The Bible and Slavery

In another context, I recently addressed some questions about the Bible and slavery, and I wanted to post those answers here in an article as well.

1. “The Bible is inconsistent with the modern teaching of the Catholic Church in various areas, such as slavery and the death penalty. Therefore Catholicism is internally inconsistent, because it claims that the Bible is the Word of God while at the same time claiming other teachings to be true which contradict it.”

I don’t think that the Bible contradicts modern Catholic teaching, if we understand both properly. Let’s look briefly at the two alleged examples--slavery and the death penalty. Again, though, as I said in my response to earlier drafts, if you want to make an objection like this, you ought to make your case yourself rather than simply hinting at it. To simply say “The Bible contradicts modern Church teaching on slavery” is insufficient as an argument. No evidence is presented. It is merely an assertion. I might just as well respond by simply saying “The Bible does not contradict modern Church teaching on slavery.” If I said that, I would be doing as much as you have done. You have to present your argument clearly and specifically and then show me the specific evidence that supports that argument. Otherwise, you put too much burden on the person responding to you, who could justly simply ignore your un-backed-up assertion. Their only alternative is to do your homework for you by doing all the research and pointing out all the specifics themself.

Nevertheless, let’s look at the claims. We’ll start with slavery. What does the modern Catholic Church say about slavery? Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2414:

The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason - selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian - lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St. Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord." 

So “slavery,” as condemned by the Catholic Church, is to treat a human being as if they had no human dignity, as if they were simply merchandise, to reduce them by violence to being nothing more than a source of profit.

Does the Bible endorse slavery, defined in this way? No. It repudiates that idea. Let’s look at “slavery” as it exists in the Bible. Some key passages are Exodus 21:2, 16, 20-21, 26-27; 22:1-2; 23:12; 25:39-55; Deuteronomy 15:12-18; 16:11, 15; 23:25-16; Ephesians 6:5-9; 1 Corinthians 7:17-24; Philemon 1. All but the last three here are from the Law of Moses as that law lays out rules relating to slavery.

Here’s my attempt to summarize the picture of “slavery” found in the Law of Moses:

Often a person becomes a “slave” (or “servant”--see my note on terminology further down) by finding himself in a situation where he needs or owes money. A person may offer himself and his labor to another person in order to pay off a debt. A person could also become a slave by being a captive of a just war. Or a thief may be required to work to pay off the debt of what he has stolen. Also, parents are allowed to give their daughter in marriage to a person who has agreed to marry her and treat her as a wife and to receive monetary compensation for doing so. (However, if this happens, she must have full marriage rights. She cannot be given to others for money and required to work as a general servant, and if the person decides not to marry her, he must allow her to be taken back by her family. He might also have arranged for her to marry his son, in which case she must be treated as a daughter. If he won’t do any of these things, she must be released from the contract freely.) If the person who becomes a slave is an Israelite, he can only be a slave for six years. After that, he must be released. (This would apply to female servants as well as male servants.) All debts in general to Israelites are to be canceled every seventh year. If the Israelite male slave is set free before the end of the six years, he can leave with his wife and children if he was already married when he became a slave; but if the master had himself given the servant a wife, so that the wife also belongs to the master as a slave, she is not necessarily let go with her husband. The husband might choose to stay in that case. He might even choose to stay as a permanent slave. It is permissible to buy slaves from non-Israelites, and they can be made permanent servants. However, any slave who runs away from his master is not to be returned to his master (which seems to imply that the benefit of the doubt goes to the slave, that he has run away because he has been mistreated, etc.). Slaves have the right to fair treatment and respect for their rights in general. A slave can be corporally disciplined, but not severely. If any serious or permanent damage is done to a slave, that slave is set free. (Since slaves can simply run away and be free as well, perhaps the “setting free” in this case also implies the canceling of the debt that is being paid off in many cases.) If the master kills his servant, he is to be punished with death, as with other intentional homicides. (However, the homicide must be proven. If a slave dies, but his death is not clearly related to a beating received, the master is not to be blamed.) Slaves are to be allowed to rest on the Sabbath, and to participate in the holidays and festivals of Israel. No one is allowed to kidnap anyone and make him a slave. There has to be a just cause for someone to come to owe their labor to another person.

