Bible's references to slavery?

[jimwalton]

Slavery in the ancient world was not slavery at all, but most often debt-servitude. Unfortunately, we applied the word they used for debt-servitude to the slave pens of Greece and Rome, and then of the horrible person-owning abuses of the western colonial world. Our taking our understanding of slavery from American history and from Greco-Roman ownership and maltreatment, and thinking that's what the Old Testament is talking about is anachronistic and misguided. "Slavery" in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers didn't mean what we consider "slavery" to mean. Most "slavery" in the ancient world was debt-servitude (working for someone to be able to pay one's bills, not far from our concept of employment) or corvee labor (working for the gov't, not far from Roosevelt's CCC of the 1930s).

Words change in meaning, but the culture understands them. We see a sign that says "No Standing" and understand that it's not talking about "standing" at all, but about that you can't park your car there. It has nothing to do with standing. If an archaeologist dug up such a sign 1000 yrs from now, they would wonder why we put up signs to prevent people from standing near the sign. They would misunderstand, but we know what it means. "Slavery" in the ancient world was not the ownership of another human being, but having proprietary rights to their labor for a duration of time. So we can't just read "slavery" in the OT texts and think, "Oh, those evil people owned other human beings, and the evil God didn't stop them!" Dr. Paul Wright, president of Jerusalem University College, says, "There is no evidence of chattel slavery in the ancient Near East." They used to word to describe debt-servitude, corvee labor, and punishment for crime (chain gangs).

[Grimace]

This is the response you get.

It somehow avoids the fact slavery in the bible was still awful and would never be allowed today.

You can beat your slave, but if they don't die in two days, there is no punishment for you. Is one example. Also you can rape the women. You can keep the slave forever, if they don't want to leave their family after the 7 years. Treating people like property is not a good thing, even if it's in the bible.

[jimwalton]

> It somehow avoids the fact slavery in the bible was still awful and would never be allowed today.

Then you didn't read what I wrote. "Slavery" in the ancient world is a misnomer, but they didn't have a word for "employment." What they use is 'eved, which is their word for servitude. We translated it "slavery," and that's unfortunate, because what comes to our minds is slave pens and person-ownership. That's not what came to their minds, nor was it was it was back then—person-ownership was not their practice.

> You can beat your slave, but if they don't die in two days, there is no punishment for you.

You've missed the entire point if you're just reading the words. I assume you're talking about Ex. 21.20-21. This is not what the text says, or what it is about. First of all, you should know that this is case law, not God's command to beat slaves (nor even God's approval of such beating). God never commanded people to beat slaves, or approved of it. Secondly, you'll notice that the rules for slaves were the same as rules for free persons. The OT affirms the full personhood of debt-servants. Thirdly, if it's the Exodus text you're talking about, the situation (case law) is not "you can beat your slave as long as he doesn't die in 2 days."

Look at the full text: an owner who beats his slave to death is to be punished to the full extent of the law, up to and including the possibility of execution (Ex. 21.20).

If the owner beats his slave, (again, not a situation of which God approves), there is no punishment unless he injures him. If he injures him, Ex. 21.26-27 tells us that the owner is to be punished with commensurate punishment, and the slave is to go free, as a reward to the slave, a deprivation for the master, and to ensure that never happens again. God doesn't approve of beatings.

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.

> Also you can rape the women.

This is absurd. The Bible says no such thing.

[Grimace]

I have seen too many people defend slavery as in the bible to assume all religious people are against slavery. You are flat out defending slavery.

[jimwalton]

Oh, not a bit. I absolutely am not. You need to read what I say. The OT uses the word, but not our concept of slavery. Slavery in the ancient world was mostly debt-slavery (employment), corvee labor (gov't work), or a prison sentence (chain gang). It was not what we mean by slavery. Our concept would be foreign to them.

Here's the RESEARCH.

Dr. Paul Wright: "There is no evidence of chattel slavery in the ancient Near East."

Mendelsohn: "[These texts do] not imply that the slave is a piece of property at the mercy of his master."

Dr. Craig Blomberg: "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."

Lastly, there is absolutely no extrabiblical data on any slaves in Israel. The private and public documents of the ancient Near East from 3000 BC to the times of the NT are full of references to the varieties of the practices of "slavery" in parallel cultures, but nothing from Israel. What seems likely is that slavery hardly existed, if it existed at all, in ancient Israel. There is simply no evidence of chattel slavery in Israel.

I am not defending slavery. I am claiming that you are guilty of anachronism, and assuming what YOU think slavery is is what THEY considered slavery to be. It's not so.

[Kelvin]

Ehhhh slavery in the bible could be considered indentured servitude if we're talking about single Hebrew men. And even then, they could be given a wife and children and tricked into staying longer than their original agreement.

Other than that, enslave the heathens around you. Women are property, children born into it are slaves, and you are allowed to beat them nearly to death.

[jimwalton]

You're just slapping out unresearched cheap shots. If you want to have an honest discussion, we need to read the text more than superficially. There is more to the ancient world than there seems on the surface.

> And even then, they could be given a wife and children and tricked into staying longer than their original agreement.

You're talking about Exodus 21.4. You need to understand that debt-servitude in the ancient world was an economic contract, not a person-ownership situation. People were working off a debt, much like we do in our jobs. In 21.2 you read that the system was never meant to be oppressive. The most someone had to work to get from under their debt was 7 years. Therefore no one made a bigger loan to anyone than could be paid by 7 years of labor. Such servitude was not a desirable aspect of society.

In 21.3 we are faced with a situation: what if he was married when he came? Well, the example shows, if she came with him, she goes with him. Fair enough.

