The Bible and slavery - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

contains several references to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. The Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

nowhere explicitly condemns slavery, but allowed a regulated practice of it, especially under the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

, but also in the New Testament. Male Israelite slaves were to be offered release after six years of service, with some stipulations. Foreign slaves and their posterity became the perpetual property of the owner's family, except in the case of certain injuries.

The regulation of slavery in the Bible, and absence of outright condemnation of it as an institution, was later used to justify slavery by its defenders. Abolitionists have also used text from the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

to argue for the manumission

Manumission

Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...

of slaves.

Enslavement

In the Ancient Near East, captives obtained through warfare were often compelled to become slaves, and this was seen by the law code of Deuteronomy

Deuteronomic Code

The Deuteronomic Code is the name given by academics to the law code within the Book of Deuteronomy. It contains "a variety of topics including religious ceremonies and ritual purity, civil and criminal law, and the conduct of war"...

as a legitimate form of enslavement, as long as Israelites were not among the victims; the Deuteronomic Code institutes the death penalty for the crime of kidnapping Israelites to enslave them.

Yet the Israelites did not get involved in distant or large scale wars, and apparently capture was not a significant source of slaves. The Holiness Code

Holiness code

The Holiness Code is a term used in biblical criticism to refer to Leviticus 17-26, and is so called due to its highly repeated use of the word Holy. It has no special traditional religious significance and traditional Jews and Christians do not regard it as having any distinction from any other...

of Leviticus

Leviticus

The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....

explicitly allows participation in the slave trade, with non-Israelite residents who had been sold into slavery being regarded as a type of property

Property

Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

that could be inherited

Inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...

. Foreign residents were included in this permission, and were allowed to own Israelite slaves.

It was also possible to be born into slavery. If a male Israelite slave had been given a wife by his owner, then the wife and any children which had resulted from the union would remain the property of his former owner, according to the Covenant Code. However, the text does not specify the wife's nationality, and Baptist theologian John Gill

John Gill (theologian)

John Gill was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who held to a firm Calvinistic soteriology. Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, he attended Kettering Grammar School where he mastered the Latin classics and learned Greek by age 11...

(1697–1771), referenced Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra

David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra

Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra , also called Radbaz after the initials of his name, Rabbi David iBn Zimra, was an early Acharon of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who was a leading posek, rosh yeshiva, chief rabbi, and author of more than 3,000 responsa as well as several scholarly...

(Jarchi) as holding that this refers to marriage to a Canaan

Canaan

Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...

ite woman, as a concubine. 18th century theologian Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke was a British Methodist theologian and Biblical scholar, born in the townland of Moybeg Kirley near Tobermore in Ireland...

stated that there was an Israelite law instructing that if an Israelite slave "had children by a Canannitish woman, those children must be considered as Canaanitish only, and might be sold and bought, and serve for ever."

Debt slavery

Like that of the Ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt, ancient Iran The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia...

, the legal systems of the Israelites divided 'slaves' into different categories: "In determining who should benefit from their intervention, the legal systems drew two important distinctions: between debt and chattel slaves, and between native and foreign slaves. The authorities intervened first and foremost to protect the former category of each--citizens who had fallen on hard times and had been forced into slavery by debt or famine."

Poverty, and more general lack of economic security, compelled some people to enter debt bondage

Debt bondage

Debt bondage is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined...

. Furthermore, in the ancient Near East, wives and (non-adult) children were often viewed as property, and were sometimes sold into slavery by the husband/father for financial reasons. Evidence of this viewpoint is found in the Code of Hammurabi

Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC . It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay...

, which permits debtors to sell their wives and children into temporary slavery, lasting a maximum of three years; the Holiness Code also exhibits this, allowing foreign residents to sell their own children and families to Israelites, although no limitation is placed on the duration of such slavery.

The earlier Covenant Code instructs that if a thief is caught after sunrise

Sunrise

Sunrise is the instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears above the horizon in the east. Sunrise should not be confused with dawn, which is the point at which the sky begins to lighten, some time before the sun itself appears, ending twilight...

, and is unable to make restitution for the theft, then the thief should be enslaved. The Books of Kings

Books of Kings

The Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...

instructs that the children of a deceased debtor

Debtor

A debtor is an entity that owes a debt to someone else. The entity may be an individual, a firm, a government, a company or other legal person. The counterparty is called a creditor...

may be forced into slavery to pay off outstanding debts; similarly it is evident from the Book of Isaiah

Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...

that, in the Kingdom of Judah

Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....

