Does the bible condemn or support slavery?

[Ilovejesus1234]

Is it supported or condemned. I heard that people sold themselves as slaves to others, so that is why in the bible it says there are slaves. But where is the proof of that being how it was back then. Were they slaves by force or option(send proof).

If they are slaves by option, than why are they called slaves? Isn’t that called a worker then?

Where does the bible overall, support and condemn slavery.

 

[Abu]

While God allowed divorce, slavery, and polygamy, none of these were positively commanded by God. For instance, in Exodus 21:2, the Sacred Scripture says: “If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve thee; in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.” Note here that God is not commanding the Israelites to have slaves (servants). Rather, He is merely implicitly permitting them to have slaves. The verse here talks about the regulation of slaves and therefore is an implicit endorsement of slavery. But this is a far cry from God commanding the Israelites to have slaves.

What is referred to in other translations as “slaves” is more correctly rendered as “servants,” as the Douay Bible has it. When we 21st century people think of slaves and slavery, what comes to mind right away is the horrible atrocities committed by white men against blacks in the United States mostly during the 1800’s. But this is not the kind of slavery we read about in the Sacred Scriptures. God asked the Israelites to treat their servants well. Also, as pointed out in Leviticus 22: 10-11, the servants or slaves had some privileges which even some Israelites did not.

In Ephesians 6:5, 8 Paul is often quoted eagerly, but very seldom ver. 9: “Masters, do the same to them, and forbear threatening, knowing that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no, partiality with Him.” This equality before God encouraged the early Church to convert slaves – Pope Callistus (d. 236) had been a slave. With the demise of the Roman empire, the embrace of those in slavery continued and only ordination to the priesthood was denied.

“Priests urged owners to free their slaves, and by the seventh century there was considerable evidence of unions of free men and female slaves. In 649 Clovis II, king of the Franks, married his British slave Clotilda. After his death, Clotilda campaigned to halt the slave trade and to redeem those in slavery. On her death she was declared a saint by the Church.

“By the ninth century Charlemagne opposed slavery and the pope and many influential clerics strove for the freedom of slaves. During the eleventh century both St Wulfstan and St Anselm campaigned to remove the last vestiges of slavery from most of Christendom.”
See: A Matter of Justice By Mario Derksen
catholicapologetics.info/morality/deathpenalty/punishment.htm

It was not until the 15th century, and with growing frequency from the 16th to the 19th centuries, that racial slavery as we know it became a major problem. It is this form of servitude that is called to mind when we think today of the institution of slavery, and is the type which was to prevail in parts of the New World for over four centuries.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Does the Bible condemn or support slavery?

Neither. Slavery was simply a fact of life in the ancient world, (and continues to this day in some countries.) Although Christ did not explicitly condemn slavery, it is very significant that Christians are the ones who put an end to it in most of the world.

 

[MacBP]

Is it supported or condemned. I heard that people sold themselves as slaves to others, so that is why in the bible it says there are slaves. But where is the proof of that being how it was back then. Were they slaves by force or option(send proof).

If they are slaves by option, than why are they called slaves? Isn’t that called a worker then?

Where does the bible overall, support and condemn slavery.

Just to echo others, while it’s true that the Old Testament does regulate the practice of slavery, that in-and-of-itself doesn’t mean that the Bible or God approves of slavery. A good parallel is divorce. Mosaic law had provisions that allowed for divorce, and yet other passages in scripture indicate that God hates (Malachi 2:16) and Jesus indicate that God only allowed divorce for the hardness of Israel’s heart (Mark 10:5).

What does the hardness of heart mean? I’ve often heard it explained that that if the only way to be free of one’s marriage bond was for the death of one’s wife, Israeli men of the Old Testament would simply murder their spouse were it not for divorce. It would seem, here, that God permits a lesser evil in order to prevent a greater one,

This approach would seem to explain many of the darker passages of scripture (e.g. war wives). Taking this approach, it would seem that the institution of slavery is regulated in the Old Testament to mitigate the harm that it could do since God must have known that Israel would not accept the end of slavery. For those who might find this hard to believe, consider how much difficulty Israel had with practices as pointless as idol worship.

