Premise 1 : Israelite slavery was voluntary
So just how similar was Israelite slavery to our conception of the institution that bears the same name? Not much. Consider first that Israelite slavery was voluntary.
There were three primary reasons a person might become subservient to another.
- An immigrant, or citizen of a country that lost a war
- A debt servant (person who used his labor to pay off debt) or a voluntary servant.
- Voluntary,; a more secure life, and or an attachment to the Master and family
Exodus 21:16 states:
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.”
This is found among the earliest cluster of slave laws, and speaks directly to the issue of slavery, and forbids anything resembling a slave trade among the ancient Israelites.
This verse alone should make it clear that “slavery” in Old Testament law is vastly different than anything that we commonly associate with slavery.
By contrast, Leviticus 25:39 and 47 speak of the poor Israelite as “selling himself” into servitude, suggesting that Israelite slaves were debt-servants not people kidnapped, or coerced into servitude.
“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.
Leviticus 25:39-43
Another important law that should inform our understanding of what was legal in ancient Israel is Deuteronomy 23:15–16:
“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.”
According to the law of Moses, it was actually illegal to return a fugitive slave. In fact, this passage commands his fellow Israelites to allow him to dwell wherever he pleases.
Effectively, Israelite slaves could break their service contracts simply by leaving. Slavery in Israelite law was entered into voluntarily and could be ended voluntarily.
Discussion Question 1 : Are you surprised to see that Old Testament Slavery was primarily voluntary ?
Premise 2 : Israelite slaves were not human chattel deprived of freedom and basic rights
Regardless of why a person would be an (ebed) or voluntary servant there were strict laws that were rigidly enforced to preserve their human dignity and welfare for example :
Their was a maximum term for debt repayment then guaranteed freedom
If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, sells himself to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
Deuteronomy 15:12-14
If a servant repaid his debt early, he was released, but even if the debt wasn’t repaid in full, he was guaranteed his release in six years.
Once released the Israelite slave was not expected to start over from scratch. Rather, his now former master, who had benefited from his labor, was to provide him with “liberal” amounts of livestock, grain, and wine, in order to get him back on his feet.
The Fourth Commandment required that slaves enjoy the Sabbath along with their masters.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
Exodus 20:8-11
Other Differences
| Old Testament | Roman | New World | |
| Holiday | Yes | No | Yes |
| Enough Food | Yes | No | No |
| Legal Redress | Yes | No | No |
| Sexual Protection | Yes | No | No |
| Kidnapped | No | Yes | Yes |
| Chains | No | Yes | Yes |
| Torture | No | Yes | Yes |
| Physical Abuse | No | Yes | Yes |
Discussion Question 2 : What are the differences you can see between slavery in the Old Testament, and slavery that existed in the America’s south and other parts of the world ?
Premise 3 : The passages on slavery in the New Testament are written to Christians who were forced to live under Roman slave laws
Half of the population of the Roman Empire was slaves. Threefourths of the population of Athens was slaves. Some estimates place the number of slaves in Rome itself at up to 90 percent of the city’s total population.
The condition of the slave in the ancient world was abysmal. The life of a slave could be taken at the whim of the master. Other human rights violations included:
- It was legal to admit into a courtroom the testimony of a slave only under torture; yet the testimony of a free man was admitted under oath.
- If the master of a household was murdered, all of his domestic slaves were put to death without legal inquiry.
- It was common mark of hospitality to assign a female slave to a guest for the night.
For millions upon millions of enslaved people in past centuries, and even down to the present day in outlying pockets of civilization, survival has been a matter of supreme indifference because of their condition of bondage. The warrior who preferred death to capture was not necessarily being brave or noble; he was being realistic. Even in sophisticated Athens and Rome, where household slaves received humane treatment and were accorded special privileges, their lives were never out of jeopardy. Four hundred slaves belonging to the Roman Pedanius Secundus were ordered put to death because they were under their master’s roof when he was murdered.
Sherwood Wirt: The Social Conscience of the Evangelical p. 10
The early Christians did not enjoy the kind of political influence they do today. They lived under a powerful authoritarian state, and were villified themselves which made them powerless to change government policies.
Were any of the New Testament writers to incite slaves to rise up against their masters, they would essentially have been sentencing them to death, probably by crucifixion, as was the fate of the 6,000 slaves who revolted with Spartacus a century earlier.
Commanding Christians to free their slaves would not have been legal, nor would it have worked as, by state law, most of those slaves would still not have been free.
While Christians as Roman subjects themselves were powerless to abolish slavery, through the Christian Gospel they did try to revolutionize the treatment of them
Christians were commanded to love others as Christ loved us. That meant that people could no longer be treated as mere slaves, but as human beings made in the image of God.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”
Galatians 3:28
Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:9-11
In the brief book of the Bible called Philemon, Paul writes from prison to Philemon, a wealthy Christian slaveowner.
Paul sends the letter to Philemon with Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave who was a fellow prisoner with Paul. Paul had led both men to Christ and in his letter tells Philemon, “Receive him [Onesimus] not as a slave, but as a brother beloved.”
Discussion Question 3 : Have the facts that slavery in the Old Testament was voluntary, and a slaves rights were enforced by law with violations receiving severe punishment even death, or that the New Testament commanded that slaves or servants be treated with the same dignity as anyone else altered your conceptions of the Bible’s views on slavery ?
What are your initial thoughts regarding the premises and questions presented above?
How has this information impacted your views?
ThinkCubed Truth Veracity Grid:
Have I considered the issue carefully, honestly, and with an open mind?
Does what I think meet the basic standards of sound logic and avoid contradiction?
Has what I believe been influenced by personal bias, presuppositions, or my own desires?