Sometimes we find words like “buy” and “sell” associated with servanthood in the Law of Moses. We have to be careful to define terms here, for today the use of words like “buy” or “sell” to apply to people and their services has the connotation of treating people like merchandise instead of like people, stripping away all their natural human rights, etc. But this connotation is not present in the biblical use of such language, which merely indicates that monetary transactions are sometimes involved in transferring a person’s service from one “master” to another. If Floyd works for me (say, he is working as a requirement to pay off a debt), and John wants to give me money so that I will assign Floyd to work for him instead, one could say that I have “sold” Floyd to John, but this would not necessarily imply that I have stripped Floyd of his human rights or am treating him as dehumanized property. As I mentioned, and as can be seen from the passages I cited above the Bible is quite clear in its opposition to any “slavery” that dehumanizes persons. Even when master-servant relationships are recognized, there is always an exhortation to remember justice and human dignity in the midst of it, as, for example, in Ephesians 6:5-9:

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.

Also, the idea of a particular race being enslaved because that race is inferior is a concept completely alien to the Bible. The concept of an “inferior race” itself is completely foreign to biblical categories. In the Bible, all human beings are said to be descended from Adam and Eve, as well as more recently from Noah, and they are all equal in fundamental worth. In Acts 17:26, St. Paul said that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” It is certainly true that certain groups of people, such as the Canaanites and the Amalekites, become particularly wicked and are punished in extraordinary ways; but this has nothing to do with their race but with their wickedness. When Rahab the harlot chose to do the right thing and follow God, she was spared even though she was a Canaanite (Joshua 2:1-21). When Israel became wicked, God threatened to punish them with precisely the same punishments with which he punished the Canaanites. God, through the prophet Amos (in Amos 9:7), said this to Israel during one of their wicked periods:

"Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel?" saith the Lord. "Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?"

In other words, Israel shouldn’t think they are better than others because of something intrinsic to their nature. “If I brought you up from Egypt,” says God, “well, I bring lots of people up from lots of places. So what?” In the context, the point God is making is that they should not expect special treatment merely because they are Israelites.

In the New Testament, in Acts 10:34-35, the Apostle Peter said, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” The Apostle Paul, speaking of the unity that exists in the Christian church, said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). To the Colossians, he wrote that in Christ “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11).

So I see nothing in the biblical teaching regarding slavery that contradicts modern Catholic Church teaching on this subject. The appearance of discrepancy is to a great degree dispelled simply by defining our terms more carefully and not equivocating over the meaning of words like “slavery.” With regard to the general question of the ethicality of slavery in the Bible, we must remember to keep in mind a few things:

We must remember to question our assumptions. This is especially an important thing to remember when we are dealing with moral issues, because moral positions are so often based not on rational evidence but on intuition and feelings, and they tend to be held very strongly and deeply and with great passion and zealousness by people, which makes them easy subjects of prejudice and bias and unquestioned assumptions. It is easy and natural for people, when discussing these sorts of subjects, to cling zealously to assumptions, to resent their being questioned, to get angry when another position is advocated or when objective questions are asked, and to refuse to listen to or think through or be teachable to alternative arguments or points of view. All of this is a great recipe for erroneous thinking based on unwarranted assumptions, so we must be very careful here to balance our passion for justice with an openness to rational inquiry and evidence.

We must be specific, nuanced, and thorough. As we have seen above, it is easy, with issues like this, to oversimplify our evaluation of the issue--such as by declaring the Bible contrary to modern Church ethics simply on the basis of the fact that the word “slavery” is condemned by the Catholic Church but is used in a positive way in some translations of the Bible, without asking more specific questions about the meaning of the word in different instances. Or it is easy--especially when influenced by passion and bias--to read the worst possible meaning into biblical texts rather than trying to give them as much benefit of doubt as is reasonably possible, which must be done if we will avoid question-begging in our argument against the Bible.

