The Bible and Slavery

Slavery in the Bible is one of the greatest stumbling blocks for believers and non-believers alike. EvilBible.com is a website "designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible". The article, "Slavery in the Bible", writes:

Except for murder, slavery has got to be one of the most immoral things a person can do.  Yet slavery is rampant throughout the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.  The Bible clearly approves of slavery in many passages, and it goes so far as to tell how to obtain slaves, how hard you can beat them, and when you can have sex with the female slaves.

Many Jews and Christians will try to ignore the moral problems of slavery by saying that these slaves were actually servants or indentured servants.  Many translations of the Bible use the word "servant", "bondservant", or "manservant" instead of "slave" to make the Bible seem less immoral than it really is.  While many slaves may have worked as household servants, that doesn't mean that they were not slaves who were bought, sold, and treated worse than livestock.

Is the Bible really so evil? What does the Bible say about slavery?

Slavery in the Old Testament
Old Testament laws were promulgated against the backdrop of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Therefore, God constantly reminded the Israelites that they were slaves in Egypt and they were to treat their slaves ethically (e.g. Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 15:15).

There were three kinds of slavery practiced in Old Testament Israel:

1. Israelite to Israelite debt slavery. One Israelite becomes a slave to another in order to pay off a debt or as punishment for theft (Exodus 22:3; Leviticus 25:39-43).
2. Non-Israelite to Israelite permanent slavery. Aliens could be acquired through capture in war or bought from among the children of temporary residents in Israel (Leviticus 25:44-46).
3. Israelite to non-Israelite debt slavery. An Israelite becomes enslaved to a foreigner, typically to pay off a debt (Leviticus 25:47-55).

The first and third types of slavery are actually a form of indentured servitude. The laws were meant to regulate a system by which the poor had been paying off their debts. Only the second type of slavery resembles the kind of slavery that was practiced, for example, in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States. Even so, this must be interpreted against the backdrop of other laws which prohibit kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) and require that Israelites provide safe harbour to foreign runaway slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15-16).

In addition, in these passages, the common thread is an injunction for ethical treatment. For example, Leviticus 25:43 writes, "Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God."

It is also important to note that all three kinds of slavery are described in the same Leviticus passage which provides for the Year of Jubilee, which was to be a year of liberty for all. It occurred once every 49 years (Leviticus 25:8-10):

Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan.

(The Year of Jubilee is important especially because of how Jesus saw His mission, as recorded in the Gospels.)

Old Testament Israel's standards were unparallelled in the Ancient Near East. Christopher Wright writes in Old Testament Ethics for the People of God:

No other ancient near Eastern law has been found that holds a master to account for the treatment of his own slaves (as distinct from injury done to the slave of another master), and the otherwise universal law regarding runaway slaves was that they must be sent back, with severe penalties for those who failed to comply.

Understanding the Old Testament Laws in context
The Old Testament laws should be understood in context, and should not be viewed as the permanent and fixed theocratic standard for all nations. This is how Jesus approached the Old Testament, by regarding the provision for divorce under Mosaic Law in Deuteronomy 24 as something which was allowed because human hearts were hard, and not because it was ideal. The controlling principle is the natural order laid down in the Garden of Eden (Matthew 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

It is important to keep in mind two principles, which Paul Copan calls the "hardness of heart" principle and the "forbearance" principle. He writes in "Is Yahweh a Moral Monster? The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics" (2008) 10(1) Philosophia Christi 7:

The same can be said of God’s permitting a strong patriarchalism, slavery, polygamy, primogeniture laws, and warfare that were common within the ANE context: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted slavery and patriarchy and warfare the like, but from the beginning it has not been this way.” When challenged about matters Mosaic, Jesus frequently pointed to the spirit or divinely-intended ideal toward which humans should strive. God’s condescension to the human condition in the Mosaic Law is an attempt to move Israel toward the ideal without being unrealistically optimistic. Rather than banishing all evil social structures, Sinaitic legislation frequently deals with the practical facts of fallen human culture while pointing them to God’s greater designs for humanity.

So on the obverse (human) side of the coin, we have the “hardness of heart” principle. Yet on the reverse (divine) side, we have the “forbearance” principle, which is in place up to the Christ-event. God in Christ “demonstrates His righteousness” though “in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed” (Rom. 3:25). Likewise, Paul declares to the Athenians: “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–1). Both the hardness-of-heart and divine-forbearance principles go hand in hand, offering a corrective to the new atheist assumptions that OT legislation is the ideal.

Slavery in the New Testament
Slavery was rife during the time of the Roman Empire. In comparison to Old Testament Israel, the Roman world was considerably worse in its practice of slavery, praticing chattel slavery rather than forms of indentured servanthood. It is important to understand New Testament teachings in this context.

Jesus saw His as mission the proclamation of the Year of Jubilee. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus read the following passage from Isaiah at a synagogue in Nazareth:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour [i.e. Jubilee].”

He concluded, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:16-21)

Paul therefore enjoined slaves and masters to treat one another with respect, emphasising that all are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 6:5-9). In Christ Jesus, there is no distinction between slave and free, but all find their identity in Christ:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28) 

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (Colossians 3:11)

Furthermore, Paul clearly condemned the practice of slave-trading in 1 Timothy 1:10, alongside murderers and those who kill their fathers or mothers.

One remarkable passage is in a personal letter which Paul wrote to his friend Philemon concerning Philemon's former slave, Onesimus. Onesimus had run away after doing something wrong, and had received Christ while with Paul in prison. Paul exhorted his friend to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother" (Philemon 16). Paul told Philemon to absolve Onesimus' wrongdoing, charging these instead to Paul himself.

While it is true that Jesus and the Apostles did not call for the total abolition of the institution of slavery in their time, it is important to note that Jesus also taught His followers to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's", and "to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). He did not advocate for the overthrow of the Roman government, but instead taught His servants to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19-20).

Change in society had to first begin in the hearts, minds and souls of individuals.

Conclusion
Old Testament Israel's laws regarding slavery were promulgated against the backdrop of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and therefore were enjoined with many commands for ethical treatment. It unparallelled for its time. Yet these laws should be understood in context, and should not be viewed as the permanent and fixed theocratic standard for all nations.

During the Roman Empire, the practice of slavery was even worse. Although slavery was not abolished in the New Testament, believers were taught to regard one another as equals in Christ, and Paul condemend the practice of slave-trading. Wayne Grudem succinctly notes in Systematic Theology that "the seeds for the destruction of slavery were sown in the New Testament."

Christians everywhere can and should therefore condemn the practice of slavery of any form as a horrible violation of the dignity of our fellow human beings, who are made in the image of God. These include practices like human trafficking, the sex trade and child prostitution. We should also condemn other forms of unethical treatment of employees, such as maid abuse, inhumane work conditions and sexual harassment. In the meantime, we should also take care to alleviate the conditions of all people who are trapped in such circumstances.

This way, we can join with our Lord "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour" to all around us.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour...

(Isaiah 61:1-2a)