Slavery in the Bible
Slavery in the New World caused one of the greatest controversies of modern times. People have used the Bible to argue for and against this extremely inhumane practice. Few institutions in history have caused more suffering. A Slave is defined as "a human being who is the property of another and subject to compulsory labor, beyond the limits of the family" (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics p.596). Slavery comes in different forms. Women in some societies are called slaves because they have almost no rights. People refer to whole nations of slaves living under totalitarian dictators or to the subjection of tribes or an entire peoples or to various forms of serfdom as enslavement but true slavery can only exist where there is freedom, where free men hold other men in bondage. Slavery has existed throughout known history and is still carried on today in parts of Africa and Asia. People have used the Bible to both support and condemn slavery. But what does the Bible really say about slavery? Parts of the Bible condone slavery while others show outright support for it; however these passages reflect the writings and customs of people, not of God. A true Christian would see the evils of slave
The second factor mentioned is that of futility. Mircea Eliade writes that the "immediate abolition or attempted abolition of slavery in the Roman empire would probably have led to the collapse of the fabric of society" (602). This is impossible to know of course, but slavery was an integral, if horrible, part of Roman civilization. To attempt to abolish it would have been a radical and dangerous action, to say the least. Still Jesus' silence is disturbing. ry and rally against it instead of literally believing in the Bible as the absolute source of all truth. Just because many passages in the Bible condone slavery and because Jesus never addresses it, does not mean that God is in favor of it. The Bible was written by real people and editors. The New Testament writers were largely writing for a Hellenistic audience to which slavery was a "fact of life". Slavery was finally abolished in the U.S. in 1863 and in most other Western European countries. Louis Cable writes that "It is the secular state, not the Bible, which we have to thank for ending slavery" (1). Despite this and the many passages in the Bible that appear to support slavery, Black abolitionist leaders still used their Christianity and the Bible to prove that slavery is wrong. They were inspired by the Exodus story and Jesus' teachings of love. Civil rights leaders in the fifties and sixties, most notably Dr. Martin Luther King, often quoted from the Bible in their struggle for equal rights. They appealed to Christians' higher sense of ethics, not to a literal, fundamentalist understanding of the Bible. Traditionally, Moses is thought to have had the entire Torah dictated to him by God. Conservative Jews and Christians still believe this (some conservative Christians now believe that Moses wrote it himself but that God preserved it from error). Almost any Christian will fervently deny that God condones slavery. What then of the Torah or Peter's letters? Before criticism of the Bible in the 18th century most everybody accepted that slavery was meant to be because of the Bible. Paul returned a runaway slave to his master but it should be remembered that the early church is not synonymous with Jesus. Just because Paul did this does not mean that Jesus would have. The first reason is the "Common-sense factor". Lugt says that "slavery in the Roman Empire was quite humane" (11). Slavery had become so common that even common people kept slaves. Often a family slave would be treated almost as a member of a family. But slaves were also used in the mines under appalling conditions and used to build public buildings. One cannot generalize slavery and call it "humane"; anytime in which one human "owns" another there is a tremendous potential for abuse.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2085
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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