Please don’t take anything I say as condoning slavery, especially the exploitive practices that developed as economies developed beginning after the Dark Ages.
First of all, the economic systems were so imperfect for much of history that slavery was actually a humane way for people to meet their basic ways. The institution of slavery allowed for people to live together in community, have a roof over their heads and eat square meals. There are numerous examples in the Bible that chastised slave owners who mistreated their slaves.
Second, because of the imperfection of the economic system, the alternative to living under the “lordship” of a feudal master was being a beggar for the slave. Additionally, not having slaves meant that that vital goods wouldn’t be produced leading to famine, disease and death.
Third, keep in mind that for much of history, the “slave owner” lived among his people as one of them. Abraham was described as a tribal leader but essentially his “tribe” could be called slaves. Think about what we know about American Indian tribal system. Essentially, the Chief was the “slave owner” who operated for the benefit of his tribe or “slaves.” This analogy is comparable to the manner that existed in Biblical times.
So essentially, the Bible was written within the realities of the economic systems that existed. But the Bible is replete w/ condemnation of the treatment of slaves in a way contrary to their human dignity. As the economic system developed, it first allowed the development of indidividual tenant farmers and fishermen who independently procured food stuffs which necessitated the need for specialized “shop keepers” (bakers, shoe makers, and tailors) and artisans (artists, masons, and the “profession” of our Lord, carpenters) which led to the need for people to organize a system of capital (bankers). This all lead to the development of efficient education systems. As people became educated and more self-sufficient, slavery became increasingly exploitive and thus increasingly contrary to God-given human dignity.
The evolving “rightness/wrongness” of slavery is also applicable to the death penalty in that in a tribal environment without organized criminal justice systems what we’d now call “vigilante justice” was acceptable and to the war in that there were less developed means for inter-tribal justice but now except in the case of ending human suffering (Kosovo, Iraq**, our non-intervention in Rwanda and now the Sudan) nearly all war is unjust.
- This is also why usury/interest was condemned in the Bible as the practice was exploitive as a means to keep people in slavery rather than allowing them to earn their freedom. But as the economy developed, it became a free and consensual transaction between free and independant people.
** This is why I never liked the WMD argument for Iraq but support it for human dignity reasons and will not support a preemptive military strike against Iran where the human atrocities are mild in comparison to Iraq.
From the Catechism: The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,*** the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner.
*** From Exodus, Chapter 3:
1 Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
2 There an angel of the LORD appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.
3 So Moses decided, “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”
4 When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.”
5 God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
6 3 I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
7 But the LORD said, “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.
8 Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the country of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
9 So indeed the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them.
10 Come, now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
