Isee ou rootiwt is demanding a response so who am to keep so eminent a personage waiting.
Oaks please look up the scriptures quoted and try to gain understanding. It is amazing that some sinners get to the ppoint where they think they can put God who is Holy and just in the dock and attribute to Him the works of Satan. Very sad.
With hands tied above and his
battered body hanging from a beam, the shirtless young black man absorbed
punishing whiplashes until he placated his white owner by uttering his new
name. Such images from the TV miniseries Roots imprinted on the minds of a generation
the brutality of slavery.
Since
slavery is today considered a great moral evil, some wonder why the Bible
doesn’t categorically condemn the practice. Critics even insist that the Bible
(both Old and New Testaments) condones, if not promotes, slavery. Some “new
atheists” proclaim that the Bible can’t serve as a basis for morality because
it fails to condemn the primitive and barbaric practices of humanity’s
past—especially slavery!
It is true that the Bible does not formally and explicitly condemn slavery as an institution. So how do we
account for this? Just what does the Bible say about slavery? Several important
points warrant careful consideration.
1. The forms of servitude and slavery practiced in a biblical context bear
little resemblance to the tyrannical type of slavery found in the American
antebellum South and in other modern Western countries. Certain moderate forms
of “servitude”—for example, indentured (voluntary) servitude—were considered
morally beneficial before God under certain circumstances in the Old Testament.
Examples of this are seen in voluntary indenturement in order to earn a living
or to learn a trade. It could also include the indenturement of a criminal in
order for the offender to render restitution. But in none of these moderate
cases, nor even the more extreme case of foreigners captured by the Israelites
in war, would the so-called slave or servant be viewed as a mere piece of
property without human rights. Nor would the time of servitude be constituted
as a life term of bondage (Deuteronomy 15:12-13). Many slaves in the ancient
world, and especially those held by the Hebrews, were able to earn their
freedom.
2. The institution of slavery was so deeply rooted in ancient culture that
it could not be dismantled overnight. Old Testament scholar Gleason L. Archer
notes: “As to the moral status of slavery in ancient times, it must be
recognized that it was practiced by every ancient people of which we have any
historical record: Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians,
Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Greeks, Romans, and all the rest.”1 Furthermore, Christian apologist Paul Copan states: “During the
first century A.D., approximately 85 to 90 percent of Rome’s population
consisted of slaves.”2 Slavery
was viewed as playing a critical economic role for society. Nevertheless, the
Old Testament Mosaic Law limited and regulated the practice and sought to
correct its inhumane abuses (Exodus 20:10; 21:20-27). Unlike with slavery in
other cultures, the masters in a biblical context did not have absolute rights
over their slaves. Forms of slavery and servitude were permitted in the Old
Testament, but it was never considered the moral ideal (Deuteronomy 15:18).
3. Unlike some ancient cultures, and certainly unlike the American South in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the slaves in the Old Testament were
recognized as full persons who possessed human dignity and basic rights
(Deuteronomy 5:14; Job 31:13-15). Abusing one’s slaves and servants was viewed
as being both imprudent and immoral (Deuteronomy 23:15-16). A group of biblical
scholars provide this perspective on the Old Testament’s true position
concerning slavery: “Nowhere was the institution of slavery as such condemned;
but then, neither did it have anything like the connotations it grew to have
during the days of those who traded human life as if it were a mere commodity
for sale.”3
4. The New Testament indicates that in God’s sight there is “neither slave
nor free” (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11) and that both are part of Christ’s
church and equally accountable to God (Ephesians 6:5-9). In fact, in the
apostolic church, slaves were granted all the rights and privileges of free men
(see the book of Philemon).
5. The likely reason that the apostolic authors of the New Testament did
not categorically condemn slavery was because they placed the preaching of the
gospel and the redemption of lost souls ahead of societal reform. Yet that very
biblical teaching about humankind and their relationship to God through Christ was
the inevitable moral and spiritual force that showed the fundamental injustice
of slavery in the Western world.
6. God’s way of eliminating slavery was to allow the biblical teachings
(the “Good News”) to spread throughout all cultures. Indeed, it was the
Judeo-Christian teaching that human beings have intrinsic value and worth as a
result of being made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) that brought an end to
slavery. Many in the abolitionist movements of England and America in the
nineteenth century were Protestant evangelical Christians. And they viewed
slavery as being fundamentally inconsistent with the historic Christian view of
man’s creation and redemption.
