Through My Eyes...: Slavery: Is There Historical Support in The Bible?

People constantly look to religion when determining their stance on a moral argument. But what if historical texts do not explicitly state what is deemed morally acceptable? This can be examined through the issue of slavery throughout the Bible. One can observe how slavery can both be supported and condemned in the Bible based on interpretation.

In the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, there are verses that support the use of slavery and in some cases, slavery is encouraged. First of all, in Genesis 9:25-27 “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.” He also said “praise be to the lord, the god of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. This bible verse shows Noah giving his grandson a curse, showing to the people that slavery was around, and it was justified.

There is more than one bible verse that mentions bondservants obeying masters, such as Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, and Peter 2:18. In the New Testament in the Holy Bible changes the wording and the idea of Slavery changed, in the New Testament slavery is not talked about as well as changed the viewpoint a little. In the New testament slavery is no longer encouraged, it seems to be frowned upon.

Thus, in all the verses that are listed proves that the Old Testament of the Holy Bible supports and encourages slavery, whereas in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, it no longer encourages and the supporting idea of slavery seemed to change.

[Pro-Slavery portion written by Jacob Dillman. Check out more of his work here!]

One can also argue that slavery is condemned in the Bible as God constantly preaches the equality of all humans.

First of all, it is important to note that God expresses his wisdom and lessons progressively over time; therefore, when researching slavery in the Bible we must observe the narrative as a whole. In this case, it is seen in creation and the gospel. God “created [all men] in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). By grouping everyone as his descendants, he is implying equality of all his creations.

Similarly, the gospel tells us that God’s ultimate goal is to create a people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:19). This demonstrates that God both created all humans as equal and wishes for them to remain equal.

However, the Bible does oppose slavery in specific situations as well. For example, Onesimus, a former runaway slave of Paul’s, was found by Philemon. Paul told Philemon to treat Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother” (Philemon 1:16). Paul wanted to elevate the status of Onesimus far beyond slave, beyond friend to brother, a status of equality.

Thus, the Bible consistently shows that all his creations are not to be treated as slaves, but as equals.

In sum, the bible is open to interpretation as seen through these different viewpoints about slavery. Slavery is a deep argument that needs evidence to support reasoning. The reader can only make a decision for themselves and base it on the historical text. Thus, the bible has different viewpoints on whether or not slavery is supported by the bible.