We should remember that, although the Bible is the Word of God, and so whatever it approves or advocates is advocated by God, yet sometimes God’s laws for humans are less than ideal. What I mean is that when moral ideas are translated into laws for particular human beings and particular human societies, those laws will be a mix between moral ideals and realistic conditions. Human lawmakers understand this. Sometimes an imperfect or corrupt system is in place that cannot be immediately abolished by legislation. In such a case, laws may be passed to bring conditions as close to the ideal as is reasonably possible. Situations or actions may be regulated without necessarily being approved as ideal. God sometimes does the same thing. Recognizing that they are not always ready to understand a full ideal, he leads his people slowly and gently, guiding them incrementally towards the full ideal. His commands might regulate what, in more ideal conditions, might be entirely abolished. This is true throughout Scripture. It is especially true when we are talking about the Law of Moses, which was an application of the moral law adapted to a particular people at a particular time in particular circumstances, and one of the purposes of which was to lead the people of Israel slowly and gently to a greater recognition of sin, salvation, and moral truths. Jesus himself explicitly acknowledges this about the Law of Moses in reference to divorce (see Matthew 19:3-9). Upon telling the people that divorce is unethical, he is challenged by the Pharisees who point out, rightly, that the Law of Moses permits and regulates divorce in some cases. He responds that Moses allowed this “because of the hardness of your hearts,” even though this was not the ideal from the beginning. Even though divorce is contrary to the ideal of God’s design for marriage, yet the people of Israel weren’t at a point where they could attain that ideal, and so the Law of Moses regulated divorce in non-ideal circumstances, trying to mitigate the harms and bring the situation as close to the ideal as was possible in that time and place. With regard to slavery, this means that we should not necessarily infer that just because God regulates certain relations between masters and servants that that implies that these relations represent what is ideal. In some cases, God may have been leading his people slowly over time to eventually overhaul their understanding of human relations more fundamentally, teaching them values incrementally, in ways that would be effective for them, so that those values would eventually bear fruit in them by bringing their hearts and their societies into conformity with the greater ideal.

So in order to make an argument against the Bible based on the moral issue of slavery, first we have to make sure our understanding of the facts are accurate, thorough, and nuanced, and not biased, incomplete, inaccurate, or oversimplified. Secondly, we have to show how a proper understanding of all the relevant facts leads necessarily to the conclusion that the Bible violates true morality. We will have to show that we know what true morality is, and that we can prove that our ideas about morality are correct without question-begging (such as by assuming Atheist assumptions without argument), and that we can truly and specifically show a contradiction between what is clearly in Scripture and what is clearly taught by the true moral law. This kind of argument is certainly possible, but it is a whole lot harder than most people realize who make attempts at it. Most people are content simply with vague, intuitive, feelings-based, oversimplified generalizations.

For more on biblical slavery, see this fascinating and well-researched article.  For more on the Catholic Church and slavery, see here.

Now what about the death penalty? Much of what I’ve said above in terms of how we should go about evaluating these sorts of questions applies to the death penalty as well as to slavery. Since my answer here is already very long, I will refer you to another article which addresses the death penalty objection. The article can be found here.

2. “In Exodus 21:7-11, the Law of Moses allows parents to sell their daughter into slavery! How in the world could this ever be deemed ethical?! Obviously the Bible promotes moral monstrosities!”

Here is the passage in question:

And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.

I summarized the basic idea here in my summary of the Law of Moses on slavery in #1 above. I’ll paste the relevant portion here:

Also, parents are allowed to give their daughter in marriage to a person who has agreed to marry her and treat her as a wife and to receive monetary compensation for doing so. (However, if this happens, she must have full marriage rights. She cannot be given to others for money and required to work as a general servant, and if the person decides not to marry her, he must allow her to be taken back by her family. He might also have arranged for her to marry his son, in which case she must be treated as a daughter. If he won’t do any of these things, she must be released from the contract freely.)

What moral objections could be raised against this? Perhaps the objection could be raised that this scenario violates the right of consent the daughter ought to have. The text says nothing about the daughter’s consent. The subject is simply not addressed. So we must be careful not to make unwarranted inferences and read ideas into the text that aren’t there. Does the Bible elsewhere address the question of consent in situations like this? I am not aware of a lot of places where this is addressed, but one passage does come to mind--the story of how Abraham’s servant found a wife for Isaac in Genesis 24. I won’t paste it all here, but go and read through it This is an interesting story in many ways, but one interesting thing about it is that it gives a rare glimpse into how the wife-to-be’s consent was thought of by the people involved in this scenario (see especially v. 8 and v. 57-58). It seems that her consent was considered essential to the whole affair. Does this mean that consent should be assumed in Exodus 21:7-11? The text simply doesn’t tell us. The law as written simply doesn’t address the subject. In Catholic marriage law, the consent of both parties is required for the marriage to be valid. What about Jewish law? Interestingly, it seems that Jewish law in the Talmud (a repository of Jewish traditions of interpretation of biblical law compiled not far from the time of Christ) requires consent for a marriage to be valid as well. (See the Wikipedia article on this.) So why assume that consent would not be a part of the equation in the scenario envisioned in Exodus 21? I am not aware of any good reason to make that assumption.

