It is a simple question, but commonly, popular Christian leaders tend to avoid answering it. And as well common, high level atheists point out two verses that seem to be in very much support of slavery. Before we continue on to debunk arguments, we must start with definitions.
First and foremost the word translated slave in the Bible and the definition of slavery used today are two completely different things. The word translated slave: “Ebed“, is a morally neutral word, it is used in both good and bad connotations. We see ebed used when describing worshipers of God, the Levites, important prophets of God, manservants, and many more places (depends on the context). The overarching fact of the matter is, slavery as we know it today did not exist in Biblical times, slaves in Biblical times are more comparable to indentured servants. People would become slaves because they had a debt they could not pay. That is why we see God regulating slavery(remember biblical definition) so the evil heart of man does not overtake. Furthermore, in both the Old and New Testament God strictly prohibits man stealing; Exodus 21:16. God put the sin of man stealing on the same level as killing your mother or father, and if such were to take place you would be put to death. Nonetheless, as per the current definition of slavery, the Bible nowhere condones it, in fact it wasn’t until the African American slaves started reading the full Bible without censorship when they realized they weren’t supposed to be enslaved.
Now let’s look atheists two favourite verses to try to prove the Bible supports slavery Leviticus 25:44-46
44 As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. 45 Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. 46 You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.
and Exodus 21:20-12
20 If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property.
Now the common argument would be that people could be, one stolen from surrounding nations, two foreigners in the land could also be stolen as slaves, three you can pass them along from your possession to your children’s possession, and four as it says in Exodus you can beat the slaves willy-nilly as long as they don’t die because the slave is his property. Alright, let’s look at it.
I’m going to focus on verse 44 of Leviticus 25 “As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you”. First of all like I said they always interpret the modern definition of slavery into the text, and slavery of that kind quite literally did not exist at the time. Verse 44 when it says “you may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you” is talking about prisoners of war, how do I know? Well first and foremost like I mentioned above God strictly prohibits man stealing, Exodus 21:16, furthermore, I shouldn’t have to go into this part of history as anyone is well aware that groups or nations would fight wars for land and goods and take the inhabitants as prisoners. They were a danger to them overtaking the land again, hurting people, etc suffice to say the Bible was saying that the Israelites could go win or conquer for land from pagan nations and acquire the inhabitants. So with that being said the only interpretation of “you may acquire them from pagan nations around you” is go win the war and acquire them not go steal them. Given that you’ve read all up to this point that it is a sin to steal men and such is punishable by death, and given wars like I described happened all the time there is no other way to interpret this verse. You must interpret what is said in the full context as the author wrote it in belief the reader has read up to the point and understands what phrases mean, as in any other literature the author doesn’t have to reiterate every single phrase with what he is referring to and details of such as the reader has already read it so no God does not say go and steal people and then and enslave them.
Now for 45-46, “Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. 46 You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.” Here the Bible is referring to the Toshab (sojourners) and the ger(alliens) those two groups are people who came to seek refuge for any reason, economic, religious, ran away from or were exiled from their nations, etc. So these groups sold themselves into slavery and it was not a command for them to stay for life rather it was permission on both sides I don’t know what translation you may read but it probably says something along the lines of you can take them as your possession or property. NASB says possession but, possession is clearly derogatory, right? No, much like the word “slave” (ebed) the word translated property is different from the modern use, take for example the word “gay”, 100’s of years ago if you were to pick up a book on being gay it would be completely different from what you would read if you picked one up from 2020. Words change with the culture and of course when you translate a word from one language into another that doesn’t posses a parallel word you run into issues if you decide to separate it and not read context. Nonetheless, a few chapters earlier in 19:33-34 we read that when a Foreigner(stranger) resides among you do not mistreat them love them as yourself. So just a few passages earlier the Israelites are *commanded to love them and not mistreat them, in exodus 23:9 the Israelites are *commanded not to oppress a foreigner as they are foreigners to Egypt themselves, Exodus 22:21 *commanded not to oppress a foreigner, Deuteronomy 27:19 cursed is who withholds justice from a foreigner, Deuteronomy 10:19 God shows no partiality to any persons. There are many *commandments and verses like this throughout the story and the Bible in fact in the next verse the Israelites are told that if a foreigner becomes rich and a Israelite is poor let him sell himself to the foreigner. So if you read this verse simply in isolation and without the pre and future knowledge to come and just used the definition of slavery we learned in school. Then ‘possession’ appears as something wildly different than it is. The translation of possession or property(translators commonly chose between these two) achuzzah is not in reference to someone’s value, rather it is in reference to the value of their work output, this is made clear when we keep reading into Leviticus where skeptics are either unaware or purposely left off that the redemption process was based not on the person as an object but rather on the value of their labor output 25:49-53 simply put it’s similar to football or professional sports players being traded, it’s not based on their value as a person instead we’re referring to the work that they can produce. Just have to look at the context. So God Is not just saying go and steal them and enslave them, no either win a war and take prisoners of the war or take the foreigners as slaves(remember not the modern definition) and love them and you may have them for life If both parties agree. Furthermore, this is taking place right before the year of jubilee, where all debts are erased and everyone goes back to his land, where would the foreigners go if they own no land? In the story you can see therefore God is saying you can, you may stay if you want you know given the obvious problem it’s never *must. Like it is earlier when God tells the Israelites you *must love the. Also, all of this has absolutely nothing to do with race only land. So the only way you can these verses as God supports slavery per the current definition is if we first forgo everything said by the Bible and definitions of words used by the writers and put in new definitions into the text.
Now for Exodus 21:20-21“If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property”. Given that first of all the Israelites are *commanded to love the foreigners (who also may become slaves remember not the current definition), you can’t read into the text that the masters are given permission to beat foreigner slaves mercilessly without killing them because where does it say that? If you keep reading to the next verses, 22-27, the Israelites are told that if they cause a slave to lose his eye he must let him go as compensation. If you read the full context of the passage and verses don’t say go beat the slaves willy-nilly, as you’re going to be punished for that It means if it happens. The eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth principle applies to the slaves as well.
So to reiterate The Bible nowhere condones the modern definition of slavery, manstealing is in fact punishable by death. If you win a war against a pagan nation, you may take the inhabitants as prisoners of that war, you may take foreigners in your land as slaves(remember the definition of slavery at the time the author was writing) and love them, if your hurt for instance by causing one lose his eye you must first let him go and then your gonna lose an eye, you cannot beat them for fun as you’re going to be punished for it, and no none of this has anything to do with nationality.
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All text was written by Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed word the Bible. June 2020
Bible Answers by Bra Kwabena 