Board index ‹ Slavery in the Bible

[God is Hell]

what are your thoughts on slavery in the bible?

[jimwalton]

There are so many things to say here in response to you. I'll try to keep it brief, but then we can keep talking.

First of all, the same word is used in the Hebrew Bible for servant as for slave. From the term, we can't tell if any particular text is chattel slavery or debt slavery, but it's even worse than that: we can't even tell if it's servanthood or slavery.

Second, most slavery in ancient Israel was debt slavery. It wasn't a whole lot different from our concept of employment: working for someone else so you could pay off your debts. It wasn't as common in their world as employment is in ours, but it was still all around. Sometimes farms failed or buildings burned down or a particular business deal would go belly up, and people needed to work for someone else to earn money to pay their debts. We call it employment; they called it slavery.

Third, most Israelites were poor farmers. They would need help to work the land, which usually came from large families and cooperative efforts (you help me with my land and I'll help you with yours). It's just a fact that most Israelites couldn't afford to own slaves.

Fourth, chattel slavery in the ancient world was NOTHING like the slave pens of Greco-Rome or the atrocities of antebellum slavery in America. Rome and the American South are what come to mind when we think of chattel slavery. The ancient world (especially Israel) was NOTHING like this. Even their "chattel slavery," and I'm not sure it's even accurate to call it that, was more like employment and "family" than ownership of a human being.

Fifth, slaves were granted full dignity as human beings. Exodus 21 is very clear about that. They were not granted full social status, but they were granted full dignity (human status).

Sixth, it seems to be true that Israelite slaves were treated very different than from the nations around them. This is no surprise; the Israelites had been slaves themselves, and God says one of His purposes is to redeem slaves and bring them to freedom. God doesn't approve of slavery. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that Israel were a slave-holding people group. On the other hand, or in addition, we know that there are periods in Israel's history where they were obscenely godless, and slavery may have thrived when they went apostate. This was not God's plan or God-approved.

Seventh, therefore slavery in Israel was most often barely existent. Archaeologists from various eras find evidences of slavery in the surrounding cultures, but there is no extra-biblical artifactual or documentary evidence of any slaves in Israel. That's significant. The ONLY record we have of slaves in Israel are isolated biblical texts, and it's treated quite minimally, for one, and it seems to be quite friendly, for two. By "quite friendly" I mean it comes across as a beneficial symbiotic economic relationship rather than an abusive chattel one.

That's my first reply. Ask more, and we'll talk more.

[Good Without God]

What you wrote was too long. I didn't bother to read it.

But I’ll address one thing. How to tell what kind of slavery we’re talking about. If you purchase another human being, that’s slavery, and it’s wrong. The god of the Bible gives explicit instructions on where to buy slaves, how you can beat them, and how you can circumvent the rules to keep a Hebrew male slave as your property for life. It’s slavery, it’s wrong, and the Bible advocates for it.

[jimwalton]

> What you wrote was too long. I didn't bother to read it.

Sooooo, you're asking questions I already answered. Sigh. It makes me wonder if you really want to know.

> If you purchase another human being, that’s slavery, and it’s wrong.

As I wrote, most slavery in Israel was debt slavery. No one was being purchased. There's only 1 verse in the entire OT that I can think of that could be interpreted that way. We don't build a case on 1 verse.

> The god of the Bible gives explicit instructions on where to buy slaves,

No He doesn't. He says "if" you buy slaves here, or "if" you buy slaves there, then... But He doesn't give explicit instructions on where to buy slaves.

> how you can beat them

No He doesn't. That's in the casuistic law section of Ex. 21, where it says "if" you beat your slave to the point of injury, the slave is to go free (vv. 26-27), and if you kill 'em, you get executed. Slaves had rights; they were human beings, not property. They were likely debt slaves, in any case. Almost all slaves in Israel were paying off a debt, much like our employment.

> and how you can circumvent the rules to keep a Hebrew male slave as your property for life.

No it doesn't. I don't know what website you're getting your information from, but it obviously is misleading you.

> and the Bible advocates for it.

No it doesn't. The Bible never advocates for slavery. In a very few cases (2, I think), it says "if" you have slaves, here are some rules, but it NEVER advocates for slavery. It never approves of slavery, commands it, or advocates for it.

[Good Without God]

God give instructions on where to buy slaves in Leviticus 25:44. "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids."

How to keep a hebrew male slave forever: Give him a wife so that he'd rather stay a slave with them than go free. Horribly manipulative and immoral.

Exodus 21:2-6

If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

Exodus 21:20-21 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.”

So god is saying you can beat your slave up to the point of death, but don't kill them, and it's totally OK because THEY ARE YOUR PROPERTY.

