It is safe to say that Biblical slavery is not what we see today, or in the last several hundred years.

Biblical slavery was more like indentured servitude and familial...not enslaving family, but including slaves in the family. Interesting to me is the fact that God wanted Israel to be a *refuge* for escaped slaves...not returning them to their masters (Deut 23:15 )

All in all, God put humane sanctions on slavery, forbade cruelty (Ex 22:21) and enslavement of each other, provided a limitation to the years one could be enslaved, put into law that these slaves have rights and are due justice (Deut 24:17).

I love talking to unbelievers about biblical slavery...they start out ripping on the Bible...then they are either silent, or say "Oh...that doesn't sound that bad after all"...or they just ignore the God's written sanctions and still equate biblical slavery with the slave trade/man-stealing of the past few centuries.

I'm not sure I would say slavery has disappeared altogether...people are enslaved in other countries, and even in America I hear of people taking advantage of illegal immigrants for working fields or sex slavery, even.

I think slavery has largely disappeared in the West because of Christianity...it was Christianity in Europe and America that drove the abolition movement. My 2 cents....

Craig,

Your points are duly noted. I agree that when it comes to this issue, the Biblical standard is tame when compared to other Ancient Near Eastern practices and even the seventeenth-nineteenth century phenomenons we understand to be slavery. That is, it is far more humane. Nevertheless, we can't get around the fact that it condones the institution and still views slaves as property.

As for the criticism of unbelievers, it usually stems from an extremely superficial understanding of the biblical texts. In my experience, I have found that the most vicious critics are those who have abandoned the faith. Former evangelicals are the worst - their pastors whose instruction they receive teach them that unless the Bible is literally true in every conceivable respect, as harmless as a children's storybook and whose moral teaching perfectly comports with our modern sensibilities, it is therefore false. When they abandon their faith, they take this dualistic, oversimplified category of thought with them and use it to attack the same Bible they once professed to believe in. Never is there any conception or appreciation of nuance. I guess it's true that evangelicalism contains the seeds of its own destruction.

You are also correct that slavery has not completely disappeared. However, labor-intensive firms, while they may experience exponential initial growth, ultimately fail to compete globally with well-established, capital-intensive firms in the same industry. Sooner or later, they have to upgrade their production facilities or sell out to their competitors.

Furthermore, I agree that slavery did not die out of its own accord. It did take the revolutionary voices of Christians such as Wilberforce to build the coffin and bury the corpse, as it were.

"Nevertheless, we can't get around the fact that it condones the institution and still views slaves as property."

I know what you're saying...I *personally* believe (whether or not that matters), that God spoke so clearly about how slavery should be done in order to show that slavery (as a way of life) is not preferable...it caters to the worst in us...

In the end, I see God's sanctioning of slavery the same as polygamy: Neither were instituted by Him, merely regulated...and biblical history is rife with examples of why neither is preferable (except in the case of thieves that are unable to repay what they stole...I actually believe a biblical form of slavery would be of more use than jail terms...that's a different discussion, though!).

That's how I typically approach the subject when people raise their eyebrows and start to "tsk tsk" Christianity.

I know what you're saying...I *personally* believe (whether or not that matters), that God spoke so clearly about how slavery should be done in order to show that slavery (as a way of life) is not preferable...it caters to the worst in us...

In the end, I see God's sanctioning of slavery the same as polygamy: Neither were instituted by Him, merely regulated...and biblical history is rife with examples of why neither is preferable (except in the case of thieves that are unable to repay what they stole...I actually believe a biblical form of slavery would be of more use than jail terms...that's a different discussion, though!).

This sounds like the same line of reasoning Jesus used with the Pharisees when they asked Him about laws pertaining to divorce - namely, that they were enacted by God because of our sinfulness (in fact, the whole law exists because of sin, but that's for another discussion). It's something I didn't consider when I wrote this post. Thank you for bringing it up. It's a good point.

You just might have a little theonomist in you ;)

Um, I believe all the conditions you cite were also present during American slavery.

The bible clearly condones slavery. The Reformed southern Confederates certainly thought they were conducting biblical slavery. Slavery is wrong. The bible is wrong.

all conditions present during this era were also present in Biblical times, nor does it follow that the rationales were the same. For example, slavery was (in part) the penal system in ancient times as there were no jails. This was not the case in the nineteenth-century South. Again, the article to which I linked discusses this in further detail. To say that both were the same and to represent them as such is a fallacy of composition.

Thirdly, just because Confederate slaveholders believed they were interpreting the Bible correctly, doesn't mean they were right. For example, one will search in vain for any biblical support of their racial theories concerning the alleged inferiority of blacks.

Finally, to conclude from all of this that the Bible "is wrong" is a non sequitur and a loaded statement.