By Davis Carlton
Read Part One here.
It seems like many Christian apologists try to deflect atheist accusations like the Bible’s endorsement of slavery by arguing that “Biblical slavery” was nothing like the horrific slavery practiced in North America and the American South in particular. I think that this is the wrong approach. There is no compelling reason to view Biblical slavery as substantially different from slavery as it was practiced in America. Atheists aren’t impressed by this argument because they will always point out that slaves were allowed to be corporally punished or beaten in Exodus 21. Another approach is to assert that Christians are no longer “under the law,” and this is understood to mean that the precepts of the Mosaic Law are no longer binding in any sense. This argument fails because slavery is also permitted by the Apostles in the New Testament, and the Bible teaches that God does not change in His attributes and character. The Mosaic Law accurately reflects God’s character so Christians ought to defend the character of God as it is revealed in the Law.
In defending the Law it is worth noting that while the Law never promotes or allows sin, many of the precepts of the Law are intended to restrain sin in circumstances that would not have arisen in a world that was not tainted with sin. This would apply to any laws regulating practices like divorce, polygamy, and Israel’s conduct in war since these practices would not occur in a world without sin.1 It’s fair to say that the passages from Exodus 21 and Numbers 31 that Alex O’Connor mentions in his debate with Jonathan McLatchie fall into this category. In this sense they do not represent some overriding purpose or intention of God for society but act to restrain evil in less than ideal circumstances.
Correcting Atheist Misinformation on the Bible
There are several problems with atheist “exegesis” of Biblical morality. Atheists frequently bring up passages like the ones mentioned by Alex in this debate to argue that God doesn’t meet any reasonable standard of justice. The standard operating procedure is to grossly misrepresent what the Bible actually teaches and play on the emotions of those who are conditioned to think of slavery or patriarchy as intrinsically evil. Alex alleges that Numbers 31 allowed the Israelites to take “sex slaves” from among the conquered women of Midian. There are several reasons why this is false. Christian apologist Glenn Miller2 has written an excellent article summarizing the context of what transpires during Israel’s conquest of Midian. There is no reason to rehash all of Miller’s points, but a brief summary follows:
Israel is provoked to committing fornication and adultery by the women of Midian with the agreement of the entire tribe in order to persuade the men of Israel to forsake God and commit idolatry. Israel is punished for their willing participation, but God also punishes this group of Midianites for their treachery. The women captured were likely not taken for sexual purposes at all. Many were taken to work as household servants like the Israelite maiden captured by the Syrians (2 Ki. 5:2). The notion that women taken from conquered nations or tribes were ever taken as “sex slaves” by the Israelites is vicious slander. The Law specifically forbade this, and required that these women would have to married after a period of mourning for the loss of their family with the specific caveat that she could not be sold and if she were divorced she was to be set at liberty (Deut. 21:10-14).
The treatment of slaves and masters in Exodus 21 is also misrepresented. The overall context makes it clear that the master who murdered a slave would be executed while a slave who suffered permanent physical damage would be allowed to go free. Slavery was highly regulated by the Mosaic Law. Fellow Hebrews3 were only consigned to servitude if they had debts that could not be paid back, and they were automatically freed in the seventh year of their servitude (Ex. 21:2-4), while non-Hebrew foreigners could be held in perpetuity (Lev. 25:44-46). Their master would be the one to whom their debt was owed, so if a slave was released under the provision mentioned in Ex. 21 then this would potentially result in a great financial loss for the master in terms of the cancellation of debt.
We must also recognize that the punishments described in Ex. 21 are only civil punishments prescribed for certain acts of cruelty such as murder or maiming. The fact that a master was not civilly punished for beating a slave provided that the slave fully recovered within a couple of days doesn’t mean that the master is cleared. Perhaps the master was still in the wrong or perhaps the slave deserved to be so chastised. God will sort everything out at the final judgment, but the point is that these rules only cover civil regulations. Clearly slaves are not left in a state of helplessness but are afforded protection from abuse.
The real issue is whether the Bible’s regulation of slavery can be defended. Many Christian apologists treat the issue of slavery in the Bible as a liability to be explained away. Recent generations have been thoroughly indoctrinated in egalitarian thinking which anathematizes any relationship that involves concrete authority. This must be unlearned, but once it is we can see that what the Bible teaches is actually beneficial to both slaves and masters. Slaves are commanded to obey their masters as they serve the Lord (Col. 3:22), and masters are commanded to treat slaves with justice with the knowledge that they have a Master in Heaven (Col. 4:1).
