16. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Abraham Lincoln

a born atheist at 8:16AM on Jan 11th 2008

17. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
Abraham Lincoln

a born atheist at 8:17AM on Jan 11th 2008

18. Don't forget...black tribal chiefs sold their own people into slavery

Bridget at 8:41AM on Jan 11th 2008

19. a black friend of mine, we were eating lunch last week and he said the day before he had went to this very nice golf coarse to play golf just to piss them off? i ask him why?

racism does not serve white people in any way,so who does it serve?

brian at 8:55AM on Jan 11th 2008

20. D'Souza says (on the fly), "...and Paul even instructs slaves to obey their masters."

... I think that you should have given Paul some credit as to his position on religion here.

He, Paul was only(according to Christians) inspired BY GOD to write THIRTEEN of the New Testament BOOKS!!!

You'd imagine that GOD himself would not have inspired Paul to say anything at all on slavery... especially since GOD (according to Christians) would know that Paul's sayings might be quoted by fucking slavers!!!

pboyfloyd at 9:04AM on Jan 11th 2008

21. I was asking this coloured guy the other day, "Why didn't you just TELL us that you didn't like to be slaves???"

(Naw, that didn't happen.)

pboyfloyd at 9:06AM on Jan 11th 2008

22. Isn't it remarkable that Dinesh so hates atheists that he has to lie about them in every column he writes abou them?

And isn't it remarkable that Dinesh downplays the fact that christians supported slavery with bible verses? One would think that if he's railing against atheists not doing anything about slavery, he should mention the christian support for slavery. Further: how does he know that atheists did nothing? Answer: he doesn't. He's just lying his ass off.

You're dismissed, Dinesh. No one believes anything you say.

Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:10AM on Jan 11th 2008

23. pboy,

on the same note why didn't they tell those in africa they really did not want to be sold? i mean the blame game could never end. why are we talking about something thats over? you atheist are too stinkin easy to yank around. DD proves that every time. wise up!!

brian at 9:16AM on Jan 11th 2008

24. I was under the impression that people killed slavery. Good ones. And other people, less morally guided perhaps, but probably mere victims of their historic moments, invented and sustained it. To go back in time with this kind of verbal mud-slinging is specious, at best. In the middle of an election season, with the planet in some sort of climate chaos, our dollar's value melting as fast as a glacier in California (or Switzerland or the North Pole for that matter) and a war with Iran on the horizon, don't you think you could find a better topic? Or perhaps that is the very thing you are doing here, avoiding the herd of elephants in the room.
Slavery is gone, praise whatever G-d you like. And the people who worked to abolish were likely of every stripe, certainly many fine Christians included. Pitting religions agaisnt one anotehr is beneath your intellect, and a pretty silly uise of Sam's time, too. Shouldn't we all, I don't know...move on?

I once saw some little girls playing jump rope in a playground in Brooklyn. They were singing a jump rope song about Martin Luther King and slavery. it stopped me in my tracks. Then one of then broke away from the group and said, to my astonishment: "I am so sick of slavery days, slavery days, slavery days. Let's do the Cinderella one."

Which goes..." Cinderella, dressed in yella, went upstairs to kiss a fella. Made a mistake and kissed a snake. how many doctors did it take...1, 2,3, etc."

All due respect to the King and all those who have worked to bring about a MORE equal society, but to move forward we sometimes need to do a teensy bit less looking back, and BLAMING.

Elizabeth at 10:09AM on Jan 11th 2008

25. brian, i cannot believe you have a black friend. maybe he has no self-respect.

hmm, are you sure he's not just some brown guy like dd....maybe an indian or sumthin'?

America\\\'s Most Gangsta at 9:26AM on Jan 11th 2008

26. oh, and brian....you are too stinkin easy to brainwash, you dope. dd proves nothing, except to your ilk, who are easily duped.

btw, are you also so dense as to think slavery is over? i see why you are a fan of double-d....not double-d's, but double d.....and probably double-ya also. dope.

America\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Most Gangsta at 9:27AM on Jan 11th 2008

27. Actually Denise, the rising of capitalism (industrialization) and the factory system during the 19th century ended slavery.

gshort3011 at 9:25AM on Jan 11th 2008

28. @ brian ... 20

Here's the title of this post, "Who Killed Slavery?"

Here's DD blaming atheists for inaction or something... "..atheists, who did virtually nothing to oppose slavery.."

...yet you say, "..why are we talking about something thats over?"

Are you mentally retarded, brian? What do you want to discuss then... what happened to you on the short bus on the way to school?

pboyfloyd at 9:41AM on Jan 11th 2008

29. Somber here,

Once more Denish plays the evangelical in this drama, citing that christianity and only christianity could possibly account for the end of slavery. That christianity, that panacea of panaceas, is the only possible thing that could have freed the bound and righted this terrible wrong.

Here is, you might say, the problem with that assessment. If Christianity were truly such a miraculous method of ending slavery, why didn't it take effect much earlier? If christianity were so apparently a message of freedom, why didn't english and spanish and portuguese leaders ban it immediately as a horrid abomination? After all, christianity predated England, Spain, and Portugal by centuries.

Indeed, christianity seemed to have no objection to the notions of serfdom. While not a true slave (slaves you can outright sell) serfs had no legal protections and were subject to any abuses their lord saw fit to dispose. This economic structure was endorsed by the church in the concept of divine right: the notion that worldly leaders did so expressly by the will of God.

And if christianity were the great solution to slavery, why then was it so slow to occur in eastern, non-christian nations? In China, only the superwealthy employed slaves. Feudal Japan did not employ slaves at all, having adopted an oriental version with greater protections for the serf than european serfs suffered under. How could it be that these countries could have operated for centuries with such minimal true slavery if christianity were the only effective means by which slavery was eliminated?

What Dinesh sadly overlooks is the fact that slavery is not a moral phenomenon. It takes precious little argument to convince some one that slavery is an undesirable life, an insult to human dignity and freedom. No one wants to be a literal slave. It is an economic model. It puts a price on production through owned human machinery. Slaves produce product which is then sold for profit by the slave holder.

