googlef87758e9b6df9bec.html A Sure Word: Is the Bible Immoral? Part 3b: Does the Bible Condone Slavery?

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Is the Bible Immoral? Part 3b: Does the Bible Condone Slavery?

I hadn't intended to write another post on this series. In my last post on this subject, I explained that it would take too much time to address every passage in the Bible that discusses slavery – not that there are a lot of them, by the way. However, I can see now that there are a few other points that need addressing.

First, there is the irony that if there really is no God, then the critics have no moral grounds to say the Bible is “wrong” about slavery. If there is no transcendent, objective standard of morality, then there is no weight in the critic's claim that our modern attitude of slavery is more “correct” than the attitudes held by ancient slaveholders. Critics who use slavery to attack the Bible are relying on a general sense of outrage over the word “slavery” to give their argument any credibility. Therefore, they invariably want to equate the type of slavery in the Bible with the type of slavery we once had in the US.


If you do a Google image search for “slavery Bible,” you'll get hundreds of images showing mostly dark skinned people chained, whipped, and tortured. Completely absent from the criticisms are Scripture references supporting the things the critics portray. There is no passage in the Bible, for example, that talks about putting slaves in chains. Why, then, are there so many pictures of blacks in chains with Bible verses written beneath them? Whether it's done out of ignorance or intentional deceit, it doesn't matter. It's a straw man caricature of what the Bible teaches.

Just as I said in my last post, slaves in the ancient world were a socioeconomic class. They were chronically poor or indebted people who entered indentured servitude because they could either not take care of themselves or they could not repay their debts. This type of indentured service was practiced in many places in the world. The slavery discussed in the Bible not only didn't resemble the slavery once experienced in the South, it wasn't really even like the slavery practiced in contemporary nations.

Usually, entering into this kind of servitude was a lifelong commitment. If the master died, the slave would continue in the service of the master's family. This was also true of foreign slaves living in Israel. Jews, on the other hand, were required to forgive the debts of other Jews every 7 years; this included freeing Jewish servants. In Leviticus 25:46, the admonition to not treat their fellow Israelites “ruthlessly” cannot be interpreted as a license to beat foreign born slaves. It precisely meant the Jews could not exclude indentured service from the debts forgiven. By the way, even freed Jewish slaves could voluntarily remain in their master's employ permanently. This is really the only difference between servants taken from among Jews and servants taken from other nations.

Some key differences between the kind of service detailed in the Bible and the cruel slavery seen in other parts of the world are as follows:
  • People could not be kidnapped and sold into slavery against their will. Exodus 21:16.
  • Slaves who ran away could not be forced to return to their masters. Deuteronomy 23:15-16.
  • Slaves were required to be given a Sabbath day of no work, just like free men. Exodus 20:10.
  • If a master kills a slave, he is guilty of murder. Exodus 21:20.
  • If a master permanently injures a slave, such as knocking out a tooth, he must free the slave. Exodus 21:26-27.
Nowhere in the Bible are masters commanded or even allowed to chain, torture, and kill their servants. Nowhere! Yet that is exactly the false impression critics want to portray when they show dark skinned people in chains. When asked to cite specific verses where such practices are allowed, critics really can only resort to one verse, Exodus 21:20-21:

If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property.”

The verse is cited to make it sound like it's OK to beat a slave as long as he doesn't die immediately; if he dies later, it's fine. This is another example of taking a passage out of context. The passage isn't talking about murder but about what happens if you injure a man but he doesn't die. In verses 18-19, the two verses immediately prior to the above verses, the Bible proscribes exactly the same punishment for fights between free men. The only difference is that if you strike a free man and he doesn't die immediately, but only remains in bed for a while, he must be compensated for the time he was injured. A slave that is struck but doesn't die immediately doesn't have to be compensated for the time he was injured because his work belongs to his master anyway!

The idea of permanent servitude still will sound strange to a lot of modern readers. I've tried comparing it to being a squire or vassal – words that are less emotionally charged – but even these types of service don't exist anymore. It's just hard for some people to think of a being a “slave” as anything less than repulsive. They can't imagine being a slave as being a kind of job. They can't imagine a person wanting to be a slave. It might help if you think of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). A man's son asked for his father for his inheritance now. He took the money and went into a foreign land where he squandered it all. When the money was gone, he began to starve and considered returning to his father as a slave. Read the boy's thoughts (Luke 15:14-20):


After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father


Further Reading:
Is the Bible Immoral:

2 comments:

Steven J. said...

