The Bible and the Institution of Slavery

slaverySlavery is an institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. The Holy Bible refers to slaves as a personal property that could be purchased & beaten. In one of Jesus’ parables, he approved beating servants severely, instead of preaching of its abolition (The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. “But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given.” – Luke 12:47-48 NLT).

Christian supporters of slavery argued that the New Testament clearly did not forbid slavery, and did not deem it a sin and today, modern Christian apologetics try to soften it by claiming that a more accurate translation would be as a servant or hired workers rather then slaves despite that the Bible states that one should not regret the gift, for slaves were only half as expensive as hired workers (It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest. – Deuteronomy 15:18 King James Version)

Clearly, according to the Bible, the spirit of the Lord has little to do with liberty. The well-known reverend, Alexander Campbell contended: “there is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.” Only during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century the spread of the ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau and others, and the increase of democratic sentiment led to a growing attack on the slave trade and slavery in general.

Isn’t it odd to think that faulty humans at least tried to abolish slavery compare to an all-knowing, all-good God?

Just read the following verses:

Deuteronomy 15:17, English Standard Version

Lev. 25:44-46, English Standard Version

Exodus 21:20-21

Exodus 21:2-6

Deut. 15:12

Deut. 28:68

Eph. 6:5-7

1 Tim. 6:1

Col. 3:22

Titus 2:9

1 Peter 2:18,21, NIRV

And then read these following quotations from some so-called men of God and other famous people:

“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. 1,2

“There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.” Rev. Alexander Campbell

“The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.” Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina

“The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage.” A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

“The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined.” – United States Senator James Henry Hammond.

The quotation by Jefferson Davis, listed above, reflected the beliefs of many Americans in the 19th century. Slavery was seen as having been “sanctioned in the Bible.” They argued that biblical passages recognized, controlled, and regulated the practice.

The Bible permitted owners to beat their slaves severely, even to the
point of killing them. However, as long as the slave lingered longer than 24 hours before dying of the abuse, the owner was not regarded as having committed a crime, because — after all — the slave was his property.

You won’t find any law in the Ten Commandments that prohibits slavery. There are no prophets of God that condemned it. The twelve Apostles are silent about its abolition.

Jesus could have condemned the practice. He might have done so. But there is no record of him having said anything negative about the institution.

Paul had every opportunity to write in one of his Epistles that human
slavery — the owning of one person as a piece of property by another – is profoundly evil. His letter to Philemon would have been an ideal opportunity to vilify slavery, but he wrote not one word of criticism.

Eventually, the abolitionists gained sufficient power to eradicate slavery in most areas of the world by the end of the 19th century. Slavery was eventually recognized as an extreme evil. But this paradigm shift in understanding came at a cost. Christians wondered why the Bible was so supportive of such an immoral practice. They questioned whether the Bible was entirely reliable. Perhaps there were other practices that it accepted as normal which were profoundly evil — like genocide, torturing prisoners, raping female prisoners of war, executing religious minorities, burning some hookers alive, etc. The innocent faith that Christians had in “the Good Book” was lost — never to be fully regained.

Thanks for secular laws we have today, we now abolished slavery. On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

I just wonder, why such law can’t be found in a book said to be inspired by a just God.

5 comments

  1. Interesting, when ancient secular philosophers described freedome and all their iterations they realized that it was a right. It was a right 600BC with the Persians, It was a right since every slave was once a free man… so they didn't understand that it was wrong… dude you just made jesus look dumb. If he didn't know better than WHAT IS HIS TEACHINGS FOR?

  2. As I understand it, what's mentioned in the bible were Jesus' purported critiques of the religious ruling class and Jewish "technical" practice of their religion, as he was depicted to have debated with religious elders when he was still a kid. In this sense was he a maverick.

    It was impossible for Jesus, or for any Jewish intellectual, to possess the tools of analysis to theorize and/or conclude that the slave system that reigned in and characterized his society was evil/inhuman or "regressive" as we view it today. Economic conditions, e.g., private landownership and advanced agriculture weren't present in Jesus' time that would have spawned critical arguments against slavery and calls to free the slaves and transform them into hired hands for the landed gentry or feudal landlord class. Note also that it took 1800 years after the first bible "print out" that slavery in America was abolished partly because a budding "industrial revolution and manufacturing sector" needed wage-workers and artisans. Clearly, economic necessity and mode of production in any particular era will give birth to new concepts: "Capitalism and laissez-faire, freedom and democracy, imperialism and "benevolent assimilation", etc.

    Back then, Roman occupation of Jesus' land solidified the local economic and slave system out of which huge tax portion went to Rome and a measly left to the king. It is possible that Jesus preached rebellion against Rome and the monarchy but wasn't mentioned in the bible or deliberately ommitted by gospel writers and/or Constantinian editors. But for Jesus to even think of questioning the slave system is quite remote, because a more progressive economic system and mode of production were not yet present or "envisionable, hence, he could have only preached and advised the best "fascistic" methods for slave-owners and good behavior for slaves.

    Engels' "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" may give clues or comprehensive explanation for the evolution of ancient societies and corresponding economic and political systems.