Don't try to be so dishonest as to conflate slavery with a job. If you are paid for your services it's a job. If you are not allowed to leave your job and can be beaten at your master's will, you're a slave and it's immoral.

Finally, this is your god we're talking about. If this guy can tell you not to eat shellfish and how to plant your crops, he can sure as hell say, "This slavery thing isn't OK." I'm saying that slavery, however you slice it, is immoral right now. It's easy to realize that. How could your god NOT say the same thing without endorsing it? If god wasn't cool with slavery you think he'd have said something, but he didn't, so he's giving approval to the practice.

Conclusion, any god who doesn't tell his people not to own slaves is not worthy of praise even if he did exist.

This is the kind of thing I mention when I tell people that religion is harmful to individuals. It makes otherwise normal, moral people do things like defend slavery rather than realize, "Hey, maybe this bible thing is full of shit."

[jimwalton]

> Lev. 25.44-45

Catharine Hetzer, a foremost scholar on ancient Israelite slavery, wrote, "Ancient Israelite society allowed slavery; however, 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. 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."

It was more like employment than anything else. God did not advocate slavery. As mouthpieces for God, the prophets spoke loudly about the brutalities and abuses of slavery. They looked forward to the dissolution of slavery and advocated it.

The implication from Lev. 25.42-45 is that the foreigners are not God's servants, and therefore can be slaves. God hadn't redeemed them from Egypt, so they were still indentured. But since Israelites didn't own other people as chattel, these foreigners provided more of a long-term, stable workforce—employees for life, as my father was in his company. They didn’t have to be released at Jubilee.

The Israelite worldview would have been more akin to our modern sports world where one team can buy the contract of an individual, and now that player "belongs" to that ball club. They owned his labor.

Israel was a country of a beneficial labor pool. They could take foreigners into their homes as workers (buy them), and over the course of several generations provide for their eventual citizenship. A foreigner was not allowed to own land in Israel. "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" (Copan).

> Ex. 21.2-6

This is not "how to keep a Hebrew slave forever." That's quite humorous, actually, to look at it that way. It's a gross distortion of the text.

First of all, Exodus 21 is casuistic law, not apodictic. It's hypothetical situations to guide judges to be able to make wise decisions, not commands (prescriptive legislation) of "this is how you must do it."

Secondly, this text doesn't endorse the rights of masters to abuse their slaves, but the rights of the slaves and protection for them. We have in the Bible the first appeals in all of world literature to treat slaves as human beings for their own sake and not just in the interests of their masters.

Third, the text is speaking about debt slavery, not chattel slavery. Slavery was not a desirably aspect of social behavior in ancient Israel. The text is not a way to manipulate a Hebrew slave to stay with you forever. Instead, it provides a reasonable and fair economic solution in the various cases of indenture and paying off of those debts.

> Exodus 21:20-21

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 god is saying you can beat your slave up to the point of death, but don't kill them, and it's totally OK because THEY ARE YOUR PROPERTY.

You can now see that this is totally false.

> This is the kind of thing I mention when I tell people that religion is harmful to individuals. It makes otherwise normal, moral people do things like defend slavery rather than realize, "Hey, maybe this bible thing is full of shit."

Then you should stop slandering the Bible on false premises. The Bible says that people who lead others astray will be subject to worse judgment.

[Titan]

Says the person who's trying to say we're taking “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.” out of context. You are ignoring what your book says WORD FOR WORD and trying to say that it is morally acceptable because we're "Taking it out of context".

[jimwalton]

I'm so glad you mentioned context.

First of all, the context is casuistic law. Exodus 21-23 (the context) are the Book of the Covenant. It's hypothetical case law, not prescriptive law as we have in our day. Ancient society was regulated by customs and norms, regulated by the wisdom of the judge. It was more flexible. Judges were those who were considered wise in the traditions and values of the culture rather than those who were specially educated. The law was not codified legislation, but rather what wise people deemed to be right, good, and fair. The ancient Near East is a non-legislative society; legal structure is not based on written documents. So Exodus 21 is not making rules and laws.

Second, the chapter itself from vv. 21-36 (the context) is about proper punishments for personal injuries. The whole section gives case laws governing principles for retribution and restitution. In the context of Israelite law codes, case law assumes the equality of all citizens and thus punishment for crime is not either hindered or magnified based on class or wealth.

The chapter is about lex talionis: make the punishment fit the crime. Various ancient law codes allowed for various 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 physical, or sometimes in terms of property. The point was not that the perpetrator be physically hurt like the victim, but that he feels 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.

