SLAVERY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT (2/5)
As I mentioned in my last post, two arguments are often given to support the claim that Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color:
Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color because Christianity’s book, the Bible, condones slavery.
Christianity has contributed to racism and the oppression of people of color because many white American Christians possessed slaves in the antebellum South and used the Bible to justify it.
Today I will seek to interact with the first claim by looking at the nature of slavery in the Ancient Near East (ANE) and how it was regulated in the Old Testament.
SLAVERY IN THE ANE
Slavery was a prominent and unquestioned feature of ANE society. Slaves, often captured in war, were forced to either farm land, provide labor for building projects, or produce products for their owners.[1] Legally, slaves and their children were regarded as property and as such could be bought, sold, given away, or inherited. In the ANE, slavery was lifelong and emancipation was rare.[2]
SLAVERY IN ISRAEL
As in the rest of the ANE, slavery was taken for granted in ancient Israel. All the patriarchs of Israel—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—had slaves (Gen 14:14; 15:3; 17:12, 13, 23, 27; 26:12–14; 30:3, 9, 43). Throughout Israel’s history, Israelites made slaves of prisoners of war (Gen 34:29; Num 31:7–12; Deut 20:20–14; cf. Isa 14:2), purchased foreign slaves (Exod 12:44; Lev 22:11; cf. Eccl 2:7)[3], and made slaves of thieves unable to pay restitution (Exod 22:1–3; Lev 25:40).[4] The OT law prohibited Israelites from owning other Israelites, but they did have foreign chattel slaves (Lev. 25:44–46). In addition, debt slavery between Israelites was practiced as a way to pay off debts and avoid destitution (Exod 21:2–11; Deut 15:12–18; Lev 25:39–43, 47–54).[5]
OT LAWS ABOUT SLAVERY
Old Testament slavery regulation was shaped by Israel’s identity as a people Yahweh redeemed out of slavery to Egypt to serve him alone (Exod 15:5; 20:2; Lev 25:25; Deut 5:6, 15; 8:14; 15:15; 16:12; 24:18, 22). Israel’s redemption from slavery in Egypt stood behind the prohibition against enslaving Israelites as chattel and shaped the way foreign born chattel slaves and Israelite debt slaves were treated.[6] OT Scholar, Christopher Wright, has argued that “slaves in Israel had more legal rights and protection than in any contemporary society.”[7]
Here are five ways OT slavery regulations differed from ones found in rest of the ANE:
1. Provision for Religious Holidays
Foreign slaves in ancient Israel could join the covenant community of God and participate in the three major religious festivals of Israel: the Passover (Exod 12:44), the Feast of Weeks (Deut 16:11), and the Feast of Booths (Deut 16:14). In addition, slaves in Israel were to observe the Sabbath and rest from their work every week (Exod 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15). Baker has noted: “Among all the ancient Near Eastern laws known to us, only those of Israel give workers the right to free time for worship and recreation.”[8]
2. Protection from Abuse
Although corporal punishment against slaves was allowed throughout the ancient world, the OT contains two case laws designed to mitigate its excesses. These laws addressed beatings that ended in death or permanent injury. The permanently injured slave was to be released (Exodus 21: 26–26); while the murdered slave was to “be avenged” (i.e. put to death; Lev 21:20–21).[9]
In contrast, laws found in the rest of the ANE only regulated how a master ought to be compensated for their loss if someone else assaulted or killed their slaves. How a slaveowner treated their own slaves was left to them.[10]
3. Protection for Fugitives
One law in Deuteronomy commands Israel to offer asylum to fugitive slaves:
“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.” (Deut 23:15-16)
This law protected slaves fleeing cruel masters, and is quite different from other laws in the ANE [11] For example, the Laws of Hammurabi—the ancient law code of Babylon—strictly forbade the practice of harboring fugitive slaves and prescribed the death penalty for those who did.[12] Wright notes that if this OT law meant to include slaves already in Israel, as it seems to, then “it represents a radical undermining of the institution of slavery itself.”[13]
4. Prohibition against Kidnapping
Two OT laws prescribed the death penalty for those participating in the capture of free persons in order to enslave them:
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death” (Exod 21:16).