So while the Bible doesn’t formally
and explicitly condemn slavery, neither does it condone it. It was the unique
ethical message contained in Scripture concerning human dignity and redemption
that provided the moral and spiritual force that ultimately succeeded in
eliminating slavery as an institution. The gospel message of salvation in Jesus
Christ remains a powerful force against human evil and social injustice. It is
also the only antidote for each human being’s slavery to sin and death.
The Bible both prohibits certain
kinds of slavery, and permits other kinds, and so does our own U.S. Constitution
by the 13th Amendment, which abolished only certain forms of
slavery.
·
The Bible condemns kidnapping as a
capital crime, and kidnapping is what fueled the African slave trade to America
from the 1500s to 1800s. Therefore, because the Old and New Testaments (Ex. 21:16; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; etc.) condemn
kidnapping, the teaching of Scripture condemns virtually the entirety of
American slavery.
·
The Bible shows the wickedness of
enslaving a race of people by kidnapping through the Israelites bondage to the
Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.
·
The Bible speaks of justifiable forms
of servitude as punishment for crime (Ex. 22:1-3), for unpaid debt (Lev 25:39), and as a deterrent against
warfare. Consider a similar testimony from an anti-biblical source. Charles
Darwin inherited the anti-slavery attitude of his parents (and even their parents supported the Christian abolitionist
William Wilberforce). Yet even Darwin wrote in Descent
of Man that "slavery" was "in some ways beneficial
during ancient times..." Sadly though, the Darwin-inspired
hatred for minorities and indigenous peoples was spurred on by
grotesque, openly racists comments, and also to an extent by his comments in Origin
of Species, he including his claim that, "...it is
far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as... ants making slaves... not
as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one
general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely,
multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."
·
The Bible teaches that Hebrew slaves
are to be released in their seventh year (Ex. 21:2), and at the year of Jubilee, and
that they could be redeemed.
·
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
did not abolish slavery but retained justifiable slavery, which is moral,
biblical, and avoids the tragedy of widespread bankruptcy and epidemic
incarceration.
"Section 1--Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States…" Amendment XIII, 1865
·
Scripture prefaces commands of
kindness toward slaves with a reminder that the Jews were slaves in Egypt (Lev. 25:42); do unto others as you would have
them do unto you.
·
Because of Israel's national covenant
with God, the Mosaic Law allowed foreigners to sell themselves as permanent
slaves (Lev. 25:44) to the Jews, and they could also
sell their own children (Lev. 25:45) to the
Hebrews, which culturally seems unjust today, but this did deliver children
from unfit parents. Also, in ancient times, mere survival was often nearly
impossible, and scriptural regulations for polygamy and slavery would have
mitigated the death rate.
·
The New Testament teaches equitable
treatment of bondservants: Col. 4:1; Eph 6:9.
·
Yes, historically and tragically,
Christians have justified ownership of black slaves, and yet, it was practicing
evangelical Christian abolitionists like William Wilberforce and Harriet Tubman
who heroically led the fight to end slavery.
Although the Bible does not
universally, explicitly, and absolutely condemn all forms of slavery, we do
find explicit rejection of the many types of slavery practiced in modernity.
The hope of this paper is to orient the practice of slavery within the context
of the Scriptures in order to better understand what they do and do not say
about the institution. In doing so, we will find that arguments regarding the
Bible’s alleged acceptance of slavery are often unfounded and unfair.
Slavery
in general is not explicitly condemned in the Scriptures. Instead, we see a
pattern of divine regulation of the institution.1 Within the context of the early nation of
Israel and the instructions found within the New Testament, we see parameters
and boundaries for the practice, but no absolute prohibition.
This failure to explicitly restrict
slavery in general is often used either as justification for the institution or
as ammunition against the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures in an
attempt to invalidate the exclusive claims of Christianity. Why does the Bible
not condemn slavery? If God is good and slavery is evil, why then does He not
explicitly denounce the practice? Why does He instead allow it within both
ancient Israel and the early Church?
