Jackson Wheat

February 15, 2015

Slavery in the Bible

A common argument against the absolute morality of Yahweh is the use of slavery in the
Bible. When confronted with this argument, creationists such as Ken Ham will squirm and look
for ways to get around the obvious endorsement of slavery in his holy book. So, Mr. Ham had
creationists Bodie Hodge and Paul Taylor write a paper on the Answers in Genesis website that
rationalizes, which means find reasons other than the truth for, slavery in the Bible. The
creationists begin by translating and incorrectly defining the word slave from the Bible; they
say that slave in the Bible is translated to bondservant, and they claim that that means the slaves
were given wages. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines bondservant as, One bound to
service without wages; also: slave. The AiG page then says the Bible does not support using
bondservants, althought the word is defined as slave, and that the slaves were paid something, it
cites Colossians 4:1. That passage, Colossians 4:1-3, says, Masters, provide your slaves with
what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. Devote
yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a
door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.
So the Bible says does not say pay the slaves, and it does not define what is right and fair. It
does, however, say to make the slaves pray. Where does the Bible say anything about slave
wages?
The paper then deflects to Leviticus 25, which says in Leviticus 25:35-46 regarding
slavery, If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves
among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among
you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue
to live among you. You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit. I am
the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your
God. If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them
work as slaves. They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they
are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee [every fiftieth year]. Then they and their children
are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their
ancestors. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be
sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. Your male and female slaves
are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy
some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your
country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as
inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow
Israelites ruthlessly. This passage makes very clear the importance of Israelites over everyone
else, while permitting the slavery of other people. Still waiting for that part that says slavery is
immoral and not endorsed by the Bible.
The paper also speaks of how the Bible says we are all slaves to sins, and that is taken
allegorically. But wait, how does one distinguish between what is allegorical and what is literal?
Is Answers in Genesis not an organization that takes the Bible as the literal word of God? The
paper next goes to 1 Timothy 1:10 which says, Knowing this, that the law is not made for a
righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy

and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for
whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for
perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to
the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. Okay, so the Bible
says that menstealers, not slavers, are sinners, but where does it say that slavery is immoral or
not endorsed by the Bible? The paper refers to Exodus 21:16, And he that stealeth a man, and
selleth him, or if he [the stolen man] be found in his [the man-stealer] hand, he [?] shall surely be
put to death. This is a very ambiguous quote; the final he could be taken as the stolen man or
the man-stealer because both are subjects of the sentence and the final he is the reference to the
subject.
But the paper also says that Moses was not a fan of slaveryexcept he was: Exodus 21:
2-11, If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh
year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave
and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married
before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife
while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh
year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare,
'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his
master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly
pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. When a man
sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she
does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is
not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if
the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl,
but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he
may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of
these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. Still waiting
Of course, the creationists try to rationalize the quote with a dictation from Reverand
Mathew Anderson, and obviously credible source, In giving laws to regulate slavery, God is not
saying it is a good thing. In fact, by giving laws about it at all, He is plainly stating it is a bad
thing. We dont make laws to limit or regulate good things. After all, you wont find laws that tell
us it is wrong to be too healthy or that if water is too clean we have to add pollution to it.
Therefore, the fact slavery is included in the regulations of the Old Testament at all assumes that
it is a bad thing which needs regulation to prevent the damage from being too great. That
makes absolutely no sense: God made laws about it because He does not want people to use the
laws that He just gave? The paper then makes the assertion that all those quotes about slavery
are taken out of context because, I mean, there is obviously a context where slavery is okay,
right? When is slavery in any case okay? What context? Can someone present me with a
context in which slavery is a good thing? The paper also claims that the quote from Exodus 21 is

actually opposed to harsh slavery, despite the fact that the Bible plainly states that the slave
master must pierce the slaves ear with an awl!
The entire paper is just another piece of vile creationist propaganda in which the
creationists try to lie or talk their way out of the villainy of the Bible. I noticed at the beginning
of the AiG paper that it begins with a quote about stealing people and selling them into slavery; it
does not begin with a quote that says slavery is not endorsed by the Bible. The reason for this is
that the Bible and the people of the time did endorse slavery, and perhaps some of the authors of
the Bible were slave-owners themselves. The only difference between me reading the Bible and
a creationist reading the Bible is that I do not attempt to justify slave-owning.