Slavery in the Bible

In the Bible slavery is mentioned many times. Evilbible.com claims that these mentions are the Bible condoning slavery, such as Leviticus 25:44-46 where God allows the Israelites to purchase slaves from foreign countries. Evilbible portrays slavery as "one of the most evil things a person can do, save murder."

While this is true in the modern world, the argument that Evilbible makes comes from the fact that it is comparing what we think of slavery now, namely kidnapping Africans and selling them to do virtually free labor, to what slavery meant in cultural times. Slavery in the cultural context was not based on racism, cheap labor, or sex.

There's another big issue with a two words that begin every single one of these statement. Those words are "when" and "if", primarily "if". The Bible says IF x happens, you should do y. It never says Since I commanded you to do x, you should also do y. Evilbible is inserting words that are not in the text, and therefore changing the meaning into instructions on slavery into God condoning slavery, and it clearly doesn't say that. It's the same idea with the word "when". God knows it's going to happen, so he says uses when. It still never says anything about God commanding slavery, or encouraging slavery, etc.

They cite Exodus 21:2-6 which talks about men choosing to sell their daughters into slavery and how that daughter is to be treated while she is in bondage. What this means within the culture is a man selling his daughter as a BRIDE. She is to be treated as such, whether bought or not, which is what the point of the scripture is.

Also evilbible mentions Exodus 21: 20-21 talking about beating slaves. It says that if a slave lives more than 24 hours after a beating, and then dies, there is no punishment, but if it dies immediately you are to be punished. This verse seems to condone beating at first, but in the time period masters were not to be cruel like we here about in our nation's early history, but beatings were only given when the slave committed a crime.

Lastly, evilbible uses a parable of Jesus in Luke 12:47-48 to try to say that Jesus supported slavery. Again, in ancient culture slavery was an accepted practice, and much different than we know it today. He was acknowledging it and giving guidelines for how a master should act. Also, earlier in the verse it talked about the servant being beaten in these verses, that the servant knew his master would be awhile longer, and so he got drunk and beat the other slaves. Strengthening the point above, slaves were beaten only for CRIMES.

The last thing I would like to point out is the slavery we typically think of now is based on race, but the Bible clearly condemns this. The process of "man-stealing" is how people acquired slaves from Africa in America's early history, and that practices is condemned in the Bible. Exodus 13 says that the reason the Hebrews were enslaved was because they were Hebrews, and the following 10 Plagues should show how God feels about racial slavery. Exodus 21:16 “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death." Sounds like condoning slavery to you?

Sources: www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4896
www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html
www.allaboutworldview.org/slavery-in-the-bible.htm
www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2007/0202.asp