You Asked: Does the Bible Condone Slavery?

We respond to a listener’s question and wrestle with the fact that the Old Testament did not abolish slavery, but actually endorsed the slavery of foreigners. While most of the slavery described in the Old Testament was debt-servanthood, and the Old Testament law provided protections and limitations around the practice that included the forgiveness of all debts and the six-year redemption of those in bond servanthood, the Old Testament also endorsed the chattel slavery of neighboring countries and foreigners living temporarily in the land of Israel.  We discuss how the serious scholarship on this subject dispenses with many of the arguments advanced by Christian apologists, while discussing our honest confusion over the fact that the Bible does not contain an outright abolition of slavery.  At the same time, we point out that it was the very teachings of Jesus and the New Testament writers, built on the legacy of the Old Testament law, that laid the foundation for our modern views related to human rights, anti-discrimination, equality, and dignity of all persons, and that ultimately to the abolition of slavery. Our goal in this episode is to demonstrate our willingness to study deeply, wrestle with troubling issues honestly, and still faithfully follow Jesus by trusting that – while our knowledge of God will always be incomplete – we are ultimately putting our trust in the person of Jesus, and not in having certainty about the answer to every question we may ever pose about the Bible.