In order to answer these questions,
we need to evaluate some modern notions of slavery itself and enter more
properly into the world which the Scriptures speak. In doing so, we will find
that far from condoning modern conceptions of slavery, the Bible actually
rejects quite clearly the injustice and oppression upon which modern slavery is
founded.
Types of Slavery
To
understand the Scriptural regulation of the institution of slavery, it is
essential that we recognize a fundamental distinction between the slavery of
the biblical world and that practiced within the 17th-21stcenturies.
When most of us think of the word “slavery,” we immediately conceive of 19th century
Western slavery practiced in the Southern U.S. or the sex slave trade
of today, conceptions which are only particular evil variants of the
practice. Such expressions of slavery are actually quite dissimilar to the
institutions regulated within the Scriptures.
The
fact that the Bible never explicitly condemns ancient slavery does not at
all imply that it has nothing to say regarding modern slavery.
Rather, “modern readers must overcome their temptation to read into
any ancient Jewish, Greek or Roman text their knowledge of modern slavery.
The meanings of any familiar-sounding terms can be determined only by
a close investigation of the particular social systems and cultural values
the early Christian writers took for granted.”2
Distinctive Elements of Early Types
of Slavery
1.
An enslaved person generally could
not be identified by appearance or clothing; racial or ethnic origins were
not reliable indicators of social or legal status.
2.
The cultural and religious traditions
of slaves were usually those of their owners and other free persons.
3.
Education of slaves was encouraged,
enhancing their value; some slaves were better educated than
their owners. Rome’s cultural leadership in the empire
largely depended on educated, foreign-born slaves who had been taken
there.
4.
Partially as a result, many slaves
functioned in highly responsible and sensitive positions such as
workshop and household managers, accountants, tutors,
personal secretaries, sea captains and physicians. An
important minority of slaves had considerable influence and social power,
even over freeborn persons of lesser status than the slaves’ owners.
5.
By no means were the enslaved
regularly to be found at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid.
Rather those free and impoverished persons who had to seek work each
day without any certainty of employment occupied the lowest level. Some of
them sold themselves into slavery in order to obtain job security, food,
clothing and shelter.
6.
Slaves could own property, including
their own slaves. They could accumulate funds that they might use
to purchase their own freedom.
7.
Because slaves were owned by persons
across the range of economic levels, they developed no
consciousness of being a social class or of suffering a common plight.
Thus no laws were needed to hinder public assembly of slaves.
8.
In contrast to New World slavery,
ancient owners did not regard their adult slaves paternalistically;
they clearly distinguished the roles of parents and of owners
and felt no need to justify the institution of slavery.
9.
Persons not infrequently sold themselves
to pay debts, to escape poverty, to climb socially or to
obtain special governmental positions.
10.
A large number of domestic and urban
slaves, perhaps the majority, could anticipate being set free
(manumitted) by age thirty, becoming a freedman or a freedwoman (see Acts 6:9, “the synagogue of the
freedmen”). At any moment innumerable ex-slaves throughout the empire were
proof that slavery need not be a permanent condition. And even ancient
Greek commentators expressed astonishment that slaves freed by Roman
citizens usually became Roman citizens themselves at their manumission.
Notable in Acts 23–25 is the Roman governor Marcus Antonius Felix,
who had been a slave until Antonia, the emperor Claudius’s mother,
manumitted him.3
Most Modern Forms of Slavery are
Explicitly Condemned
In highlighting distinctive
characteristics of early slavery in contrast to modern forms, one
may notice that certain elements of modern slavery are explicitly
forbidden within the Scriptures. For instance, the Western slave trade
thrived upon the kidnapping of men, women, and children while such a
practice is expressly prohibited in the Bible.
·
Exodus 21:16
·
Deuteronomy 24:7
·
1 Timothy 1:10
Western slavery in former centuries
(and the majority of forms now) functioned through a trade built upon
and fueled by abduction expressly and strongly prohibited within the
Scriptures. Thus, the vast majority of forms of modern Western slavery
are explicitly condemned within the Scriptures.
Rather than blindly interpreting the
Bible’s regulation of ancient slavery as condoning our modern
conception of the institution, we should seek to understand ancient
slavery and how the Scriptures function within those particular
frameworks. When understood correctly, we begin to see that not only
was ancient slavery quite different from modern, but also that the
Bible actually has quite a bit to say about the prohibition of such modern
variants.