... if there really is no God, then the critics have no moral grounds to say the Bible is “wrong” about slavery.

There are, of course, people who disagree on that point, holding that the "expanding circle of concern" (treating strangers and non-kin the same way we treat members of our own clan and tribe) is a logical and self-evident basis for morality, without concern for any superhuman sanction for that morality. But assume these thinkers are wrong: the point is that what you now believe about slavery differs from what the Bible says, and on this point, you hold that your views are superior to the actual teachings of the Bible (so that you tend to "spin" the Biblical teachings to make them more compliant with your own ethics).

If you do a Google image search for “slavery Bible,” you'll get hundreds of images showing mostly dark skinned people chained, whipped, and tortured.

If you do an image search on that string, you get back pictures from articles on slavery (and for the most part in the early modern world and the United States in particular) that mention the Bible; for the most part, they're not really articles on what the Bible says about slavery, or about slavery in biblical times.

Just as I said in my last post, slaves in the ancient world were a socioeconomic class.

In the Roman Empire (the background for the New Testament's teaching on slavery), they were generally prisoners of war (including civilian women and children) or descendants of such prisoners. And again, this was the origin of slaves in much of the world, along with enslavement for debts or for various crimes. Again, one must suppose that the non-Israelite slaves that the Israelites were permitted to buy as permanent, inheritable chattels were probably not voluntarily undertaking this role to pay off debts, and in many cases would have been enslaved by military action.

In Leviticus 25:46, the admonition to not treat their fellow Israelites “ruthlessly” cannot be interpreted as a license to beat foreign born slaves. It precisely meant the Jews could not exclude indentured service from the debts forgiven.

I take your point. However, the license to beat (non-fatally) foreign-born slaves (and possibly domestic indentured servants) is Leviticus 21:21.

Slaves were required to be given a Sabbath day of no work, just like free men.

So were oxen.

RKBentley said...

Steven J,

You said, “There are, of course, people who disagree on that point, holding that the "expanding circle of concern" (treating strangers and non-kin the same way we treat members of our own clan and tribe) is a logical and self-evident basis for morality, without concern for any superhuman sanction for that morality.”

In that philosophy, “good” means whatever produces a beneficial outcome and “bad” means whatever produces a less than beneficial outcome. It has nothing to do with morality. If heard of an analogy of a chess game: a move might be a “bad” move in that it will cause the player to lose but a bad move isn't “evil.”

You said, “But assume these thinkers are wrong: the point is that what you now believe about slavery differs from what the Bible says, and on this point, you hold that your views are superior to the actual teachings of the Bible (so that you tend to "spin" the Biblical teachings to make them more compliant with your own ethics).”

There are some parts of the Bible that tell us how to worship God. The business arrangement of indentured servitude is a civil code that has nothing to do with worship. The Bible regulates slavery without endorsing it. Look at similar types of Laws: What happens if a cow I owned gores a man? What happens if I dig a pit and a neighbor's cow falls in it? What happens if I wake up one morning and a cow I own has died – can I eat it? There are all these Laws that regulate owning cows and my opinion of the business decision to own cows has nothing to do with my opinion of the Bible.

You said, “If you do an image search on that string, you get back pictures from articles on slavery”

I should have been more clear. If you search for “slavery Bible” in Google Images, you'll get the hundreds of pictures like I mentioned. The picture I included in my post is simply a screen shot I saved from my own laptop after having searched that phrase.

You said, “In the Roman Empire (the background for the New Testament's teaching on slavery), they were generally prisoners of war (including civilian women and children) or descendants of such prisoners. And again, this was the origin of slaves in much of the world, along with enslavement for debts or for various crimes. Again, one must suppose that the non-Israelite slaves that the Israelites were permitted to buy as permanent, inheritable chattels were probably not voluntarily undertaking this role to pay off debts, and in many cases would have been enslaved by military action.”

I've already pointed out that the Bible specifically forbids kidnapping a man and forcing him into slavery so I'm not going to assume the foreign-purchased slaves were most likely involuntary. But if I assumed they were, I point out to you again that the Law also forbids forcing a runaway slave to return to his master. A servant in Israel was treated more like a member of one's family; ill treated slaves were more likely to run away and would be guaranteed safe harbor in any town in Israel.

You said, “I take your point. However, the license to beat (non-fatally) foreign-born slaves (and possibly domestic indentured servants) is Leviticus 21:21.”

I read Leviticus 21. I can't find anything discussing slaves at all. That chapter is all rules for Priests.

God bless!!

RKBentley