But slavery is a grossly inefficient means of economic gain. Slaves have to be policed and managed, take an enormous amount of time to aquire and train, and consume resources when they are not working. After all you have to feed, clothe, and house them or you'll lose all your profits and time on aquiring new slaves. Slavery also holds the potential of a national risk by putting large numbers of forced workers in areas. While slave uprising are rarely successful politically, they are expensive nationally and a national embaresment.

Just as christianity was used for centuries to justify slavery, it was just as applicable to the banishment of slavery. After all the bible is the swiss army knife of rhetoric. But it wasn't some inate virtue of christianity that ended slavery, but rather an enrichment of human rationality and education coupled with the emergence of a new and more efficient exploitable labor: the employee. Here is a worker who you do not have to pay or police, and who comes to the production owner in search of labor. So while christianity was a justification for the elimination of slavery, it was not, by far, the only one.

And in addition, Dinesh makes an unsubtle jab at atheism. He fails to appriciate that perhaps societial norms were not as forgiving for atheists then as they are now. When national legitimacy was founded on the notion of Divine Right, atheism was not only a refusal of religious power but also of national power. Even with the enlightenment, atheism was much like homosexuality, something one did not talk about. Atheists frequently titled themselves other terms, such as deist or agnostic or humanist or pantheist or philosophean. Terms that could not so easily evoke a hostile response from both church and state.

Once more Dinesh falls far short of the mark.

Somber at 9:42AM on Jan 11th 2008

30. Good question...
...Does God condone slavery in the Bible?


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OT: Created Nov 9, 1997 // UPDATED Mar 18/2004 // NT: Created Dec 30, 1999


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Every so often I get a question about slavery in the Bible, or someone sends me a 'spoof' of the biblical Mosaic regulations concerning 'slavery'. Sometimes the issue concerns Paul in the NT, as this thoughtful quote might indicate:

"I think a lot of the problems you spill a lot of "electrons" on can be understood better by looking at the Bible as an accommodated and historical revelation. In my judgment, the most important example of how this concept operates in scripture is the Bible's approach to slavery, especially as it appears in Paul's writings. Paul clearly understood that the gospel obviated all class distinctions (Gal. 3:28) but was never willing to draw out the social ramifications of his understanding of what it meant to be "in Christ." Philemon is the most troubling account of Paul's social conservatism, for here he had the opportunity to tell his friend Philemon that slavery was inconsistent with the gospel and that his Christian duty obligated him to manumit Onesimus and any other slaves he might have. Unfortunately, Paul danced around the topic of manumission but never made it an explicit directive; accordingly, it made the problem more difficult for later theologians. We can only imagine how western civilization might have been changed had Paul openly stated what we now all agree on: that for one human to own another is inconsistent with the imago dei and the freedom of the gospel.

Of course, Paul did not do so, probably for a number of reasons. He may have still been freaked out by the "crisis" he speaks of in I Cor. 7, or he may have felt that an explicit position on manumission would have made the gospel appear too radical (although he didn't shy away from "radicalness" in other areas and manumission was considered by many in the Roman empire to be a noble act of kindness). At any rate, it took theologians and activists 1900 years to finally convince Christendom of the moral bankruptcy of slavery, and frankly, from a perspective of exegesis and Biblical theology, the fire-eaters had a better argument in ante-bellum America than the abolitionists, largely due to the statements made by Paul in Ephesians and Philemon."

I replied to this part of the email with a 'directional' statement...

"The specific case of slavery is more complex than first appears...there is no monolithic 'institution' of slavery in the bible--e.g. the OT has SEVERAL models of what might be called 'slavery' and much of what passed as slavery in the ANE is no longer considered such in socio-economic understandings of the period and area. In the NT case, the problem is hugely complicated by the SEEMING position that ALL socio-economic institutions are 'neutral'; that they can be either used wonderfully or abused woefully...for example, i am called to be a 'slave to Christ'...and to obey (within conscience and stewardship) the demands of oppressive governments...this area of cultural forms is notoriously difficult (in my opinion) so the Philemon situation is not at all decisive or instructive for me...(i am familiar, however, with those civil war debates, but consider much of that simply bad theological method)...simply put, i think the problem is more complex than a simple 'Paul hedged here'...i am still thinking through this, so dont take my comments as finished goods ...

And hence I want to come back to this issue in this series...

There are several elements of this study, which I will no doubt have to publish piecemeal ("oh no! not ANOTHER unfinished series in the Tank!"):

1. Introductory remarks

2. The OT institution of Hebrew 'slavery' in the Law of Moses--its nature, purpose, and structure.

3. Other references to 'slavery-like' situations in the Mosaic law: the Foreign Slave.

4. The Great Escape Clause…?

5. References to slavery in later OT books.

6. The issue of 'slavery' in the NT/Apostolic world (esp. Paul)


.........................................................................................

1. Introductory remarks

I am a child of the Western World, and a native of the rural American South. The word 'slavery' is such a powerful vortex of images, meanings, cries, and grief to me. Any technical discussion of any type of forced labor or corvee becomes immediately inflamed when the word 'slavery' is attached to it, and I suspect that many others share this association.

Scholars in the ANE have often abandoned the use of the general term 'slavery' in descriptions of the many diverse forms of master-servant that are manifest in the ancient world. There are very few 'true' slave societies in the world (with Rome and Greek being two of the major ones!), and ancient Israel will be seen to be outside this classification as well (in legislation, not practice).

A recent example of this comes from the discussion of the Hittite culture in [HI:HANEL:1.632]:

"Guterbock refers to 'slaves in the strict sense,' apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning 'servant' seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation 'semi-free'. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active."

Scholars in Cultural Anthropology are sensitive to this as well, and point out that New World slavery was quite unique, historically:

"Scholars do not agree on a definition of "slavery." The term 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. A similar problem arises when we look at other cultures. 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. The present Western image of slavery has been haphazardly constructed out of the representations of that experience in nineteenth-century abolitionist literature, and later novels, textbooks, and films...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..." [NS:ECA:4:1190f]

Generally, in the ANE, these 'fuzzy' boundaries obtain as well. "Slavery" is a very relative word in our time period, and we have to be very carefully in no auto-associating it with more 'vivid' New World examples. 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 kingdoms. And, in the ANE, even though children/family could be bought and sold, they were never actually referred to as 'slaves'--the property aspect (for such transactions) did NOT define explicitly the notion of 'slavery':

"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." [HI:HANEL:1.40]



Accordingly, I think--to avoid the inflammatory associations that naturally occur for Westerners when something is referred to as 'slavery'--it wise to carefully set out the structure of what we consider 'slavery' today, and compare that to the OT institution of 'Hebrew slavery'. New World slavery differs substantially from most ANE institutions labeled 'slavery', which themselves differed at significant points from OT slavery. We will try to make these distinctions clear, when they are relevant to the discussion.