Is Slavery Always and Inherently
Unjust?
A fundamental assumption behind the
modern criticism of the Bible’s regulation of slavery is that slavery
is an innately evil and unjust institution. Since this is the foundational
presumption of the argument which rejects the Scriptures for not rejecting
slavery, I think it is worth exploring.
Slavery is not inherently unjust or
evil. Rather, it is the type or form of slavery which determines
the degree to which it is just or unjust. Some forms are absolutely
and essentially evil, while others are morally neutral and natural.
Slavery
is a universal principle of creation. All creatures are confined to some
being or principle. There is no escape from enslavement, no existence
in which absolute autonomy and unlimited independence are obtained.
All creatures are ultimately enslaved; either to sin, Satan and fleshly
desires or to the true God and King, Jesus Christ (John 8:31-36; Romans 6:15-19). True freedom is not found
in independence from our Creator, but rather in subjection to His
sovereignty. There is no lasting liberty apart from captivity to Christ.It
is in this “slavery” that our greatest joy is found.
Therefore,
slavery as a concept is neither inherently good nor bad. Judgment of the
practice depends on whom the master is and how he treats his slaves.
Our Master treats us with compassion and kindness and this is the basis
for how the New Testament expects slave owners to treat their slaves (Ephesians 6:5-9 andColossians 3:33-4:1). Indeed, it
is important to note that even within Old Testament we
find counter-cultural instructions on the treatment of
slaves admonishing compassion and kindness (Deuteronomy 15:12-15,23:15).
The Church and Slavery
There is no doubt that the Church has
not consistently rejected the practice of slavery in general, nor
even of the perverse versions of the past. Rather, Scriptural ambiguity
and regulation has often been used to justify all kinds of corruption and
oppression. It is certainly and regrettably true that many pastors
and priests have argued for the permissibility of slavery
on “biblical” grounds. This historical justification of an
evil practice is certainly unfortunate, tragic and incorrect.
At the same time, it must be asked
upon what principle slavery was officially abolished.
What overarching worldview led to the crumbling of the imperial and
colonial slave trades? Men like John Newton and William Wilberforce led
the charge not on the basis of the “self-evident” equality of all
men, but rather the dignity of man as an image-bearer of the Creator
God Who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.
So
enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade’s wickedness
appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let
the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that
I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.4
Never,
never, will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the
Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, and
extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic.5
Christians who argued for Western
slavery on the basis of the biblical text were simply wrong. Perhaps
they themselves misunderstood the text, were sinfully motivated to act
with hypocrisy, or were fearful of the cultural implications of
dissidence. While we can certainly find fault in these errors, such faults
do not invalidate Christianity, the Scriptures, or Christ.
Conclusion
The Scriptures do not explicitly
condemn slavery in general, but they do regulate the practice in such
a way as to expressly condemn the modern practice of the institution. By
expressly forbidding the foundations of modern forms and its
unjust expressions, the Scriptures offer a strong and loud word on
the subject that we would do well to hear and heed. Not only do we find
the clear call for the Church to reject enslaving oppression, but we hear
and see an exalted Son Who conquers all injustice and grants true
redemption regardless of social status, ethnicity, or gender. In bondage
to Him, we find life, liberty, and perpetual joy.
·
1 Corinthians 12:12–13
·
Galatians 3:28–29
·
Colossians 3:11
©
2010 The Village Church. All rights reserved.
Footnotes
1 Some argue that regulation is acceptance, but I
do not think such is the case. The Old Testament never directly condemns
divorce and yet the New clarifies that God accommodated sinful man in this
regard (Matthew 19:8-9). Though divorce was
regulated in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), it was not therefore
justified by God. God’s choice to not condemn divorce does not mean that He
condoned it. Is it not possible that slavery is parallel in this regard?
2 Martin, R. P., & Davids, P. H. (2000). Dictionary of the later New Testament and its developments (electronic
ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3 In distinguishing elements, it is impossible to
cover every particular instance. These characteristics present a portrait of
early types of slavery in general. Though this list deals primarily with
slavery in the New Testament context, similar investigation of the Old
Testament context would reveal parallel contrasts.
4 Galli, M., & Olsen, T. (2000). 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (283). Nashville,
TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
5 Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church History In Plain Language (Updated 2nd ed.)
(368). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.