“If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst” (Deut 24:7).
The law in Exodus condemns the kidnapping of any individual without regard to their age, class, ethnicity or gender (“man” here can refer to a male or female). Notice that the law holds anyone involved with the kidnapping accountable whether they were the original captor or not.[14]
The practice of abduction for slave trafficking was widespread in the ANE, but the covenant God of Israel regards it as “evil” (Deut 24:7).[15] Schirrmacher notes that this law alone “condemns Greek, Roman, Islamic, and the varieties of modern colonial slavery.”[16]
5. Protection from Destitution
Debt slavery in ancient Israel was used to provide a safety net for those who defaulted on a loan or fell into abject poverty. [17] This type of slavery was typically given the time limit of six years, unless those enslaved desired to make the situation more permanent (Exod 21:2–6). In the case of Israelites who lost their land to creditors, the entire family would go into debt slavery until the Jubilee Year when land would be returned to the family or clan of original ownership and all debt slaves were set free (Leviticus 25:8-55). When the time came to set debt slaves free, masters were to send them out with provision:
“And when you let him [your debt slave] go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him” (Deut 15:13–14).
This was all part of an attempt to end the cycle of poverty through accountability and generous provision. Yahweh’s ideal for his people was that there “be no poor” among them (Deut 15:4). Debt slavery was a common practice throughout the ANE, but only Israel placed it within this larger vision.[18]
CONCLUSION
It has been argued that Christianity contributes to racism and the oppression of people of color because Christianity was built on a book that condoned slavery. But when we look deeper at the laws of the OT, we notice several things that go against this claim. First, slavery in the OT was not based on skin color. Second, OT slavery laws were not designed to condone any type of slavery, but rather to regulate an institution well established in the ancient world. Though far from God’s ideal, these laws served to slow the weeds of slavery from spreading and watered seeds that would later flower in abolition.[19] Copan boldly asserts that if the “anti-kidnapping, anti-harm, and anti-slave-return regulations” of the Old Testament had been followed in the antebellum American South then slavery would have never existed in America.[20]
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[1] G. H. Haas, “Slavery” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 779.
[2] David L. Baker, Tight Fists or Open Hands?: Wealth or Poverty in the Old Testament Law (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 119.
[3] Baker, Tight Fists or Open Hands?, 119.
[4] Thomas Schirrmacher, “Slavery in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and Today” in The Humanisation of Slavery in the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 54.
[5] Richard E. Averbeck, “Slavery in the World of the Bible” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Ed. Johnathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber, and John H. Walton (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), 423, 427–429.
[6] Haas, “Slavery,” 778.
[7] Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 333.
[8] David L. Baker, “The Humanisation of Slavery in Old Testament Law” in The Humanisation of Slavery in the Old Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 15.
[9] There is some debate over this interpretation. For a longer discussion of what is meant by “he shall be avenged” in Exodus 21:20, see Baker, Tight Fists or Open Hands, 123–128.
[10] Wright notes, “No other ancient Near Eastern law has been found that holds a master to account for the treatment of his own slaves.” Wright, Old Testament Ethics, 292, cf. 334.
[11] Averbeck, “Slavery in the World of the Bible,” 428.
[12] For more examples of ANE laws regarding fugitive slaves, see Baker, Tight Fists of Open Hands, 130–132.
[13] Wright, Old Testament Ethics, 336.
[14] Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 488.
[15] Eugene H. Merril, Deuteronomy, New American Commentary, vol. 4 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 1994), 319.
[16] Schirrmacher, “Slavery in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and Today,” 52.
[17] Averbeck, “Slavery in the World of the Bible,” 427–428.
[18] Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2011), 128–129.
[19] Wright, Old Testament Ethics, 292–293. Wright notes elsewhere that there was an awareness within the OT that the legality of an action didn’t make it ethical. Wright gives two examples of debt slavery that were technically legal but viewed as unjust by biblical authors (Amos 2:6 and Nehemiah 5:1–32). Wright, Old Testament Ethics, 324.
[20] Copan, Is God a Moral Monster, 132.