What, then, about references to slavery in the New Testament. It would seem that neither Jesus nor Paul tend to focus on slavery because politics and quality of wasn’t a great focus of their ministry. Paul, in particular, felt that the return of Jesus was imminent and so he would have felt that it would make much more sense for slaves to exert all their energy on becoming holy rather than becoming free.

What we gather from these approaches is that just because the Bible contains slavery, and even regulates slavery, doesn’t necessarily mean that it supports it. To gain a understanding about what Judaism/Christianity says about slavery we need to look at the issue in the fullness of revelation. That totality clearly shows us that slavery is incompatible with the Jewish / Christian faith.

 

[EllisWoods]

Although Christ did not explicitly condemn slavery…

Why not?

 

[midori]

Have you ever read Belloc’s “The Servile State”? I keep reading the first eighty pages over myself, trying to process it— but in that first half of the book, it talks about Pagan slavery, medieval slavery, and how the abolition of slavery generally followed as the Church grew and obtained footholds in various cultures, and how the confiscation of Church lands in the Dissolution put Britain back on that path towards the Servile State…

No dogma of the Church pronounced Slavery to be immoral, or the sale and purchase of men to be a sin, or the imposition of compulsory labour upon a Christian to be a contravention of any human right.

The emancipation of Slaves was indeed regarded as a good work by the Faithful: but so was it regarded by the Pagan. It was, on the face of it, a service rendered to one’s fellowmen. The sale of Christians to Pagan masters was abhorrent to the later empire of the Barbarian Invasions, not because slavery itself was condemned, but because it was a sort of treason to civilisation to force men away from Civilisation to Barbarism. In general, you will discover no pronouncement against slavery as an institution, nor any moral definition attacking it, throughout all those early Christian centuries during which it none the less effectively disappears.

The form of its disappearance is well worth noting…

And you can read Belloc to find out how slavery disappeared.

And how it reappeared.

Belloc is arguing against both Socialism and Capitalism. Both paths followed to their end, he asserts, puts one class of people as slaves to another class. An employee might not be slaves-in-name of Wal-mart or McDonald’s, but in all practicality, that’s the life you end up with.

Bringing things back to, say, Jesus and slavery, remember this part from John 8:

31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

33They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

34Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.b ”

Note that Jesus is addressing spiritual slavery and eternal freedom in this context, rather than economic slavery or political freedom. But the whole chapter is pretty thought-provoking.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

Here is a rough history of slavery.

Slavery started as indentured slaves. We read about how Jacob fell in love with Sarah and willingly (indentured) became a slave to Sarah’s father for seven years. This allowed the father to teach Jacob all he knew and to check out to make sure Jacob was a man of integrity & morals (which father biffed & tricked Jacob). So, we can see slavery was he prelude to something like a mortgage (with wife & sheep). People who wanted things greater than they could afford willingly became slaves.

Well, this evolved to how to make it up when someone did something wrong like steeling. People cried that those who committed crimes greater than they could pay be forced into working for them.

In Egypt, Joseph was sold to slavery by his brothers. He was set free eventually and became an advisor for Pharro because he could interpret dreams. This allowed Egypt to save food during a 7 year bounty for a 7 year drought. During the drought, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt for food. There was forgivness. This brought many of the Isrialites to Egypt and they became indentured slaves, and punished slaves. Each generation that passed caused a deeper slavery for these people until it was so unjust their cry as a whole was heard by God. This layering of slavery took 400 years.

The Jewish made boundaries with this. Like resting on the seventh day, each seven years a slave was to be freed: Jubilation years. I believe these laws were formed to avoid the incident of abused slavery in Egypt.

Well people got cozy to this and abused it, again. They would label whole societies as sinners and capture them (Africa). They forgot they Jubilation promise of their ancestors. They forgot the mercy of reforming and they used slaves to further their own interests. Because they labeled a whole race as sinners, this diminished the self esteem of this culture … And how cultures interacted with the race known as sinners. This is the great moral evil that caused the Civil War in the USA.