We can see then how the chapter (the context) gives us a variety of examples. You can see those playing out if you read the whole chapter. Verses 18-20 is like the slave portion. "Confined to bed" means he can't work. The injury is such that it is relatively mild and he can recover in short order. It's not giving a person the right to beat another one (v. 18) any more a master has a "right" to beat a slave (vv. 20-21). It depends was forethought, what intent, what malice, whether it was instigated by taunting or whatever—the judge was expected to weigh the evidence and make a wise and moral decision.

There was liability for personal injury, and that is the context of the slave part (the context of vv. 18-36). You can see that if someone injures another, or even if an animal injures someone, the responsible party must pay restitution to the injured party, even if he's a slave. That's a context.

Regarding v. 19, Rabbi Rashi says that the attacked is to be detained in prison until it is known whether the victim will recover or not, but as soon as the latter walks about, he is freed. It would be the same then, for the slave in the next verse. But if the master does permanent injury, the slave gets to go free (vv. 26-27).

So you can readily see that the context follows the line of interpretation I have taken, which is why I have taken it.

[Dude]

> First of all, it's perfectly true. Check the Hebrew yourself.

I have, that's how I know it's false.

> Second, the term translated "property" is actually the word for "money."

> The Israelite worldview would have been more akin to our modern sports world where one team can buy the contract of an individual, and now that player "belongs" to that ball club. They owned his labor. The language we use is that player was just "bought" by another ball club. He was "sold" to the other team. They used similar language.

Also false!

And incredibly disgusting to talk about the ownership of human beings like that. They believed no such thing.

For example in Leviticus 25:46-47 when it talks about how you your slaves are yours for life and your children may inherit them as property, the word does not mean money, it rather means possession, and is used elsewhere in the bible to refer taking ownership, as in land. (אֲחֻזָּ֔ה) [url](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/achuzzah_272.htm)[/url]

It's an explicitly different word than is used in exodus 21:20-21 when it talks about being his "money." (כַסְפּ֖וֹ) [url](https://biblehub.com/hebrew/chaspo_3701.htm)[/url]

So, while it's true that in part of the bible talking specifically about Israelite slaves, you are correct the word is closer to "money," in Leviticus, a different word is used that explicitly in that verse and elsewhere means "property."

And I've copied and pasted BOTH Hebrew words because, you know, I had to check the Hebrew myself.

Now, stop making false statements about the Hebrew used to describe and endorse chattel slavery in the Bible.

[jimwalton]

>> First of all, it's perfectly true. Check the Hebrew yourself.

> I have, that's how I know it's false.

Then you know the Hebrew term is עַבְדּ. Abraham uses it in Gn. 18.3 when he's serving guests (he's not their slave). Lot uses the same term in Gn. 19.2 when inviting guests to his house. So what are you talking about? Show me that it's false, as I've just shown you it's true.

>> Second, the term translated "property" is actually the word for "money."

> Also false!

The Hebrew term is כַסְפּוֹ. It means "money; silver." In Exodus 20.23 it refers to the silver from which the idols are made. In Ex. 21.31, it is used for "thirty shekels of *silver*." So what are you talking about? Show me that it's false, as I've just shown you it's true.

> They believed no such thing.

Show me. Give evidence for what the ancient Israelites believed, as I have given you.

> Lev. 25.46-47

Sure. Servants for life. I already explained it. Richard Averbeck writes, "Households often involved more than just the natal or extended family; they included those who worked in, with, and for the family. When treating servants within a household context, therefore, it is especially important to think of their status as situational and interaction, depending on their abilities and assignments within the household system."

In an email from Dr. Paul Wright, he said to me, "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. 'Force 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 Kgs 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."

> and is used elsewhere in the bible to refer taking ownership, as in land. (אֲחֻזָּ֔ה)

I'm glad you brought this up. Even though the Israelites technically "owned" their land, they didn't "own" it at all. All of the land occupied by the Israelites was the property of Yahweh. It was granted to them as tenants and as such they could not sell it outright to anyone. In the Jubilee Year (every fiftieth year), all land that had been consigned for payment of debts was to be returned to its owners. If a man died, it was the responsibility of his nearest kin to redeem the land so that it would remain in the family (Lev. 25:24-25; Jer. 32:6-15). So Israelites didn't technically "own" the land; nor did they technically "own" other human beings. They were to be responsible stewards of God's blessings.

> Now, stop making false statements about the Hebrew used to describe and endorse chattel slavery in the Bible.

The Bible does not endorse chattel slavery. In their cultural context, since there was no chattel slavery in ancient Israel, that slaves were integral parts of the family, and that it was not to be an oppressive setting, but one of economic and social stability, becoming the "possession" of the household has to mean that slaves became part of their family and an important financial asset.