Servitude (slavery?) in the Old Testament

[Josh]

8/18/06:

As far as the Old Testament, Exodus 21:1-11, Leviticus 25:3-43, Deuteronomy 15:12-18, and Jeremiah 34:8-22 are the main passages regarding the Israelite policies regarding 'servitude'. Here are a few points to keep in mind.

1. There were three legal ways of becoming a servant: certain criminal activity (see Exodus 22:2-3 as an example), being a foreigner captured in warfare, or being sold (or selling yourself) because of financial debt.

2. People who were sold or sold themselves because of poverty/ debt were to be treated as paid servants with expanded rights, such as being released on the seventh year and/or every 50th Hebrew year (Exodus 21:2, Lev 25: 8-12, 39-41). This was like the ancient equivalent of social security (of course way less pleasant)-- without this these people would have perished.

3. In ancient societies, servitude for criminals and POWs fulfilled the role of the modern prison-term (and was arguably preferable over death when defeated in war-- at least if the Israelites were following the law here).

4. Numerous laws granted servants certain rights of renumeration for abuses (21:2-11, 20-21, 26-27, for example). In other words, 'masters' weren't to be allowed to treat servants 'however they wanted'.

5. OT "slavery" was not racially based (as in singling out some specific race), but the result of economic, military, and criminal justice considerations. You find a somewhat similar situation in the New Testament Roman world, but without such generous laws as are set forth here.

6. Although these laws provide for 'ways out' and some protection for servants, the unfortunate fact is that the Hebrews seem to have frequently disregarded these laws in defiance of God and acted like the nations around them.

7. Lastly, note the tone of the Mosaic law toward the servant:

Deuteronomy 12:

12 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. 13 And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. 14 Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.

Contrary to a black and white dichotomy between the Old Covenant and the New, the Mosaic law quite often exhorts the reader to go beyond the 'letter of the law'.

[hume]

8/19/06:

Glenn Miller discusses this at length in an article called Does God condone slavery in the Bible?

www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html

The article focuses mostly on Josh's third legal way of becoming a servant / slave. The main point seems to be that slaves in ancient times were not a far cry from what we would call servants. Or really, we have no similar category today, because hardly anyone is a "domestic servant" or field hand, and those who are generally don't live with and become pseudo-members of the family for whom they work. Some snippets from the article:

The term slavery "has been used at various times for a wide range of institutions, including plantation slavery, forced labor, the drudgery of factories and sweatshops, child labor, semivoluntary prostitution, bride-price marriage, child adoption for payment, and paid-for surrogate motherhood. Somewhere within this range, the literal meaning of 'slavery' shifts into metaphorical meaning, but it is not entirely clear at what point ... The reason is that the term 'Slavery' is evocative rather than analytical, calling to mind a loose bundle of diagnostic features. These features are mainly derived from the most recent direct Western experience with slavery, that of the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America ... From a global cross-cultural and historical perspective, however, New World slavery was a unique conjunction of features ... In brief, most varieties of slavery did not exhibit the three elements that were dominant in the New World: slaves as property and commodities; their use exclusively as labor; and their lack of freedom."

"For example, in the West we would never say that the American President's Cabinet members were his 'slaves', but this term would have been applied to them in the ANE [Ancient Near East] kingdoms ...

Freedom in the ancient Near East was a relative, not an absolute state, as the ambiguity of the term for "slave" in all the region's languages illustrates. "Slave" could be used to refer to a subordinate in the social ladder. Thus the subjects of a king were called his "slaves," even though they were free citizens. The king himself, if a vassal, was the "slave" of his emperor; kings, emperors, and commoners alike were "slaves" of the gods. Even a social inferior, when addressing a social superior, referred to himself out of politeness as "your slave." There were, moreover, a plethora of servile conditions that were not regarded as slavery, such as son, daughter, wife, serf, or human pledge."

Compared to the slavery we know from our own recent past, "Slavery in the ANE was much more an 'in-house' and 'in-family' thing, with closer emotional attachment. However, there were still some extreme punishments in the ANE, but the biblical witness is of a decidedly better environment for slaves than even the ANE. Exodus 21, for example, is considered by many to be unparalleled in respect to humanitarianism toward slaves ... Ex 21.21 restricts the treatment of the slave to be no more severe than what the community/elders could do with a regular, free citizen."

He goes on to explain that the most common cause of slavery was voluntarily selling oneself (or one's child or relative) as a domestic servant to escape debt / poverty. (Given that it was voluntary, one presumes that the conditions were not all that awful.) There were even explicit financial institutions, basically a banker who would offer to pay off all your creditors if you agreed to become his slave.

To me this voluntary aspect was the most striking point of distinction from what I normally think of as "slavery." The notion of voluntarily selling oneself makes more sense if we consider the context. Even in our society, "striking off on your own" at age 18 is not the easiest thing you'll ever do, but in the ancient world, there was a much less substantial social structure to support individuals or small families (no police, no infrastructure, a simple economy, etc.). Safety was in numbers, and if you sold yourself into a large and benevolent family group, your situation might be much more secure and livable than you could manage on your own.

Miller notes that "in New World slavery at least two-thirds of plantation slaves would have lived in barracks (field-slaves), and not in intimacy with owners (domestics), whereas in the ANE/OT, the vast majority of the slaves were domestics under the same roof."

He even goes so far (too far perhaps) as to suggest a similarity between Ancient Near East "slavery" and our own society's conception of worker/employer relationships: in a certain sense, your employer "buys" you (for certain defined purposes during certain times of day, and with your permission). Of course we can leave a job more easily than an ANE slave could leave his or her situation. It's even possible for your employer to "sell" you in the case that he sells the entire business to someone else (to whom you are now beholden, should you choose to remain).