With this in mind, I want to set out the basic elements associated with historical slavery, as practiced in America before the American Civil War, and to offer some general contrasts with ANE slavery (I will look at OT slavery later in the article). (This is not meant to be exhaustive, but simply to highlight the aspects of the institution that strike our sensibilities today.)



· Motive: Slavery was motivated by the economic advantage of the elite.

So, [NS:ECA:4:1190] point this out: "New World slavery was a unique conjuntion of features. Its use of slaves was strikingly specialized as unfree labor-producing commodities, such as cotton and sugar, for a world market." and Britannica: "By 1850 nearly two-thirds of the plantation slaves were engaged in the production of cotton...the South was totally transformed by the presences of slavery. Slavery generated profits comparable to those from other investments and was only ended as a consequence of the War Between the States." (s.v. "Slavery")

In the ANE (and OT), this was NOT the case. The dominant (statistically) motivation was economic relief of poverty (i.e., 'slavery' was initiated by the slave--NOT by the owner--and the primary uses were purely domestic (except in cases of State slavery, where individuals were used for building projects).

The definitive work on ANE law today is the 2 volume work [HI:HANEL] (History of Ancient Near Eastern Law). This work (by 22 scholars) surveys every legal document from the ANE (by period) and includes sections on slavery. A smattering of quotes will indicate this for-the-poor instead of for-the-rich purpose for most of ANE slavery:



§ "Most slaves owned by Assyrians in Assur and in Anatolia seem to have been (originally) debt slaves--free persons sold into slavery by a parent, a husband, an elder sister, or by themselves." (1.449)



§ "Sales of wives, children, relatives, or oneself, due to financial duress, are a recurrent feature of the Nuzi socio-economic scene…A somewhat different case is that of male and female foreigners, called hapiru (immigrants) who gave themselves in slavery to private individuals or the palace administration. Poverty was the cause of these agreements…" (1.585)



§ "Most of the recorded cases of entry of free persons into slavery [in Emar] are by reason of debt or famine or both…A common practice was for a financier to pay off the various creditors in return for the debtor becoming his slave." (1.664f)



§ "On the other hand, mention is made of free people who are sold into slavery as a result of the famine conditions and the critical economic situation of the populations [Canaan]. Sons and daughters are sold for provisions…" (1.741)



§ "The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement [Neo-Sumerian, UR III] was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self sale. All these case clearly arose from poverty; it is not stated, however, whether debt was specifically at issue." (1.199)



· Entry: Slavery was overwhelmingly involuntary. Humans were captured by force and sold via slave-traders.

This was true both for the Islamic slave trade and the European trade. So, Britannica:

"Slaves have been owned in black Africa throughout recorded history. In many areas there were large-scale slave societies, while in others there were slave-owning societies. Slavery was practiced everywhere even before the rise of Islam, and black slaves exported from Africa were widely traded throughout the Islamic world. Approximately 18,000,000 Africans were delivered into the Islamic trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trades between 650 and 1905. In the second half of the 15th century Europeans began to trade along the west coast of Africa, and by 1867 between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 Africans had been shipped as slaves to the New World.... The relationship between African and New World slavery was highly complementary. African slave owners demanded primarily women and children for labour and lineage incorporation and tended to kill males because they were troublesome and likely to flee. The transatlantic trade, on the other hand, demanded primarily adult males for labour and thus saved from certain death many adult males who otherwise would have been slaughtered outright by their African captors."


In the ANE (and especially the OT), the opposite was the case. This should be obvious from the MOTIVE aspect--these were choices by the impoverished to enter this dependency state, in return for economic security and protection. Some slavery contracts actually emphasized this voluntary aspect!:

"A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece…Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant." [HI:HANEL:1.665]

This might also be seen from the fact that war/violence was NOT a major source of 'real' slaves in the ANE (nor OT). For example, even though there were large numbers of war-captives in the ANE, they were generally NOT turned into slaves, but rather into tenant-farming, serfs:

"Within all the periods of antiquity, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Persian, and other Oriental rulers carried away great masses of captives from their victorious battles. But only an insignificant part of them was turned into slaves; all the others were settled on the land as palace and temple serfs….The question arises, why the masses of war prisoners were not enslaved. Slavery was the optimal form of dependence, and very often there was no shortage of prisoners captured in war. Besides, there were no legal or ethical norms preventing these prisoners from being turned into slaves. But this happened in a negligible percentage of cases, while the overwhelming majority were settled in places specially set aside for them, paid royal taxes, and carried out obligations, including military service." [ABD: s.v. "Slavery, ANE"]

"War is only mentioned as a source of slavery for public institutions. The most frequently mentioned method of enslavement was sale of children by their parents. Most are women, evidently widows, selling a daughter; in one instance a mother and grandmother sell a boy…There are also examples of self sale." [HI:HANEL:1.199]

The same, of course, can be said of Israel. For example, even in wars on foreign soil (e.g., Deut 20.10,10), if a city surrendered, it became a vassal state to Israel, with the population becoming serfs (mas), not slaves (ebed, amah). They would have performed what is called 'corvee' (draft-type, special labor projects, and often on a rotation basis--as Israelites later did as masim under Solomon, 1 Kings 5.27). This was analogous to ANE praxis, in which war captives were not enslaved, but converted into vassal groups:

"The nations subjected by the Israelites were considered slaves. They were, however, not slaves in the proper meaning of the term, although they were obliged to pay royal taxes and perform public works." [ABD, s.v. "Slavery, Old Testament"]

And since most slavery was done through self-sale or family-sale, it was likewise voluntary (at least as voluntary as poverty allows), cf. Lev 25.44 in which the verbs are of 'acquisition' and not 'take' or 'conquer' etc.