, (living) debtors could be forced to sell their children into slavery to pay the creditor

Creditor

A creditor is a party that has a claim to the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some property or service to the second party under the assumption that the second party will return an equivalent property or...

Sexual and conjugal slavery

Sexual slavery

Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...

, or being sold to be a wife, was common in the ancient world. While no sanction was made in the Old Testament for sexual activity outside marriage, the taking of concubines as secondary wives was allowed, and a father could sell his unmarried daughters into servitude, with the expectation or understanding that the master or his son would eventually marry her. It is understood by Jewish and Christian commentators that this referred to the sale of a daughter, who "is not arrived to the age of twelve years and a day, and this through poverty."

"And if a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom

Convention (norm)

A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....

of daughters. If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food

Food

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

, her clothing

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

, and her marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money

Money

Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...

The code also instructs that the woman was to be allowed to be redeemed if the man broke his betrothal to her. If a female slave was betrothed to the master's son, then she had to be treated as a normal

Convention (norm)

A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....

daughter. If she became one of his other wives, then he was required to continue supplying the same amounts of food, clothing, and conjugal rights

Marriage

to her. The code states that failure to comply with these regulations would automatically grant free manumission

Manumission

to the enslaved woman, while all Israelite slaves were to be treated as hired servants.

The betrothal clause seems to have provided an exception to the law of release in (cf. ), in which both male and female Israelite servants were to be given release in the seventh year.

The penalty if an Israelite engaged in sexual activity with an unredeemed female slave who was betrothed was that of scourging

Scourge

A scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification on the back.-Description:...

, with Jewish tradition seeing this as only referring to the slave, (versus , where both parties were stoned, being free persons), as well as the man confessing his guilt and the priest making atonement for his sin.

Women captured by Israelite armies could be adopted forcibly as wives, but first they had to have their heads shaved and undergo a period of mourning. However, "if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not deal with her as a slave, because thou hast humbled her."

Manumission

In a parallel with the Sabbatical Year

Sabbatical year

Sabbatical or a sabbatical is a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year. The concept of sabbatical has a source in shmita, described several places in the Bible...

system, the Covenant Code offers automatic manumission

Manumission

of male Israelite slaves, after they have worked for six years; this excludes non-Israelite slaves, and specifically excludes Israelite daughters, who were sold into slavery by their father, from such automatic seventh-year manumission. Such were bought to be betrothed to the owner, or his son, and if that had not been done, they were to be allowed to be redeemed. If the marriage took place, they were to be set free if her husband was negligent in his basic marital obligations. The later Deuteronomic Code is seen by some to contradict elements of this instruction, in extending automatic seventh year manumission to both sexes. Others see the latter as a general decree, with the aspect of female manumission not being applicable within the specific circumstances of the former case, with marriage taking the place of manumission.

The Deuteronomic Code also extends the seventh-year manumission rule by instructing that Israelite slaves freed in this way should be given livestock, grain, and wine, as a parting gift; the literal meaning of the verb used, at this point in the text, for giving this gift seems to be hang round the neck. In Jewish tradition, the identified gifts were regarded as merely symbolic, representing a gift of produce rather than of money or clothing; many Jewish scholars estimated that the value of the three listed products was about 30 shekel

Shekel

Shekel , is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency. The first usage is from Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Initially, it may have referred to a weight of barley...

s, so the gift gradually came to be standardised as produce worth this fixed value. The Bible states that one should not regret the gift, for slaves were only half as expensive as hired workers; Nachmanides enumerates this as a command rather than merely as a piece of advice.

Despite these commandments, Israelite slaves were kept longer than permitted, compelling Yahweh to destroy the Kingdom of Judah

Kingdom of Judah

as punishment. The text also describes Jeremiah

Jeremiah

Jeremiah Hebrew：יִרְמְיָה , Modern Hebrew:Yirməyāhū, IPA: jirməˈjaːhu, Tiberian:Yirmĭyahu, Greek:Ἰερεμίας), meaning "Yahweh exalts", or called the "Weeping prophet" was one of the main prophets of the Hebrew Bible...

demanding that Zedekiah

Zedekiah

Zedekiah or Tzidkiyahu was the last king of Judah before the destruction of the kingdom by Babylon. He was installed as king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, after a siege of Jerusalem to succeed his nephew, Jeconiah, who was overthrown as king after a reign of only three months and...

manumit

Manumission

all Israelite slaves. The Holiness Code does not mention seventh-year manumission; instead it only instructs that debt-slaves, and Israelite slaves owned by foreign residents, should be freed during the national Jubilee

Jubilee (Biblical)

The Jubilee year is the year at the end of seven cycles of Sabbatical years , and according to Biblical regulations had a special impact on the ownership and management of land in the territory of the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah; there is some debate whether it was the 49th year The Jubilee...

