Does the Bible endorse slavery?
This is an important question
to answer. Often in conversations with non-Christians this question comes up.
One frequent way this topic comes up is when a Christian states they believe the
Bible to be true, authoritative, and without error. In response a non-Christian
will object to this claim by saying something like ‘well the Old Testament also
approves of/endorses slavery, so your argument is stupid’. Usually the last
part of that is just implied, not said out loud, but its communicated
nevertheless.
So how can Christians respond? What do we do about texts
like Exodus 21 that do seem to condone slavery? Does the Bible actually support
slavery?
Exodus 21:1 "Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. 2
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he
shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go
out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4
If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife
and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5
But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I
will not go out free,' 6 then his master shall bring him to God, and
he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his
ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. 7
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the
male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has
designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no
right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9
If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10
If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her
clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these
three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money. 12
"Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. 13
But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then
I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. 14 But if a man
willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my
altar, that he may die. 15 "Whoever strikes his father or his
mother shall be put to death. 16 "Whoever steals a man and
sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death. 17
"Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. 18
"When men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist
and the man does not die but takes to his bed, 19 then if the man
rises again and walks outdoors with his staff, he who struck him shall be
clear; only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall have him
thoroughly healed. 20 "When a man strikes his slave, male or
female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21
But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave
is his money. 22 "When men strive together and hit a pregnant
woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her
shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall
pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall
pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
26 "When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female,
and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. 27
If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave
go free because of his tooth. 28 "When an ox gores a man or a
woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but
the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 But if the ox has been
accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept
it in, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner
also shall be put to death. 30 If a ransom is imposed on him, then
he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him. 31
If it gores a man's son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this
same rule. 32 If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner
shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be
stoned. 33 "When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit
and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the
owner of the pit shall make restoration. He shall give money to its owner, and
the dead beast shall be his. 35 "When one man's ox butts
another's, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its
price, and the dead beast also they shall share. 36 Or if it is
known that the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has
not kept it in, he shall repay ox for ox, and the dead beast shall be his.
There are many good points that can be made in response but
I am going to state just two of them.
First, you need to understand the story of the Bible rightly
to understand any one passage in the Bible rightly. The Bible tells the story
of the world and people being broken by mankind’s rebellion against God. By the
time we get midway through Exodus (the second book of the Bible) its pretty
clear that the world, and the people who live in it, are pretty messed up. God
comes to these broken people in the middle of their brokenness and gives
commands about how to live. These commands are given in two ways. First, God
gives commands to people to do what pleases him. Second, God gives commands about
practices that do not please Him to restrict the evil of people. These
guidelines, when followed, do not make God pleased about these practices occurring.
God’s guidelines for slavery, like his
guidelines for divorce, fall in this second category. God isn’t pleased that
slavery, divorce, or a number of other things are happening in the lives of
people. Nevertheless, God lays down rules governing how those things should be
done to restrict even more evil coming to pass as people do these things.
Second, when we think of “slavery” we are thinking of
something completely different than the “slavery” written of in the Bible. For
clarity’s sake we will call the slavery we think of ‘colonial slavery’. This is
the slavery practiced in Europe and America that involved the slave trade and
was barbaric. Colonial slavery was horrific, and the fact some “Chrisitans”
defended colonial slavery is a shame to the church. However, colonial slavery
is completely different than what we will call ‘biblical slavery’
Biblical slavery, which was also displeasing to God, was
fundamentally different from colonial slavery. To make this point all you have
to do is read Exodus 21. Exodus 21 shows the following guidelines were in place
for biblical slavery
- Slavery was temporary (v. 2).
- Slavery did not destroy the rights of a slave as
a person (v. 3).
- Slavery respected the family system of a slave
(v. 5-6).
- Slavery was voluntary (v. 5-6).
- Slavery was temporary (v. 2, 8).
- Slavery was to be treating the slave well (v.
9-11).
- Slavery was to be done with slaves having rights
of personhood and the expectation to be compensated for their work, or their
position as a slave was to be ended and void (v. 9-11). In other words the
slave got paid for their work, or their job was over and they were free to
leave.
- Stealing a person and selling them into slavery
was forbidden. The slave trader and the slave master were both to be put to
death for participating in this practice (v. 16).
- Masters who kill their slaves are subject to the
avenging of the slave (v. 20). This means the family of the slave could kill
the slave master to avenge his death.
- Slave owners physical abuse of the slave is
prohibited. Physical abuse/beatings results in release from slavery (v. 26-27).
The master is not to be killed for the abuse, unless the master kills the slave,
then he is subject to the avenging of the slave (v. 21).
This type of slavery described in the Bible frankly looks
nothing like colonial slavery. In fact, much of what we find so deeply disturbing
about colonial slavery is explicitly forbidden in these ten guidelines.
But doesn’t Exodus 21 affirm that slaves are the property of
their masters? The most disturbing part of this chapter is verse 21, which
seems to endorse that slaves are the property of the owner (v. 21). This is
perhaps the most troubling verse of Exodus 21 to my argument. However, I think
the idea of the slave being “property” is fundamentally different from how we
thought of a colonial slave being the “property” of the slavemaster. Biblical
slavery is laying out a system of indentured servitude. America has no current
practice of indentured servants with one exception. Joining the military is the
one career that can be likened to indentured servanthood, and thus biblical
slavery. Soldiers are, upon voluntarily enlisting, the property of the
government while also retaining the rights of a citizen and person. Verse 21,
when viewed through this lens, isn’t that troubling. A slave is the property of
the master in the same way the soldier is the property of his country. This
idea isn’t troubling until we being to assign the norms of colonial slavery to
the system of biblical slavery. The verse is saying slaves are property of the
master’s like a soldier is the property of his government, not as a colonial
slave was the property of his or her master.
I think a good argument can be made God still was not
pleased by this system of biblical slavery, but set up these rules around the
system to restrict and restrain the evil it created. The rules God placed
around biblical slavery were designed to ensure the personhood of the slave was
retained, minimize physical abuse, ensure no one could be forced into slavery;
precisely the parts of colonial slavery that were so horrific.
So does the Bible endorse slavery? No. At least not the kind
of slavery the person making the accusation has in their mind.