· Treatment : Slaves were frequently mistreated by modern standards, and punishments were extreme.

The images we have of the Old American South are filled with mistreatments, and we need no documentation of that here. The ANE, on the other hand, was much less severe, due largely to the differences in the attitudes of the 'master' to the 'slave'. 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, and we shall return to this in detail below. [Suffice it to mention here that 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. This restriction on an owner should make one ponder what in the world the word 'property' might mean in such a context! But more on this in a minute…]

But in the ANE slaves were generally protected from over-abuse (under normal conditions, runaways were a problem, as we shall see):

"[Slaves were generally afforded protection from] Excessive Physical punishment. Even chattel slaves appear to have benefited to some extent from this protection" [HI:HANEL:1:43]

And all the records of the period seem to indicate humane treatment:

"First, let us set apart the slaves--the booty of war or in servitude for various reasons--who by definition were totally dependent on their masters, although the latter appear to have treated them fairly humanely, and more like domestic servants." [HI:ELAM, 114]



· Treatment : As a matter of course, slaves lived in radical separation from their owners and did not participate in many of the 'benefits' of the owners' fortunes.

We have already noted 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. In the ANE/OT, we don’t have the 'gangs' of agricultural workers we will see later in Republican Rome and in the New World:

"Moreover, in general there were probably only a few in each household [in Israel]--there is no indication, for example, that large gangs of them were toiling in deplorable conditions to cultivate big estates, as in the later Roman world" [OT:I:101]

"Both types (Hebrew, foreign slaves) were domestic slaves living in their owners' homes, not members of slave gangs working on plantations." [Notes, Jewish Study Bible, Ex 21]



· Legal Status : Slaves were considered 'property' in exclusion to their humanity. That is, to fire a bullet into a slave was like firing a bullet into a pumpkin, not like firing a bullet into a human. There were no legal or ethical demands upon owners' as to how they treated their 'property'. Other than with the occasional benevolent master, only economic value was a main deterrent to abusive treatment.

Theoretically, some expressions of New World slavery had some protection from outright murder of a slave, but this was not very widely accepted:

"In the American South, 10 codes prescribed forced sale to another owner or emancipation for maltreated slaves. Nevertheless, cases such as State v. Hoover (North Carolina, 1839) and State v. Jones (Alabama, 1843) were considered sensational because slave owners were punished for savagely 'correcting' their slaves to death." [Britannica]

And the right-to-kill differed by groups [Britannica]:

"Legally the slave was usually defined as property, and the question then was whether he was movable property (chattel) or real property. In most societies he was movable property, but in some, real property… A major touchstone of the nature of slave society was whether or not the owner had the right to kill his slave. In most Neolithic and Bronze Age societies slaves had no such right, for salves from ancient Egypt and the Eurasian steppes were buried alive or killed to accompany their deceased owners into the next world. Among the Northwest Coast Tlingit, slave owners killed their slaves in potlatches to demonstrate their contempt for property and wealth; they also killed old or unwanted slaves and threw their bodies into the Pacific Ocean. An owner could kill his slave with impunity in Homeric Greece, ancient India, the Roman Republic, Han China, Islamic countries, Anglo-Saxon England, medieval Russia, and many parts of the American South before 1830…That was not the case in other societies. The Hebrews, the Athenians, and the Romans under the principate restricted the right of slave owners to kill their human chattel."

Now, this restriction on an owner as to what he/she could do with their personal 'property' should make us wonder about how the word 'property' is being used there. And indeed, the definition of 'property'--in the context of slavery--gives Anthropologists pause:

"The definition of slaves as property runs into conceptual as well as empirical problems. 'Property' is a shorthand and abstract term for a bundle of very specific and relatively exclusive rights held by a person (or group) relative to a thing (or person). To say that in any given society, something (say, a person) is 'property' has meaning only to the extent that the rights involved are specified and understood in the context of other rights prevalent in the society. For example, in many precolonial African societies, the kin group had the right to sell equally its slave and nonslave members, it had equal control over the wealth acquired by either of them, it extracted (or failed to extract) as much labor from one as from the other, and the majority of slaves were quasi-relatives or actual relatives, and, if prosperous enough, could acquire slaves of their own. Here, obviously, one must look at other features to find the difference between the slave and the 'free'." [NS:ECA:4:1191, s.v. "Slavery"]

Sale of family peers highlight this 'oddness' of the notion of 'property' when applied to people:

"A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece" [HI:HANEL:1:665]

And this implied range of freedom/slavery can be seen all over the ANE. Buying and Selling, for example, can be the contractual terminology for child adoption:

"Older children were adopted by reimbursing their parents for the expenses of feeding and raising them. These transactions were recorded as if they were sales." [HI:DLAM:131]

and slaves had very specific legal rights (can real 'chattel property' have such?):

"Slaves had certain legal rights: they could take part in business, borrow money, and buy their freedom." [HI:DLAM:118]

"Guterbock refers to 'slaves in the strict sense,' apparently referring to chattel slaves such as those of classical antiquity. This characterization may have been valid for house slaves whose master could treat them as he wished when they were at fault, but it is less suitable when they were capable of owning property and could pay betrothal money or fines. The meaning 'servant' seems more appropriate, or perhaps the designation 'semi-free'. It comprises every person who is subject to orders or dependent on another but nonetheless has a certain independence within his own sphere of active." [HI:HANEL:1632]

"However, the idea of a slave as exclusively the object of rights and as a person outside regular society was apparently alien to the laws of the ANE." [ABD, s.v. "Slavery, Ancient Near East"]

One other important distinction has to do with how 'comprehensive' or exclusive was the 'property' aspect. In other words, to what extent was a slave only property, and not also, a human, a family member, a contracting agent. In the ANE at least, slavery was generally a mixture of these aspects--they were not ONLY property per se [HI:HANEL:1.40]:

"A better criterion for a legal definition of slavery is its property aspect, since persons were recognized as a category of property that might be owned by private individuals. A slave was therefore a person to whom the law of property applied rather than family or contract law. Even this definition is not wholly exclusive, since family and contract law occasionally intruded upon the rules of ownership. Furthermore, the relationship between master and salve was subject to legal restrictions based on the humanity of the slave and concerns of social justice."