Perhaps it might be argued that the culture of the Ancient Near East in general treated women in ways that did not grant them the full rights and freedoms they ought to have. In such a context, it might be argued, there is not adequate protection for these rights in the Law of Moses or in biblical revelation in general. There might not be adequate protection for consent, for example, even if it is assumed to be necessary. It is true that in any human society--including both the societies of the Ancient Near East and our own modern American society--there are many imperfections. There is no human society where the full ideals of the moral law are fully lived up to and protected in such a way as to make it impossible for violations of those ideals to happen. I mentioned in my response to #1 above that the Law of Moses sometimes regulates things in the context of less-than-ideal circumstances. Moral violations and crimes happened in ancient Israel, despite God’s moral law and the Law of Moses. As we know from our overall answer to the problem of evil, God allows evils to happen in this world and refrains from always preventing them because he sees it is for the greater overall good. This includes allowing human societies to exhibit the imperfections of the fallen human condition even to the point that no legislation can fully close off all the loopholes clever human sinners can find in order to engage in unethical acts and treat people unjustly. Different societies will be prone to different vices, as they will have different cultural personalities, different levels of knowledge, different moral sensibilities, etc. God, in his infinite wisdom, decides what to allow to happen, what to prevent, what to command, what to permit, what to regulate, what to legislate, what not to legislate, what to suggest or exhort to rather than to command or legislate, etc. Since he is omniscient and omnibenevolent, it makes sense for us to trust his judgment in such matters--that he is running the universe in the best way possible according to what is truly good and important overall.

Perhaps it might be argued that it is inappropriate for the parents to receive money in return for agreeing to allow their daughter to marry the person. Why is this inappropriate? So long as it does not involve the dehumanizing of the daughter or the reducing of her to merchandise, why could not monetary compensation be involved in such an affair--especially if the family is in great need of money? The man who is marrying the daughter is receiving something very valuable, and the family is losing a beloved daughter (in the sense that she will no longer be living at home, etc.). Why should not this transaction involve some compensation? Can a clear, objective case against this be argued? If so, I am not yet able to formulate it. But even if someone believes that this is inappropriate, or at least subject to possible abuse and so a dangerous allowance, we must remember again that these laws are not only applications of pure moral ideals but are also attempts at realistic regulations within the particular circumstances of this particular society. As such, they might regulate a practice that is not ideal but which could not realistically be entirely abolished at that time. The law could mitigate a non-ideal situation in order to move the people of Israel closer to a more adequate manifestation of the greater ideal over time.

If other objections are raised, we must keep in mind the rules of good, thorough, nuanced, and objective reasoning that we’ve outlined and tried to apply above and to remember to try to avoid oversimplification, bias rooted in highly charged emotions, etc.

3. “But all of your reasoning above is simply an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. You seek to whitewash what is plainly unethical by overcomplicating the matter.”

No, that’s not what I’m doing at all. I am pointing out genuine complexities and nuances that are relevant to the evaluation of this issue, particularly as the issue is raised in order to function as an objection to the claim that the Bible is the Word of God.

It is certainly true that one fallacious way of reasoning that people often employ is to whitewash the clear apprehension of truth by means of introducing unnecessary confusion and obscurity. That is something to watch out for. Whether anyone is doing this in any particular case has to be evaluated on the basis of a careful look at the evidence. However, it should also be remembered that there is an opposite fallacy to watch out for as well. People can sometimes try to avoid criticism and questioning of their own views and arguments by portraying the other side’s arguments as “unnecessary and confusing complications,” thus making people ignore important nuances and complexities and instead simply accept a biased and feelings-based assessment of the issue without serious questioning. This is especially effective when an opponent’s argument goes against the grain of common intuitions and prejudices within a certain culture. In such a case, people are already inclined to be suspicious of the argument, and so they are easily led to dismiss it as false without adequate and serious consideration. (And, of course, it should be remembered too that people sometimes resort to these sorts of fallacies without necessarily intending to do so consciously and deceptively. The users of these fallacious ways of reasoning are sometimes the victims of their own fallaciousness. As always, the antidote is to keep practicing the four “skills of the class”: 1. Define terms, and have clear and distinct ideas. 2. Be self-aware and other-aware. 3. Question all assumptions. 4. Have a proper balance between teachability and tenacity of belief.)

For more general apologetics for Christianity, see here, here, and here.