21.4. Ah, but what if she didn't come with him? What if she has her own debt to work off, and when he paid his, she still has debt remaining? The man (who is now free) has three options: (1) Wait for her and the kids to finish their term of service while he worked elsewhere. If 7 years was the max, and they met and married part-way through the 7 years, the wait hopefully wouldn't be too long; (2) he could work elsewhere and pay off her debt for her, releasing them from their contractual obligations; (3) He could commit himself to working permanently for this employer, if it was a good job at good pay and a beneficial relationship.

For understanding, we must look deeper into the law and the understandings of the culture than the bare bones of the text. Deut. 15 gives is bit of an expansion on the law written here in Exodus. It seeks to prevent the establishment of a permanent poor underclass and the perpetuity of a debt-slave situation. The idea in the laws is to totally eradicate debt-servanthood in the land (Dt. 15.4). Debt-law was to be battled rather than institutionalized. The principles are all about helping each other NOT be poor, not creating economic systems and policies to institutionalize poverty and debt-slavery.

Dr. John Walton says, "When a free man gave a wife to another man who owed him something, certain conditions applied to that marriage. The man in the inferior position was often a pledge (one who worked as a servant, not a slave, and whose services functioned as security or collateral for a debt that was owed) or a debt-slave, as here in Exodus. Typically, the pledge or debt-slave could take his wife—and any children she had borne him—only by satisfying certain requirements. The record of a contract from the city of Emar (probably 13th c. BC) presents an example of such a situation. The pledge in this case may take his wife and children with him when he leaves the service of his creditor, but only if he abides by the basic agreement set forth in the contract. When this document addresses the possibility that the pledge might renege on his commitment to abide by the contract, then the pledge 'will have no claim to his wife and children.' This law in Exodus may be establishing what was standard procedure in these types of situations; modifications were probably allowed if clearly established in a contractual agreement."

Exodus 21.4, then, is the same type of casuistic law, and is establishing that reference point, recognizing standard procedure in these types of situations, viz., contractual agreements are established to govern such situations, and the judge is to begin his ruling over the case by consulting the contract, and then is free to modify his verdict according to other pertinent factors. This is the way law worked then, and, frankly, it's how it still works now.

> Other than that, enslave the heathens around you.

There was no command to enslave the heathens. What the text of Lev. 25 says is that the "heathens" were not beneficiaries of the same Jubilee principles available to the Israelites. Jacob Milgrom comments, "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."

Dr. Paul Copan writes, "Does this text regard foreign workers as nothing more than property? No: Lev. 19.33-34; Ex. 22.21.

1. These foreigners are still nowhere near the chattel slaves of the antebellum South (US).

2. A significant presence of apparently resentful foreigners required stricter measures than those for cooperative aliens who were willing to follow Israel’s laws.

3. Only Israelites were allowed to own land in Israel (which ultimately belonged to YHWH: Lev. 25.23; Josh. 22.19). The only way for a foreigner to survive was to be incorporated into an Israelite home to serve there.

4. Runaway slaves were given protection within Israel’s borders (Dt. 23.15-16). Kidnapping slaves was also prohibited (Ex. 21.16; Dt. 24.7). Serving within Israelite households was a safe haven for any foreigner; it was not to be an oppressive setting, but offered economic and social stability.

5. All slaves were to be released the 7th year, presumably to go back to his country of origin. They could choose to stay, however."

> Women are property, children born into it are slaves

Sigh. No they're not. I already explained about Exodus 21.4.

> you are allowed to beat them nearly to death.

Sigh. No they're not. I assume you're talking about Ex. 21.20-21. This is not what the text says, or what it is about. First of all, you should know that this is case law, not God's command to beat slaves (nor even God's approval of such beating). God never commanded people to beat slaves, or approved of it. Secondly, you'll notice that the rules for slaves were the same as rules for free persons. The OT affirms the full personhood of debt-servants. Thirdly, if it's the Exodus text you're talking about, the situation (case law) is not "you can beat your slave nearly to death."

Look at the full text: an owner who beats his slave to death is to be punished to the full extent of the law, up to and including the possibility of execution (Ex. 21.20).

If the owner beats his slave, (again, not a situation of which God approves), there is no punishment unless he injures him. If he injures him, Ex. 21.26-27 tells us that the owner is to be punished with commensurate punishment, and the slave is to go free, as a reward to the slave, a deprivation for the master, and to ensure that never happens again. God doesn't approve of beatings.

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 but 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.

[Grimace]

Ok, so you think the version of "slavery" in the bible is a good system or not?

[jimwalton]

This sounds like a snide question (though hopefully I''m wrong), and it sounds like you haven't read what I said. Basically what I said is there really isn't slavery in the Bible like we think about. "Slavery" is a translation of the Hebrew word *'eved*, which is better translated servitude. Owning people (chattel slavery) was not practiced in ancient Israel. Most of what the Bible terms as "slavery" was people indenturing themselves to pay off debts (much like our employment). Sometimes people were "enslaved" by the government, but that was corvee labor—conscription by the government for a task at hand, very similar to our military, the National Guard, or even the CCC in the 1930s (none of which are slavery at all). There was "slavery" as a prison sentence (like our chain gangs, but "slavery" isn't the right word for it). So there's nothing in the Bible that's like what YOU think of when you think of the word "slavery," because you are obviously thinking chattel slavery, ancient Greece and Rome, and the western colonial era abuses.

So the system of "slavery" in the Bible isn't slavery at all. It's gainful employment, punishment for crime, and government conscription. Is that a good system? Sure, it's OK. Everything has its pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, but it's an OK system. If you're talking about more than that, I'm not agreeing to more than I just said. We would have to talk about specifics beyond what I just said.