- an item of tangible movable or immovable property except real estate and things (such as buildings) connected with real property
- an enslaved person held as the legal property of another
- Slavery in which a person is owned as a chattel
That’s straightforward. Any system of slavery in which slaves are considered to be property is chattel slavery.
Leviticus 25:
44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
That’s also straightforward. Foreign slaves can be bought and sold, are permanent possessions, and can be inherited. They are considered to be property. So according to Leviticus, foreign slaves are chattel slaves, and Biblical slavery includes chattel slavery.
That should be the end of the discussion.
However, some people are reluctant to admit that the Bible sanctioned chattel slavery, and come up with excuses to avoid acknowledging that this is the case from the definition of chattel slavery.
Exodus provides some unneeded confirmation:
Exodus 21:
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
(translations vary on whether they use ‘slave’ vs ‘servant’ in this passage, but the NIV is clear which sections of Ex21 apply to servants and which to slaves).
Verses 28-32 provide further confirmation by distinguishing the consequences of a bull goring a man/woman/son/daughter vs goring a slave; in the former case the bull’s owner is executed, but in the latter they are only fined.
But again, this shouldn’t be needed.
Several excuses have been given for why Biblical slavery should not be considered chattel slavery, but none hold up to scrutiny:
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Verses concerning treatment of Hebrew servants/slaves. The Bible has different laws for Hebrews vs foreigners. Anyone citing verses about treatment of Hebrews to argue that Biblical slavery of foreigners is not chattel slavery is simply being dishonest.
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Kidnapping being forbidden, Even if this applies to non-Hebrews, it is irrelevant to any slave who wasn’t kidnapped, e.g. those born into slavery or purchased from foreigners. Restricting the routes to slavery does not affect the chattel status of those that are enslaved by permitted routes.[1]
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Not returning escaped slaves. Even if this applies to slaves in Israel rather than just slaves escaping to Israel, it doesn’t mean that slaves are not chattel since it only applies to slaves that have successfully escaped from their masters, and implies that slaves have to escape before they can be considered not to be chattel, and hence are chattel unless they escape.[2]
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Slaves can’t be forced to work on the Sabbath, mutilated, or killed. Laws concerning what slave-owners can do with or to their property do not mean that slaves are not property, any more than laws about noise pollution, motor insurance and animal cruelty[3] don’t mean that radios, cars and pets/livestock are not property. Laws that include confiscation of property as a consequence of misusing or abusing it do not negate it being property.
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Foreign slaves of Hebrews were treated better and had more rights than slaves of surrounding nations or slaves in the Americas. Better-treated chattel slaves are still chattel slaves. The rights of foreign slaves did not include the right to stop being a slave.
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The bible is being read literally rather than in context. The context is a world where chattel slavery was common.
Bottom line: The Bible permits foreign slaves to be purchased, held and inherited as property. That is the definition of chattel slavery. The only way to claim that Biblical law does not include chattel slavery is to ignore the definition of chattel or the words of the Bible.
Note that Ex 21:16 is only about punishment for the kidnappers; it says absolutely nothing about what should be done regarding victims who have already been sold. ↩︎
This is the least ineffective of the arguments against chattel slavery, but the consequences of it applying to slaves of Hebrews as well as foreign refugees are sufficiently absurd to discount this. ↩︎
I was going to say that modern laws concerning the treatment of animals are stricter than Biblical laws concerning the treatment of slaves, but having looked up the relevant US laws this may not be the case in the US. ↩︎