A less dramatic illustration of this might be in a modern acquisition of one business by another business. I the employee--a 'bundle' of all my workplace obligations, the contract under which I work, the values I am supposed to uphold, the relationships I have with co-workers at the office, my skills, my organizational knowledge, and my career path in the firm--is 'sold' to other owning group (e.g., competitor, private investor, Wall Street, etc). There is, in this case, a 'property' aspect to my life-at-the-office. This does not mean, of course, that my family status as a dad is changed, or that I cannot vote in my country. My role and/or identity as a worker could thus be 'sold', 'transferred', and even 'inherited' (e.g., if the firm was privately owned, and the owner died with a successor). Our legal system recognizes this in many, many contracts under the heading "Successors and Assigns". But wherever I went, the state would still see me as a human, and prevent--as in the ANE-- my 'owner' from killing me.



· Legal Status : Slaves could not have their own property--all they had belonged to their 'owner'.



"In North America, India, Rome, Muscovy, most of the Islamic world, and among the Tuareg a fundamental principle was that the slave could not own property because the master owned not only his slave's body but everything that body might accumulated. This did not mean, however, that slaves could not possess and accumulate property but only that their owners had legal title to whatever the slaves had. In a host of other societies, such as ancient and Roman Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Talmudic Palestine, Gortyn, much of medieval German, Thailand, Mongol and Ch'ing China, medieval Spain, and the northern Nigerian emirates, slaves had the right of property ownership. Some places, such as Rome, allowed slaves to accumulate, manage, and use property in a peculium that was legally revocable but could be used to purchase their freedom." [Britannica]

[Note: As pointed out in the quote about the fuzziness of 'property' above (by the Cultural Anthropologists), there is a little 'play' in this word, But a strict delineation of what was and what was not 'property', and/or what was and was not 'owned', was established and determined by the governing body of the specific situation. For example, in the ante-bellum South, it would have been the law courts in that time and in that geographical jurisdiction which decided, and they would have invariably sided with the slave owner instead of the slave as to whether, for example, the bed the slave slept on belonged to him or to his owner. The relevance of this 'jurisdictional' point is threefold: (1) It is irrelevant to this discussion as to what parties outside the legal system would have judged (e.g., Native Americans of the time would have said that the plantation land did NOT 'belong' to the Owner, but to the Earth--but the Southern courts would have disagreed); (2) it is irrelevant to this discussion as to what 'relative/informal/conventional ownership' arrangements would have been held within the community of slaves (e.g. Even though the Owner legally--according to Southern courts at the time--owned the bed that Slave X slept in, did NOT mean that Slave Y could take it from him, under the argument that it didn’t 'belong' to Slave X… "relative rights to usage"--very close in content to what property really is all about--would not violate the common legal understanding of property ownership (i.e., establish and delineated by relevant judiciary authorities)...the minors who have lived with me might have argued among themselves whose TV set it was, but the courts would have blamed me the dad had said TV set hurt one of their visitors); (3) it is irrelevant to this discussion what people after the legal jurisdiction collapsed said about property ownership (e.g., Civil war soldiers after the war had destroyed the jurisdiction structure agreeing that slave X 'owned' his bed, based perhaps on the 'informal' and relative rights of #2, would be irrelevant to the question of whether "slaves could own property under the pre-war, pro-slavery legal system").]



"Sometimes slaves [in the ANE] were permitted to possess various kinds of property (peculium). Naturally, a slave received the right to a peculium only in those cases when the master took an interest in this. Such slaves were left to themselves with the payment of a fixed quitrent [tanknote: a 'quitrent' is a fee paid by the slave to the owner, so that the slave doesn’t have to work any more for the owner, during the period covered by this 'rent to quit working'. It's like a substitution of money for labor]. The size of the quitrent fluctuated depending on the property of the slave, and in 1st-millennium Babylonia, on average, when calculated in money, amounted to twelve shekels of silver a year. Such a sum was also equal to the average annual pay of an adult hired worker regardless of whether he was free or a slave. Sometimes a quitrent was replaced by work for the master. Temple slaves who led an independent economic existence were also obliged to pay a monetary quitrent or provide the temple with finished products in accordance with the established norms…In 1st-millennium Babylonia enterprising slaves owned land, houses, and considerable amounts of movable property. They actively participated in all spheres of economic activity, were engaged in trade, ran taverns and workshops, taught other persons various trades, pawned and mortgaged their property, and they themselves received the property of others as security for loans…In the legal sphere such slaves could appear as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants in court. They also could have their own personal seals and take oaths. Moreover, there were apparently no differences in the ways in which the interests of slaves and freemen were defended, though the slaves, of course, could not engage in litigation with their masters. In affairs with a third party, the slave could mortgage only the peculium, but not his own person." [ABD, s.v. 'Slavery, Ancient Near East']



· Exit : Slavery was forever. There were never any means of obtaining freedom stipulated in the arrangement. In the cases of an owner granting freedom, it was generally a 'bare bones' release--no property went with the freedman.

"…in the American South manumission ws comparatively difficult and almost never happened after the prohibition on importing new slaves…manumission was even forbidden in South Carolina in 1820, Mississippi in 1822, Arkansas in 1858, and Maryland and Alabama in 1860…" [Britannica]

In the ANE, although some cultures had pre-built "debt-payoff-periods" (like Israel's 6 years), "chattel" manumission was rare because it wasn’t sought after--the issues of economic security and the quasi-family relationships that developed within the household unit created little incentive to become 'independent':

"More usually, individual autonomy has meant exposure to danger and predation; safety lay precisely in the protection afforded by the bondage of dependence on groups and patrons. What was desirable was not freedom but belongingness." [NS:ECA:4.1191]

[We will be semi-shocked below when we discover that manumission in Israel was either pre-scheduled (in the case of Hebrew slaves) or anytime-you-want-it (in the case of foreign slaves)…!]


Garnsey identifies many of these elements in his understanding of what he terms 'chattel slavery' [HI:ISAA:1]:

"A slave was property. The slaveowner's rights over his slave-property were total, covering the person as well as the labor of the slave. The slave was kinless, stripped of his or her old social identity in the process of capture, sale and deracination, and denied to capacity to forge new bonds of kinship through marriage alliance. These are the three basic components of slavery."



