Interpreting mentions of slavery in the Bible

Faith & Science Conversation
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Yes. We speak about slavery as it would be history but it is very much alive and well.

One common form of slavery are the bondages of debts that are often heritable. The worker is bound to work for the landlord or company owner with a small compensation to pay the debts.

Aother form of slavery is the economical utilization of immigrants or other vulnerable people. It often includes taking away passports or other documents needed for travel or dealing with the authorities. The persons work long days with minimal compensation at the mercy of others.

Some people are encouraged to travel to another country with promises of a decent job. When the person arrives, the job is something worse and there are various pressures that prevent the return.

Also chattel-type slavery still exists in some parts of the world, for example in a few very conservative Muslim societies. The slaves are often captured from outside groups that are considered to be infidels and also otherwise lower class humans. In ‘modern’ Afganisthan, the 2026 Penal Code and re-legalization utilizes the historical Arabic designation for slave (“Ghulam”) and gives the masters the legal right to physically punish their slaves (and wives).

These forms of modern slavery challence us in practical ways: what is our response to these kinds of abuse?

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That is exactly one of The Bible Project’s strengths.

Tim Mackie’s framework is usually not, “Here is a one-off defense of this troubling verse.” It is more like:

The Bible is a unified, ancient, human-divine story that leads to Jesus.

That gives them a coherent way to handle difficult material:

  • Ancient: Scripture speaks through ancient Near Eastern categories, not modern ones.
  • Human: Israel’s limitations, failures, violence, and moral immaturity are genuinely present.
  • Divine: God is still working through that history.
  • Unified: the pieces belong to one canonical story.
  • Jesus-centered: Jesus is the decisive revelation of God’s character.

So with slavery, conquest, patriarchy, vengeance, purity laws, monarchy, etc., they tend to ask:

How does this fit into the Bible’s larger movement from disorder, exile, violence, and domination toward new creation in Christ?

That is why their approach avoids the “flat-earth treatment” problem. They are not constantly inventing little escape hatches. They are reading the Bible as a long-form narrative with development, tension, and fulfillment.

I would put their basic answer this way:

The Bible does not hide humanity’s corruption or Israel’s moral incompleteness. It narrates God entering that world, bearing with it, restraining it, exposing it, and ultimately overcoming it in Jesus.

That is a much more satisfying framework than “biblical slavery was actually fine,” which I do not think is either morally or canonically adequate.

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It was not.

Israel did not invent slavery. That’s a ridiculous counterfactual. It’s not only insulting to claim that I would imply it, it’s insulting to claim that I would fail if I tried.

Chattel slavery was never legal in the UK (though it was in the colonies, and there indentured servitude did exist). Slavery did not exist in Iceland. Or Australia.

A quick search suggests it did not exist in some parts of North America prior to Columbus, or in the Persian Empire.

Your inclusion of “technologically developing” is a bait-and-switch that not only dodges the question, but excludes the Hebrews from consideration.

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Then some commentaries are attempting to avoid Biblical slavery, which does treat people as property.

US state laws on slavery were sometimes based on Biblical slavery laws, so it’s not surprising that they are similar.

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That disease comes from loving things that can be used to bash one’s neighbor and ignoring the prophets who repeatedly say, as Nathan to David, “You are the one!”
Luther expounded on Law vs. Gospel, yet centuries later many people still revel in Law.

A line that moves towards treating everyone as human rather than as objects.
You’re trying to force Torah into being a list of regulations rather than what is was, which is a teacher aiming people towards treating others better.
Read the prophets.

According to the prophets that’s exactly what the Torah was supposed to do – nudge people towards mercy and compassion.

I agree with a point made by Oswald Hoffman: those who love the Bible as a rule book have not accepted the Gospel.

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No, it’s to learn the lesson that it was never about rules, it was about loyalty – and that loyalty meant learning to be just and merciful and generous and compassionate.

It’s not a matter of making excuses, it’s a matter of asking why those prescriptions/proscriptions were given in that time and place. And that the point was to move the society towards treating people better overall isn’t an excuse, it’s what the prophets expounded.
All you have to do is search and see the passages in the prophets where they condemn people for following the Law while neglecting mercy! They were trying to hammer into the thick head of the nation that it wasn’t about rules; the rules were pointing beyond themselves, providing an arrow towards conforming to God’s own character of love and compassion and faithfulness.

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It should be to call for kicking nations that practice such things to be booted from the United Nations and deprived of any of its benefits.

Of course it wasn’t fine, but it was an improvement.
Really it’s possible to sort through the 600+ ‘laws’ and put them in two camps: rituals meant to show loyalty, and behavioral rules meant to get people to behave better than before. Biblical slavery falls in the latter category, being a slight step forward with an unstated theme that all people can be God’s people.

Sure it was – you stated they helped assemble it.

I wasn’t aware that the U.K was around back about 1k B.C.

Don’t dodge – it’s an accurate distinction between societies. Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, China, indeed all the technologically developing societies had slavery. You can’t blame Israel for assisting in its assembly and be honest.

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
Read the prophets! They tell what the Torah was for, and it was not about morality except in that it was supposed to push people towards compassion and make clear that anyone could be part of God’s people.

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I think we would have more reason to criticize if the Bible did not mention slavery.

The Bible does condemns trafficking (turning people into slaves) in the strongest terms: Exodus 21:16. Should the Bible condemn more than this? Should the Bible condemn Oskar Schindler?

Frankly, I look at the modern condemnation of slavery and genocide and see considerable hypocrisy – people so proud of condemning the things their own prosperity is built upon. I see too much pride in what is ultimately little more than legalisms and formality when this is frankly not where the evil really resides. It is really in how people treat other people no matter what the laws and social structures may be. The laws don’t change the realities of human cruelty and abuse – at most it only changes the targets. England is a great example of how abusive a culture can be without any slavery whatsoever.

And by the way, this not personally any kind of justification of historical ties to the slavery. Culturally, I am all Yankee and deeply suspicious of the the historical ties to slavery in some regions of the US. But I am not blind to the hypocrisy which can be found in Yankee-liberal cultural superiority as well. And then awareness of the historical context adds an even deeper level of foolishness to these accusations.

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UN would include very few nations if we had that rule. Some form of slavery-type exploitation can be found from almost all countries. Much of it may be illegal but it happens. People do not realize that even the workers in a nearby restaurant or those picking berries may be victims of modern types of slavery.