The Bible
The Bible supports slavery.
Short answer
This deserves an honest answer. The Old Testament regulated forms of servitude common in the ancient world, and some of those laws are hard to read. But unusually for its time, it made kidnapping people a capital crime, protected runaway slaves and freed injured servants. The New Testament condemns slave traders and teaches that all are "one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), and Christians later led the fight to end slavery.
In simple words: In Bible times, people sometimes worked as servants to pay debts. God gave rules to protect them, and the Bible says stealing people is very wrong. Jesus teaches that everyone is equally loved and valuable.
Response
This is one of the most serious objections, and Christians shouldn't brush it aside. Slaveholders in America quoted the Bible to defend themselves, and that history is real.
Start with what the Old Testament law actually said. Much of it dealt with debt service: a poor Israelite could sell his labor to pay a debt, but "in the seventh year you must set him free," and not "empty-handed" (Deuteronomy 15:12-13). Kidnapping, the very basis of the Atlantic slave trade, was a capital crime: "Whoever kidnaps another man must be put to death, whether he sells him or the man is found in his possession" (Exodus 21:16). A master who killed a servant was to be punished, and an injured servant went free (Exodus 21:20, 26-27). And unusually for the ancient world, Israel was told, "Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you" (Deuteronomy 23:15).
Some passages remain hard. Leviticus 25:44-46 allowed Israelites to buy foreigners as servants for life, and Exodus 21:21 calls a servant the owner's "property." These laws regulated a practice that existed everywhere in the ancient world; they didn't invent it. Speaking about divorce, Jesus explained that Moses permitted some things "because of your hardness of heart. But it was not this way from the beginning" (Matthew 19:8). The Bible's starting point is that every person is made in God's image (Genesis 1:27).
The New Testament goes further. Paul lists "slave traders" among the lawless (1 Timothy 1:10). He tells slaves, "if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity" (1 Corinthians 7:21). He asks Philemon to receive his runaway slave "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother" (Philemon 1:16). And in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free" (Galatians 3:28).
Those seeds grew. In the late 300s, Gregory of Nyssa preached that human beings, made in God's image, cannot rightly be bought and sold. Many leaders of the abolition movement, like William Wilberforce in Britain, were driven by their faith. And Frederick Douglass, who had escaped slavery, drew the line clearly: "I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land."
The question isn't whether people have misused the Bible. They have. It's what the Bible, read as a whole and in the light of Jesus, actually teaches.
Key evidence
- Kidnapping a person was a capital crime in the Law of Moses (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7).
- Hebrew debt servants were to be freed in the seventh year, with provisions (Deuteronomy 15:12-15).
- Runaway slaves were not to be returned to their masters (Deuteronomy 23:15-16).
- The New Testament condemns slave traders (1 Timothy 1:10) and encourages freedom (1 Corinthians 7:21; Philemon 1:16).
- Gregory of Nyssa (late 300s) condemned owning human beings; Christian abolitionists like William Wilberforce led the campaign that ended the British slave trade in 1807.
Bible passages
- Exodus 21:16 Kidnapping punished by death.
- Deuteronomy 23:15-16 Do not return a runaway slave.
- Deuteronomy 15:12-15 Freedom in the seventh year, with provisions.
- 1 Timothy 1:10 Slave traders condemned.
- Philemon 1:15-16 No longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother.
- Galatians 3:28 Neither slave nor free in Christ.
Quotes
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Appendix
Discussion questions
- How was debt service in ancient Israel different from slavery in America?
- Why do you think God regulated some practices instead of ending them all at once?
- What does Douglass mean by the difference between "the Christianity of Christ" and slaveholding Christianity?
Sources & further reading
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Appendix