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With this framework in mind, let's consider how the Mosaic Law structured 'Hebrew slavery'...



2. The OT institution of Hebrew 'slavery' in the Law of Moses--its purpose, and structure.


First of all, we will have the same wide, wide range of meanings of the terms for 'slave' here, as we did in the ANE. It will refer to general (and sometimes vague) subordination:

"The word >ebed, however, denoted not only actual slaves occupied in production or in the household but also persons in subordinate positions (mainly subordinate with regard to the king and his higher officials). Thus the term >ebed is sometimes translated as “servant.” Besides, the term was used as a sign of servility in reference to oneself when addressing persons of higher rank. Finally, the same term was also used in the figurative meaning “the slave (or servant) of God.” Thus, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prophets, David, Solomon and other kings are regularly called slaves of Yahweh (Exod 32:13; Lev 25:55; 1 Sam 3:9; Ezra 9:11, etc.). Similarly, all the subjects of Israel and Judah are called slaves of their kings, including even wives, sons, and brothers of the latter (1 Sam 17:8; 29:3; 2 Sam 19:5, etc.; cf. also Gen 27:37; 32:4). Addressing Moses and prophets, the Israelites called themselves their slaves (Num 32:25; 1 Sam 12:19, etc.). Ruth refers to herself as a slave girl of her relative Boaz (Ruth 3:9). Being a vassal of the Philistine king Achish, David called himself his slave (1 Sam 28:2). It is natural that the same vague and inexplicitly formulated social terminology characteristic of the ANE is also used in the Bible in relation to the subjects of foreign rulers. For example, courtiers of an Aramean ruler or the soldiers of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II were considered slaves of their monarchs (2 Kgs 6:11; 24:10–11). It is natural that kings of Judah depending on more powerful rulers of neighboring countries were considered their slaves. Thus, Ahaz is referred to as a slave of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kgs 16:7). In modern translations of the Bible >ebed/doulos and several other similar terms are rendered “slave” as well as “servant,” “attendant,” etc. Such translations, however, might create some confusion and give the incorrect impression that special terms for the designation of servants and slaves are attested in the Bible…However, selecting the proper meaning from such a broad metaphorical application of the term designating a general dependence rarely presents great difficulty. For example, Abimelech, king of Gerar, called up his slaves and told them his dream (Gen 20:8). Apparently, these “slaves” were royal courtiers and officials. Abraham gathered 318 of his slaves, born in his household, in order to recover his kinsman Lot who had been captured by Chedorlaomer and three Mesopotamian kings (Gen 14:14). At least, a part of these persons constituted freeborn members of Abraham’s family. Upon ascending the throne of Judah, Amaziah executed his slaves who had murdered his father, the former king (2 Chr 25:3). These slaves were certainly royal dignitaries. When Josiah, king of Judah, had been killed at Megiddo, his body was taken in a chariot to Jerusalem by his slaves (2 Kgs 23:30). It is quite evident that these slaves were royal soldiers. In a number of cases, however, the interpretation of the actual meaning of the ambiguous >ebed may be disputed. For instance, the steward of Abraham’s household who was in charge of all his possessions is called his slave (Gen 24:2). His status can only conjecturally be interpreted as an indication of actual slavery and, of course, he could have been a freeborn person." [ABD, s.v. "Slavery, Old Testament"]



In the ANE, legal systems divided 'slaves' into different categories, and prioritized interventions (social intervention has costs, remember, and scarce resources in the ANE had to be allocated to optimize their effect on social/community survival) around these categories:

"In determining who should benefit from their intervention, the legal systems drew two important distinctions: between debt and chattel slaves, and between native and foreign slaves. The authorities intervened first and foremost to protect the former category of each--citizens who had fallen on hard times and had been forced into slavery by debt or famine." [HI:HANEL:1,42]

In the OT case, we will see a similar interest: most legislation will be about Hebrew ("native") individuals who, for reasons of debt/famine, sell themselves into short-term slavery ("debt slaves"). Accordingly, we will examine this class of 'slaves' first (native, debt).

Hebrew 'slavery' (i.e., a Hebrew 'servant' of a Hebrew 'master'; we will do foreigners next) occurs in a very specific socio-economic-religious context, and only actually makes sense (in its structure) in that context. Like the ANE, the context is a constant struggle for economic stability. The Mosaic law contains numerous initiatives designed to preclude someone having to consider voluntary slavery as an option:

"Pentateuchal prescriptions are meant to mitigate the causes of and need for such bondservice. Resident aliens, orphans and widows are not to be abused, oppressed or deprived of justice. When money is lent to the poor, they are not to be charged interest. (Elsewhere in the ancient Near East exorbitant interest rates on loans were the chief cause of people being sold into slavery)." [OT:DictOT5, s.v. "Slavery"]


· There were not supposed to be any poor in Israel at all! (Compliance with the spirit and letter of the covenant would have produced a society marked by righteousness, compassion, and prosperity.)

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. (Deut 15.4)

This makes any economic situations involving slavery exceptional.


· But God is a realist (Deut 15.11!); hence He made a wide range of provisions in the Law for the poor. Some of these are:

1. He enjoins the Israelites to be generous toward the destitute (this would function to preclude/reduce voluntary or debt slavery), in the same passage He expressed the hope of pan-success:

"If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. … There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land." (Deut 15.7ff)

2. Interestingly, the passage above recognizes that this 'lending' (best for self-respect of the recipient) might turn into 'giving' (best for economic good of the recipient) quickly, but that the Hebrew should not let this obvious risk deter his heart:

"Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to." (Deut 15.9)

"Moses left the realm of law for a moment to appeal to his fellow Israelites’ hearts. The law of debt cancellation (vv. 1-6) was intended to instill a spirit of generosity within the Israelites and thus a freedom from the love of money and things. Therefore a calculating Israelite was guilty of sin if he refused a loan for a poor brother (v. 7; cf. needy brother, v. 9) out of fear that it might not be repaid since the seventh year was near. Being hardened or tightfisted meant he was not trusting the Lord to bless . . . all his work." [BKC, in loc]



3. There are numerous instructions to merchants and farmers to provide special help for the disadvantaged (again, reducing the need for someone to sell themselves or family members).

