Does the Bible Endorse Slavery?

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

1. Slavery was temporary (v. 2).
2. Slavery did not destroy the rights of a slave as a person (v. 3).
3. Slavery respected the family system of a slave (v. 5-6).
4. Slavery was voluntary (v. 5-6).
5. Slavery was temporary (v. 2, 8).
6. Slavery was to be treating the slave well (v. 9-11).
7. 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.
8. 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).
9. 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.
10. 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.