(occurring either every 49 or every 50 years, depending on interpretation).

While many commentators see the Holiness Code regulations as supplementing the prior legislation mandating manumission in the seventh year, the otherwise potentially long wait until the Jubilee was somewhat alleviated by the Holiness Code, with the instruction that slaves should be allowed to buy their freedom by paying an amount equal to the total wages of a hired servant over the entire period remaining until the next Jubilee (this could be up to 49 years-worth of wages; in 2009, this would roughly equate with £750,000 sterling). Blood relatives of the slave were also allowed to buy the slave's freedom, and this became regarded as a duty to be carried out by the next of kin

Next of kin

Next of kin is a term with many interpretations depending on the jurisdiction being referred to. In some jurisdictions, such as the United States, it is used to describe a person's closest living blood relative or relatives...

(Hebrew: Go'el).

Permanent enslavement

In contrast to the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy, which contain no explicit description of manumission for slaves of non-Israelite origin, the Holiness Code states that non-Israelite slaves shall serve forever. Even the master's death did not free such slaves - they were to be treated as inheritable property.

As for Israelite slaves, the Covenant Code allows them to voluntarily renounce their seventh-year manumission and become permanent slaves (literally being slaves forever). The Covenant Code rules require that the slaves confirmed this desire at either a religious sanctuary, or in the presence of the household gods

Teraphim

Teraphim is a Hebrew word from the Bible, found only in the plural, of uncertain etymology. Despite being plural, Teraphim may refer to singular objects, using the Hebrew plural of excellence...

(the Masoretic Text

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

and Septuagint both literally say [at] the gods, although a few English translations substitute in the presence of Judges); having done this, slaves were then to have an awl driven through their ear into a doorpost by their master. This ritual was common throughout the Ancient Near East, being practiced by Mesopotamians, Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

ns, and Arabs; in the Semitic world, the ear symbolised obedience (much as the heart symbolises emotion, in the modern western world), and a pierced earlobe

Earlobe

The human earlobe is composed of tough areolar and adipose connective tissues, lacking the firmness and elasticity of the rest of the pinna. Since the earlobe does not contain cartilage it has a large blood supply and may help to warm the ears and maintain balance. However earlobes are not...

signified servitude. It is possible that the use of a doorpost is bowdlerisation of an earlier, less secular, ritual.

Working conditions

The Ethical Decalogue makes clear that honouring the Shabbat

Shabbat

Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

was expected of slaves, not just their masters. The later Deuteronomic code, having repeated the Shabbat requirement, also instructs that slaves should be allowed to celebrate the Sukkot

Sukkot

Sukkot is a Biblical holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei . It is one of the three biblically mandated festivals Shalosh regalim on which Hebrews were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.The holiday lasts seven days...

festival.

Although the Holiness Code instructs that during the Sabbatical Year

Sabbatical year

Sabbatical or a sabbatical is a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year. The concept of sabbatical has a source in shmita, described several places in the Bible...

, slaves and their masters should eat food which the land yields, without being farmed, it does not explicitly forbid the slaves from the farming itself, despite restricting their masters from doing so, and neither does it grant slaves any other additional rest from work during these years.

Indeed, unlike the other law codes, the Holiness Code does not mention explicit occasions of respite from toil, instead simply giving the vague instruction that Israelite slaves should not to be compelled to work with rigour; Maimonides

Maimonides

Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

argues that this was to be interpreted as forbidding open-ended work (such as keep doing that until I come back), and that disciplinary action was not to include instructing the slave to perform otherwise pointless work.

A special case is that of the debtor who sells himself as a slave to his creditor; the Holiness Code instructs that in this situation, the debtor must not be made to do the work of slaves, but must instead be treated the same as a hired servant. In Jewish tradition, this was taken to mean that the debtor should not be instructed to do humiliating work - which only slaves would do - and that the debtor should be asked to perform the craft(s) which they usually did before they had been enslaved, if it is realistic to do so.