IMO we have hidden Slavery and are in denial over the workers in China, India, and other countries that treat these people as slaves. Our low cost goods allow us to think we are free of slaves without having to witness the degrading human conditions these people experience. We call them workers (instead of slaves) to make us feel better. We get rock stars to create campaigns of tee shirts to get the. Medical and retirement benefits. A slave by any other name will still suffer the same.

 

[Abu]

midori_#6
Belloc is arguing against both Socialism and Capitalism. Both paths followed to their end, he asserts, puts one class of people as slaves to another class.

Socialism is condemned by the Church, but such a view of Capitalism as an economic system is false. The sneer of “capitalism” came from the Karl Marx of Communism, and St John Paul II in *Centesimus Annus *clearly dislikes the term. Teaching in Centesimus Annus, #42, St John Paul II, in 1991 emphasised that ‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’

 

[10gr8kids]

Slavery started as indentured slaves. We read about how Jacob fell in love with Sarah and willingly (indentured) became a slave to Sarah’s father for seven years

Good point Giggly Giraffe, but I think you meant Rachel.

 

[midori]

Belloc’s definition of capitalism was:

“a society in which private property in land and capital, that is, the ownership and therefore the control of the means of production, is confined to some number of free citizens not large enough to determine the social mass of the State, while the rest have not such property and are therefore proletarian, we call Capitalist; and the method by which wealth is produced in such a society can only be the application of labour, the determining mass of which must necessarily be proletarian, to land and capital, in such fashion that, of the total wealth produced, the Proletariat which labours shall only receive a portion.”

For the viewers at home, Belloc was a proponent of distributivism, which term does not actually appear in his book, or so I’m told by those who have finished it. Distributivism is a very uniquely Catholic economic perspective, with influences by Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” and Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno. Both of which I’ve also not read all the way through.

So under distributivism, means of production is widely spread. So, say for example, prior to Prohibition, there were 8,000 small-time whiskey producers in the US. Nowadays, there are, say, seven major producers in the US. The economic pie was distributed 8,000 ways a hundred years ago, and it’s now split into just a handful of pieces. Distributists encourages small, local production-- like how every town used to have its own sawmills or flour mills. Now, the lumber production pie and the flour milling pies are concentrated in just a handful of major corporations. Belloc was concerned because, under capitalism, the means of production would eventually gravitate towards the few, rather than being spread among the many… like the Microsofts and the Googles of the world.

So, according to Belloc’s views, you get things like the Nike sweatshops or Foxconn or “Nickel and Dimed” or whatever, all as the logical result of concentrating land and capital in the hands of a few, and all of which are quite well on their paths to the ‘servile state’. Under Belloc’s view of How Things Ought To Be, you have the means of production directly owned by the people who are doing the producing, and benefiting directly by their labor. Which requires a certain amount of bootstrappiness, focus, and hard work–

The attempt to escape by a personal effort, whether of thrift, of adventure, or of flattery to a master, from the Servile condition had never even so much of driving power behind it as the attempt many show today to escape from the rank of wage-earners to those of employers.

Capitalism as the private ownership of land and capital is far better than putting land and capital in the hands of a munificent government. But the distributist knows that it’s all going to end back up in the hands of the Vanderbilts and their Railroad Empires, the Carnegies and their Steel Empires, the Gateses and their Microsoft Empires, given enough time. “Too much capitalism means too few capitalists, rather than too many,” as Chesterton put it.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

Good point Giggly Giraffe, but I think you meant Rachel.

I knew I had too much coffe.:coffeeread:

 

[Abu]

Pope Benedict XVI felt it necessary to teach that “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).

“The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly managed. For a long time it was thought that poor peoples should remain at a fixed stage of development, and should be content to receive assistance from the philanthropy of developed peoples. Paul VI strongly opposed this mentality in Populorum Progressio.” (#42).

From Caritas in Veritate we see the core of the Pope Emeritus Benedict’s “redistributist” large-scale meaning: it is through training, entrepreneurship, work and supplying, at competitive prices through trade, what others need in other countries. Additionally we see the importance of sound management – often neglected today.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

2409 Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.

The following are also morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expenses and waste. Willfully damaging private or public property is contrary to the moral law and requires reparation.

 

[dronald]

It’s too bad that I often see this question posted everywhere and yet various responses miss a very important passage.