  3. If the bible is filled with forgeries why follow it.

    "I’d also cut Paul and Jesus some slack because slavery was matter of fact in their time, in the same way that Pinoys living this time couldn’t imagine having lived without enjoying the freedoms we have now."

    By the way non-muslim filipinos of the time of magelan didn't have slaves, The alapin (you can find in your Agnocilio book) were dependents and not slaves. it was the muslim filipinos went coastal slave raiding, hence the reason why when legaspi offered to go to Luzon "2,000" joined them and why many visayans don't like they muslim brothers to the south. The slave raiding extended well into the 19th century. 300+ years of slavery kinda doesnt sit well and only forgetting is one positive aspect of our poor education.

    • Yes, that's exactly what I have in mind, too. For every slave-owning civilization in history, there's bound to be another one that doesn't have any notion of slavery at all. Personally, given that what early Filipino society have is a dependency, I have problems with the usage of the word "alipin" (at least, during the Spanish contemporary era) as the word connotes something entirely different. The correct nuance of the terms "aliping saguiguilid" and "aliping namamahay", unfortunately, seems to have been lost to some Filipinos who were supposed to have learned about this in their history classes…I've read some profiles in social networking sites where the profile owner (invariably a call center or a simple corporate slave) would write their profession as "aliping sagigilid" 😛 hehehe

      I don't think the Bible was "forged" (i.e. in the "forgery" sense) because most of the (original) books have had extant copies of each other, it would be very easy to detect which copy was the odd man out. The problem, as I see it, mainly lies in two reasons: #1.the choices of what were left out in selecting the canon of the Bible during Emperor Constantine's time, when he chose a faction of the then-emerging Christian sect over other factions; and #2.the choice of words by the translators of the Bible from the time predating Jerome's Vulgate until the present era. But these are way, way off topic, and are best left discussed in another essay 🙂

  4. Hmm…I don't know about you, but I think that the absence of any denouncement of slavery on the part of Paul and Jesus doesn't necessarily follow that they implicitly condoned it.

    With Jesus, there is a convenient answer: the Gospels were primarily written to attract believers, and there's a lot of dispute as to where Jesus stands on certain issues and as to what the Evangelists left out. And of course, understandably, his early supporters would want to give him positive PR. (Keep in mind that there were over a dozen "Gospels", but under Constantine the Great's rule only four were declared as part of the official canon, as the other "Gospels" were omitted for supposedly theological and political reasons.) I would hazard a guess/hypothesis that Jesus said more about certain topics, but for various reasons those other sayings were cut out (which explains why there are several passages that read like "And he went to so-and-so preaching to the people" but without mentioning what those preachings are).

    As for Paul he wrote most (if not all) of his epistles. (The authorship of many epistles are still in dispute.) Each one was written for a particular purpose or (general) topic, and I don't think there might be any opportunity for Paul to become off-topic given how focused some of the epistles are. Paul's authorsip of the Epistle to Philemon, by the way, is in dispute, and even if it was proven to be written in his own hand, its place in the Pauline canon will surely be a curiosity: it is the only personal epistle in the Letters, and why it was included there in the first place is still a discrepancy waiting to be explained. I also think that little context has been provided as to why the letter was written in the first place, and this is important because we need to find out why Paul mediated in a misunderstanding between the slave-owner and the slave.

    I'd also cut Paul and Jesus some slack because slavery was matter of fact in their time, in the same way that Pinoys living this time couldn't imagine having lived without enjoying the freedoms we have now. I'm sure, if the kind of freethinking we have now already existed during Jesus and Paul's time and prevailed upon them, the Bible would have been written differently, and maybe slave-owning would have not been a contentious issue in history, too. (Or maybe it still would, albeit under a different direction.) Of course, in our time, our forebears have lived through history, and we have learned why slavery (and other failed movements, causes or periods) didn't work. Such notions may have not existed during Jesus' time because have not (yet) learned to think and question their society. Kumbaga, mas lamang lang tayo ngayon kasi mas marami na tayong alam kesa sa mga ninuno natin, mas alam natin kung bakit mali ang pang-aalipin (which is all the more why we should encourage freethought and call for the downfall of dogmatism 😉 )

    Interestingly, even hardcore Fundamentalist Christians or Catholics also have an inclination to impute certain "teachings" that weren't in the Bible, in order to garner support for certain advocacies. Jesus didn't give out any statement with regard to abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and reproductive health, but—lo and behold—those who are against these issues could somehow manage to make it appear that Jesus is also against these teachings. Which is why, when a Pro-life advocate is trying to start a conversation with me and starts quoting the Bible to support their cause, I politely tell them I'm not in a mood to discuss…at the back of my head, I'm sure they haven't read the entire Bible and simply chose random verses to support their beliefs. (So…maybe an interesting counterargument to those anti-RH people is to ask them if they did really read the Bible from cover to cover? 😛 hehehe)

    Hats off, by the way, to your very extensive research into Bible quotes and other quotes as well. It's nice to read essays like this one that usese believer's Scripture against them…should make them think twice about their own beliefs 😛

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