§ The entire seventh year of the planting cycle was dedicated to the poor (and servants)!

"For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. (Ex 23.10)

Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you -- for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, (Lev 25.6)

§ They were instructed to leave the margins around the fields unharvested, and to not go over the fields but once:

"`When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19.10; 23.22; Deut 24.19f)

§ The poor were to be exempt from interest, and were to be buy food at cost.

"`If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. (Lev 25.35ff; note the quote above that interest rates were the dominant cause of voluntary servitude in the ANE.]

[Note: Israel was allowed to charge interest to foreigners, and to no forgive their unpaid loans in the year of Jubilee (Deut 23.21). Tigay [JPStorah, in loc] explains the sociological rationale for this: "This exception is similar to 15:3, which exempts loans to foreigners from remission. As Shadal notes, the foreigner is normally a businessman visiting the country for purposes of trade, and he borrows in order to invest in merchandise and make a profit, not to survive poverty. There is no moral imperative to remit loans made for such purpose or forgo interest on them. Furthermore, assuming the risk of lending and making the sacrifice that remission and interest-free loans entail are special obligations toward one's countrymen (Heb, ahim, lit 'brothers') and for the sake of maintaining equilibrium in Israelite society. The law does not require assuming the same risk and sacrifice toward others who do not share the same obligation."

§ The entire Levitical tithe of EVERY THIRD YEAR was to be shared with the poor!

28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deut 14.28ff)

4. Even the sacrificial system made allowances for economic status:

"`If he cannot afford a lamb, he is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the LORD as a penalty for his sin -- one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering..."`If he cannot afford a lamb, he is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the LORD as a penalty for his sin -- one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering." (Lev 5.7,11; see also Lev 14.21)

If anyone making the vow is too poor to pay the specified amount, he is to present the person to the priest, who will set the value for him according to what the man making the vow can afford. (Lev 27.8)

5. Indeed, there was even a major structure in the economic system designed to support the poor--the automatic cancellation of debts every seven years!

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. (Deut 15.1ff)

· Many of God's commands to Israel about treatment of 'slaves' are cast in light of Israel's experience of harsh slavery in Egypt (which generally DID conform to the "western" paradigm described above). She is told to remember her slavery and to not oppress the slave or the alien in the Land. There are many, many verses relative to this (e.g. Deut 5.6; 6.12, 21; 7.8; 15.15; 16.12; 24.18, 19). Just to cite a couple:

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. (Deut 5.13f)

When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this. (Deut 24.21)

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. (Deut 15.15; note: this is a 'standard' case of debt-slavery, and is different from cases of 'selling a daughter' for a dowry-less marriage--a la Exodus 21--discussed below.)

· Finally, the Covenant Community and its law was meant to demonstrate 'how it should be done' within ANE communities. The content of the Mosaic law was designed to show forth both the compassion of God (e.g. treatment of neighbor and the disadvantaged) and the holiness/purity of God (e.g. the sacrificial system and cleanness stipulations). One would therefore expect that intra-Hebrew dealings would reflect a much higher standard than the law codes of the surrounding nations (as indeed the historical record generally confirms).

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? " (Deut 4.5)

19 He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel. 20 He has done this for no other nation; they do not know his laws. (Ps 147.19)

With this as background, I want to compare the verses we have on this institution with the preceding description of Western antebellum slavery.


· Motive: Slavery was motivated by the economic advantage of the elite.


OT: There is a very fundamental difference here. The 'slavery' of the OT was essentially designed to serve the poor!:

"`If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39 "`If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. 40 He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41 Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. 42 Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43 Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. (Lev 25.35-43)

Indeed, as we shall note below, the proceeds of the transaction went to the servant only--each 'sold himself' to someone.

Notice that the sole motive--in the primary text before us-- for allowing 'slavery' is so the poor can continue in the land, and that it is NEVER 'forever' (indeed, other passages indicate that it was 6 years at the most!). This is radically different than an elitest-motive.

[Even chattel slavery, however, often produced this benefit. So Garnsey [HI:ISAA:5]:

"This points to a paradox at the heart of the slave system. Slavery is the most degrading and exploitative institution invented by man. Yet many slaves in ancient societies...were more secure and economically better off than the mass of the free poor, whose employment was irregular, low-grade and badly paid...It was not unknown for free men to sell themselves into slavery to escape poverty and debt, or even to take up posts of responsibility in the domestic sphere."

But this was not the POINT of such slavery, whereas in the OT context, this benefit is the SOLE JUSTIFICATION for even allowing a watered-down, temporary, semi-servanthood.]



· Entry: Slavery was overwhelmingly involuntary. Humans were captured by force and sold via slave-traders.


OT:: In the OT, this relationship was overwhelmingly voluntary, and forced, non-negotiated (as in pledge of work, in case of default of debt, cf. the case in 2 Kings 4.1 where the creditor is probably coming to claim the children for non-payment, [BKC, in loc]) enslavement was a capital offense (unless it was a community punishment--you were an theft/fraud offender yourself, of course). This is generally in keeping with what we have noted earlier:

"A person would either enter into slavery or be sold by a parent or relative. Persons sold their wives, grandchildren, brother (with his wife and child), sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephews and niece…Many of the documents emphasize that the transaction is voluntary. This applies not only to self-sale but also to those who are the object of sale, although their consent must sometimes have been fictional, as in the case of a nursing infant." [HI:HANEL:1.665]


§ Forced enslavement of Hebrews was punishable by death.

"Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. " (Ex 21.16)

If a man is caught kidnapping one of his brother Israelites and treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you. (Deut 24.7; cf. I Tim 1.10).

§ The vast majority of cases would have been voluntary, with the person himself initiating the transaction--it is ALWAYS couched in the terms of 'selling oneself':

"`If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you..." (Lev 25.39)

"`If an alien or a temporary resident among you becomes rich and one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells himself to the alien living among you or to a member of the alien's clan... (Lev 25.47)

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. (Deut 15.12)

§ Although most of these arrangements were limited to six years in length (e.g. Deut 15.12 above), continuation of this relationship was possible, but ONLY AS a strictly voluntary act of the 'slave':

"But if the servant declares, `I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life. (Ex 21.5)

But if your servant says to you, "I do not want to leave you," because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, 17 then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant. (Deut 15.16f)

[Note: if a person had a wife/family when he sold himself, then the wife/family went free when his freedom occurred (If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. Ex 21.3). We will discuss the various release scenarios (with/family, w/o) below under 'Treatment".]