Yes, while slavery should be judged in the context of its own time; it’s not a very satisfying answer that an all knowing, all powerful God wouldn’t at least explain if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Like polygamy, God did say “I let it happen because you’re all so backwards but I didn’t agree with it.” The same is true with slavery, as Paul writes in his letter:

1 Timothy 1:9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,

10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, **enslavers, { That is, those who take someone captive in order to sell him into slavery } **liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound { Or b healthy b } doctrine

From verse 9 we can see that these regulations were made for sinners who do these things. In verse 10 enslavement is explicitly condemned.

Therefore, slavery is wrong and the Bible teaches this.

 

[Abu]

dronald #16
it’s not a very satisfying answer that an all knowing, all powerful God wouldn’t at least explain if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

The reality from the Sacred Scriptures has been shown in post #2.

As the Christ gave us His Church to teach on everything re faith and morals, He did not teach on the morality of IVF, or cloning, or euthanasia – She does.

catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907fea2.asp
‘….we should be clear about what we mean by slavery and the real story of the Catholic Church’s position on it. As used here, “slavery” is the condition of involuntary servitude in which a human being is regarded as no more than the property of another, as being without basic human rights; in other words, as a thing rather than a person. Under this definition, slavery is intrinsically evil, since no person may legitimately be reduced to the status of a mere thing or object and thus become capable of being the property of another person. This form of slavery can be called “chattel slavery.” (There are other ways in which the term can be used, such as in reference to biblical slavery, where slaves were regarded as property but nonetheless as bearers of human rights.)

‘However, there are circumstances in which a person can justly be compelled to servitude against his will. Prisoners of war or criminals, for example, can justly lose their circumstantial freedom and be forced into servitude, within certain limits. Moreover, people can also “sell” their labor for a period of time (indentured servitude).

‘These forms of servitude or slavery differ in kind from what we are calling chattel slavery. While prisoners of war and criminals can lose their freedom against their will, they do not become mere property of their captors, even when such imprisonment is just. They still possess basic, inalienable human rights and may not justly be subjected to certain forms of punishment – torture, for example.’

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Why not?

I cannot speak for Christ. I will note that Christ was not a social or economic revolutionary. Many Jews looked for a Messiah who would lead a rebellion against the Roman Empire. He was clearly more interested in the spiritual realm.

 

[Tomdstone]

Socialism is condemned by the Church,…’

Cesar Chavez, Edward Kennedy and Dorothy Day were Catholics who advocated the amelioration of the working class. And so did the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum and to a certain extent, Evangelii gaudium.

 

[Tomdstone]

While prisoners of war and criminals can lose their freedom against their will, they do not become mere property of their captors, even when such imprisonment is just. They still possess basic, inalienable human rights and may not justly be subjected to certain forms of punishment – torture, for example.’

Prisoners of war are tortured and murdered all the time. Read for example the book: Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant’s Pursuit of the Truth About Guantanamo Bay by Joseph Hickman.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Is it supported or condemned. I heard that people sold themselves as slaves to others, so that is why in the bible it says there are slaves. But where is the proof of that being how it was back then. Were they slaves by force or option(send proof).

If they are slaves by option, than why are they called slaves? Isn’t that called a worker then?

Where does the bible overall, support and condemn slavery.

As far as “(send proof)”, I can’t.

However, my opinion is that it is neither supported nor condemned but is acknowledged as a fact of life.

Also, back then, I would think that most of slavery was “spoils of war”.

You won the war, you were the masters, you lost the war, you were the slave.

Sometimes it seems as if some people just kind of fell into slavery, isn’t that what it seems happened to the Israelites in Egypt?

First, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt and then he was given quite a high honor with the Pharaoh and then years later the whole group of Israelites became slaves.

Seems to have been a number of ways to become a slave back then, doesn’t it?

As far as, “I heard that people sold themselves as slaves to others”, I don’t know about in biblical times but in fairly recent times, these would have been known as indentured servants with a specific period of time of servitude as opposed to being a slave for life.

One of the things that the bible does say concerning slavery, at least in the New Testament, is that slaves should be treated decently.

And, by the way, what is written in the bible is only about a small portion of the world.