Injury and compensation

The earlier Covenant Code

Covenant Code

The Covenant Code, or alternatively Book of the Covenant, is the name given by academics to a text appearing in the Torah at Exodus - . Biblically, the text is the second of the law codes given to Moses by God at Mount Sinai...

provides a potentially more valuable and direct form of relief, namely a degree of protection for the slave's person (their body and its health) itself. This codification extends the basic lex talionis (....eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth...), to compel that when slaves are significantly injured by their masters, manumission is to be the compensation given; the canonical examples mentioned are the knocking out of an eye or a tooth. This resembles the earlier Code of Hammurabi, which instructs that when an injury is done to a social inferior, monetary compensation should be made, instead of carrying out the basic lex talionis; Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

indicates that by his time it was acceptable for a fine to be paid to the slave, instead of manumitting them, if the slave agreed. Nachmanides argued that it was a biblically commanded duty to liberate a slave who had been harmed in this way

The Hittite Laws and the Code of Hammurabi both insist that if a slave is harmed by a 3rd party, the 3rd party must financially compensate the owner. In the Covenant Code, if an ox gores a slave, the ox owner must pay the servant's master a 30 shekel

Shekel

Shekel , is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency. The first usage is from Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Initially, it may have referred to a weight of barley...

fine; in contrast, if an ox gores a free man, the owner may be put to death.

The Covenant Code clearly institutes the death penalty for beating a free man to death; in contrast, beating a slave to death was to be avenged only if the slave does not survive for one or two days after the beating. Abraham ben Nathan of Lunel

Abraham ben Nathan

Abraham ben Nathan Ha-Yarhi was a Provençal rabbi and scholar born in the second half of the twelfth century, probably at Lunel, Languedoc, where he also received his education...

, a 12th century Provençal scholar

Hachmei Provence

The term Hachmei Provence refers to the Jewish rabbis of Provence, a province in southern France, which was a great Torah center in the times of the Tosafists...

, Targum

Targum

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...

, and Maimonides argue that avenged implies the death penalty, but more recent scholars view it as probably describing a lesser punishment. A number of modern Protestant bible versions (such as the New Living Translation, New International Version, New Century Version, etc.) translate the survival for one or two days as referring to a full and speedy recovery, rather than to a lingering death, as favoured by other recent and respected versions (such as the New Revised Standard Version, and New American Bible).

The Deuteronomic Code forbids people from handing over fugitive slaves to their masters or oppressing

Oppression

Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and...

them, and instructs that these fugitives should be allowed to reside where they wish. Although a literal reading would indicate that this applies to slaves of all nationalities and locations, the Mishnah construes it to have the much narrower application to just those slaves who flee from outside Israelite territory into it.

Slavery in the New Testament

In several Pauline epistles

Pauline epistles

The Pauline epistles, Epistles of Paul, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen New Testament books which have the name Paul as the first word, hence claiming authorship by Paul the Apostle. Among these letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents...

, and the First Epistle of Peter

First Epistle of Peter

The First Epistle of Peter, usually referred to simply as First Peter and often written 1 Peter, is a book of the New Testament. The author claims to be Saint Peter the apostle, and the epistle was traditionally held to have been written during his time as bishop of Rome or Bishop of Antioch,...

, slaves are admonished to obey their masters, as to the Lord, and not to men; however Masters were told to serve their slaves "in the same way" and "even better" as "brothers", to not threaten them as God is their Master as well.
The Epistle to Philemon

Epistle to Philemon

Paul's Epistle to Philemon, usually referred to simply as Philemon, is a prison letter to Philemon from Paul of Tarsus. Philemon was a leader in the Colossian church. This letter, which is one of the books of the New Testament, deals with forgiveness.Philemon was a wealthy Christian of the house...

has become an important text in regard to slavery; it was used by pro-slavery advocates as well as by abolitionists. In the epistle, Paul

Paul of Tarsus

Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...

writes that he is returning Onesimus, a fugitive slave, back to his master Philemon; however, Paul also entreats Philemon to regard Onesimus as a beloved brother in Christ, rather than as a slave.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Enslavement

Debt slavery

Sexual and conjugal slavery

Manumission

Permanent enslavement

Working conditions

Injury and compensation

Slavery in the New Testament

See also

External links