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Pushback: "Whoa, whoa! Can we not gloss/skip over that last point! I am reeeely bothered by that 'your wife stays here' clause…Can you explain how the various exit scenarios looked, in the case of a Hebrew debt-slave's going free? And is it true that a man could sell his daughter into slavery without any HOPE of freedom for her????

Sure, pal--I'll be glad to (but you'll regret asking me to interrupt the flow of this, with my typically verbose response…smile)

Here are the two passages, both in Exodus 21 (translation from the Jewish Publication Society version):

"When you acquire a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment. If he came single, he shall leave single; if he had a wife, his wife shall leave with him. If his master gave him a wife, and she has borne him children, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall leave alone." (21.2-4)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not be freed as male slaves are. If she proves to be displeasing to her master, who designated her for himself, he must let her be redeemed; he shall not have the right to sell her to outsiders, since he broke faith with her. And if he designated her for his son, he shall deal with her as is the practice with free maidens. If he marries another, he must not withhold from this one her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. If he fails her in these three ways, she shall go free, without payment." (21.7-11)

The way I want to approach this is to sketch out the marriage process background (rel. to OT and some ANE aspects), and map these scenarios onto them.



First, the process of getting married (for normal folks).



1. The parents of two families (or head-of-household, often the father, but not exclusively--Hagar 'took a wife for Ishmael out of Egypt', Gen 21,21) discuss and agree on a marriage/union between their respective son/daughter, in the context of a union of families--not of individuals. (The daughter, depending on her age, might have been a participant in these discussions, of course):



"Customs varied over time and place, but the process of marriage included at least four stages: (1) the engagement, (2) payments by the families of both the bride (dowry) and the groom (bride-price), (3) the bride's move to her father-in-law's house, and (4) sexual intercourse." [OT:DLAM, 133]



"Second, a father arranged for the marriage of his daughter by finding a suitable husband for her and negotiating the terms of the marriage." [HI:MFBW, 55]



"When parents deemed their child to be approaching marriageable age, the father of the groom would contact the parents of the potential spouse and negotiate the terms of the marriage, specifically the nature and size of the mohar, "marriage present". ." [HI:MFBW, 57]



"If the groom died or had a change of heart, his father could insist that the bride be given to one of the groom's brothers if one were available and of age. That is, the bride married into her husband's family--she did not marry an individual." [OT:DLAM, 134f]



"The control of marriages and offspring was also patriarchal. A woman’s father decided whom she could marry (Exod 22:17), although there is evidence that daughters were consulted (cf. Gen 24:55–58)." ["Patriarchy As An Evil That God Tolerated: Analysis And Implications For The Authority Of Scripture", Guenther Haas, Jnl of the Evangelical Theological Society 38:3, Sept 1995]



2. This mohar was once thought of (and still called in the literature) as a 'bride price', but more recently it is understood as a 'bride-present' (since sometimes the bride got to keep it herself). It is a payment made by the father of the groom, to the father of the bride:



"The contract described in the Laws of Eshnunna was between the two families, commonly represented by the fathers. For the groom's family, the contract concerned payment of the bride-price, which was a considerable sum of silver in the Old Babylonian period. The bride-price was an act of good faith, insuring the grooms' right to the bride." [OT:DLAM, 133]



"While some have interpreted the mohar as a purchase price, it is preferable to see it as a deposit delivered to the parents of the bride to promote the stability of the marriage and to strengthen the links between the families of those being married." [HI:MFBW, 57]



"The father of the girl negotiated a bride-price with the groom or groom's father, with an expected amount the baseline, the mohar habbetulot, set at fifty shekels, but with no upper limit. " [HI:HALOT,:2:1007; Note: this amount in the ANE at that time would have been the value of 5 years of a hired person's labor.]



3. However, depending on the circumstances of the families, this bride-price (and counterpart, the dowry of the girl) could be paid in installments, in non-cash items such as clothing (Judg 14:8-20), and/or in services:



"Normally, the bride-price consisted of sliver or goods, but it could be services…Jacob worked seven years for Rachel and Leah respectively. " [HI:HALOT,:2:1007]



"A fiancé could compound for the payment of the mohar by service, as Jacob did for both his marriages (Gn 29:15-30), or by accomplishing an appointed task, as David did for Mikal (1 S 18.25-27) and Othniel for Calab's daughter (Jos 15:16 = Jg 1:12)." [AI:1, 26f]



"Both the bride-price and the dowry could be paid in installments until the first child was born, at which time the balance of both payments was due. The marriage was legally finalized, and the mother assumed the legal rights of 'wife'" [OT:DLAM, 133]





Now, let's turn to the Exodus 21.7-11 passage, dealing with a father 'selling' his daughter….



1. The first thing to note is that commentators do not see this as a 'despicable' , 'mercenary' act on the part of a cold-hearted father. Rather, it was an exigency taken by a dad in protection and provision for his daughter (generally thought to be under extreme duress):



· "Lagas-Girsu legal texts show children being sold into slavery, and this led the texts' editor to posit a weak family bond. If, as seems likely, the parents were choosing life over death for their children, one does not need to doubt their devotion to the children." [OT:LIANE, 35]



· "While this legal right of parents was more than likely subject to abuse, its practice resulted from poverty and debt that threatened the survival of the household. Thus the selling of children was one means of payment of debt by an impoverished household, at the same time providing a new household for the poor offspring." [OT:FAI, 196]



· "Female slaves were treated differently. Many times female slaves were concubines or secondary wives (cf. Gen. 16:3; 22:24; 30:3, 9; 36:12; Jud. 8:31; 9:18). Some Hebrew fathers thought it more advantageous for their daughters to become concubines of well-to-do neighbors than to become the wives of men in their own social class." [BBC, at Ex 21.3ff]



· "In the a

aniekan thomas at 9:46AM on Jan 11th 2008