The Bible’s teachings on slavery are given within the context of debt regulation. The purpose of slavery was to allow the Israelites an opportunity to work off debt that they had incurred without sinking into a position where they could no longer care at all for their wife and children. Men who carelessly ran up debts would be restrained from going too far, and would likely emerge from their experience as better men. Likewise, the Law also condemned practices that are currently accepted in the modern world that promote debt such as loaning at interest (usury) and currency debasement (unjust weights and measures).
It’s easy to condemn the Bible’s teaching on slavery without critically evaluating how our modern practices harm society. Post-Christian Western countries have outlawed the practice of slavery, but our open-borders policies have been used to promote human trafficking which is far worse than the kind of slavery sanctioned by the Bible. We also import en masse cheap goods manufactured in China which are produced by de facto slaves working in terrible conditions. We allow people to go into mountains of consumer debt which artificially drives up demand and consequently cost for everyone. Those in debt can frequently have their debt cancelled by sectioning off business related debt in limited liability corporations or have their debt simply cancelled through bankruptcy.
Is this just? Practices such as lending at interest and currency devaluation make debt an almost ubiquitous reality and enslaving future generations to the consequences of the debt incurred by their ancestors. Can we really pretend that being trillions in debt will have no consequences? Are we to believe that we are morally superior to the Law revealed through Moses just because we outlawed de jure slavery while holding almost everyone in a state of perpetual de facto slavery?
One of the major purposes of the Law was to show the nations God’s wisdom in how society ought to be ordered (Deut. 4:5-7). God is perfectly righteous (Ps. 89:14) and shows no unjust partiality (Acts 10:34; Col. 3:25). Most people would have taken slavery as a given reality of human experience during this life. The Biblical regulations of slavery would have demonstrated God’s concern for the welfare for those in vulnerable circumstances. A person in slavery would have been far better off than their counterparts would have been, whether they were a fellow Hebrew or a foreigner. Would I want to be a slave? No. I doubt anyone would, but the purpose of the Law isn’t to create a utopia but to bring about justice. Life is hard for most people and difficult circumstances cannot simply be legislated out of existence. Christians should not run away from the Biblical regulations of slavery because many modern people have bought into hypocritical rhetoric about the evils of Christian Europe. Instead we should defend the Law of the Bible as God’s wise revelation given to promote responsibility and protect the vulnerable.
1 It’s possible to argue that polygamy would not fall into this category, but that is beyond the purview of this discussion. I touch on non-normative practices like divorce and polygamy in a little more detail in my article: Divorce, Miscegenation, and Polygamy: A Comparative Approach To Their Morality.
2 I’m pretty sure that this Glenn Miller is not the big band director, but he may have worn many hats.
3 The word Hebrew is not synonymous with Israelite. It encompasses all the nations descended from the patriarch Eber. It included the Israelites and most of their near neighbors.
Thanks for the footnote on “Hebrew” Vs. “Israelite”. I’ve often wondered about the “name game” going on here: “Israel”, “Hebrew”, “Judah”, “Judean”, “Jew”, “Judaism”.
Since I started studying the Bible, I’ve had a suspicion that the names were either referring to different groups, or the change of names represented some qualitative change within the group.
So all Israelites are Hebrews, but not all Hebrews are Israelites, correct?
I’ve noticed that Christ never “admits” to being a “Jew” nor “The King of the Jews”. He always replies, “Thou sayest it”, “My Kingdom is not of this world”, etc. Matthew 27:37 calls the “King of the Jews” inscription placed above Christ’s head on the cross his “accusation”. Christ says in Matthew 15:24, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He doesn’t say “I am sent to the lost sheep of the Jews”. So when does the word “Jew” first appear in Scripture, 1 Kings, if I’m not mistaken? Could some qualitative change have taken place in the tribe by that point? Was that after the Babylonian captivity? (Still working on getting chronology memorized.) Obviously, the nation of Israel was falling into idolatry mere moments after Moses delivered God’s laws to them. I wonder if the moniker “Jew” came about after some period of severe apostasy and adoption of pagan practices. By the time we get to the New Testament, it is fairly obvious there is an adversarial relationship between the Jews (particularly the Pharisees, Sadducees,and scribes) and Christ. The fact that they were no longer of the same spiritual family is obvious.
As the direct descendant of David, was Christ of the same genetic lineage as the Jews of the New Testament? Possibly? Probably? Are the people who practice Judaism today of the same genetic lineage as the Jews of the New Testament? They are certainly of the same spiritual family. But there is that Khazar theory, and Ashkenaz was a descendant of Japeth, not Shem. Additionally, it is clear that Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were neither “Jews” (since the notion of a Jew only came into existence long after their deaths), nor even “Israelites”, since Jacob/Israel was the first patriarch of the “Children of Israel”. These patriarchs were “proto-Christians”, or simply “men of God”. They did not practice “Judaism”. They did not even have the Mosaic Law yet. More succinctly, “Abraham was not a Jew”.