Slave
While perhaps most people today view slavery as being wrong, this has not been the case until quite recently in history. In ancient times, it was a common practice for victors in battle to take the vanquished as slaves. In well-developed societies like First Century Rome and Greece, human slavery was considered a part of everyday life.
Many if not most of the founders of the United States were racists and believed Black people to be inferior and fit for only slavery and menial tasks. This was a common belief in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Black people are by no means the only color of people who have been enslaved. Racism leading to enslavement based on color seems to be relatively recent in human civilization.
Those who have studied very little history for themselves are often deceived by biased hucksters of various narrow vision using the term “slave”, as if it is a generic across the historical board more or less equal horrific experience. In reality, terms like “slave”, “bond servant”, “bond slave”, “servant”, “serf” and similar vary dramatically from culture to culture, as to the lifestyle reality of what a slave, serf or indentured servant actually experiences.
Unlike the horrific existence of most American slaves, Hebrew slaves experienced a reality that was generally far less severe. In ancient Rome, a slave might experience anything from brutalization comparable to the worst cases among American slaves, to a reality much preferable to what a modern migrant worker or homeless day laborer experiences on a daily and ongoing basis.
Not all, but some Roman slaves could earn their freedom, along with the freedom of their children and, some Roman slaves were known to rise above the average free Roman citizen in status. Others were sometimes literally worked to death. Even among American Native and African slaves, not all slaves received the same equally harsh treatment, although American slavery is among the worst kind known to history.
In many New Testament translations, the term “bond-servant” is used. This word didn’t appear until the Fifteenth Century and in the Greek, it simply means slave. As opposed to a hired or indentured servant, who were not slaves but generally treated harshly, as they were also in early America. In the Old Testament, Hebrews who were enslaved by fellow Hebrews were “bond slaves”, who could become free every seven years.
As noted, in Roman culture, some slaves could earn their freedom and also earn their children’s freedom. Thus, we find Paul in the New Testament saying regarding slaves, if they can earn their freedom, they should use it wisely; as Paul likewise admonishes that those of us who are not literal slaves should also use our freedom wisely. Slaves who could not earn their freedom in Roman society tended to be convicts, many of who were worked to death (as were some American slaves). This is a horrifically brutal type of slavery, considerably different than either a Hebrew slave or many other slaves in history have endured.
Thus the term “slave” can be historically deceptive, compared to the actual reality experience of one slave in comparison to another. Old Testament Hebrews who were enslaved by fellow Hebrews were by law, freed every seven years, whether or not they had been enslaved for the full seven years. And, they were by law given a certain stipend upon being freed, so they could begin a new life on their own. They also had a choice of remaining with their masters if they chose to do so, which apparently some did, preferring the shelter, food and military security offered in exchange for their labor.
Lower slaves on the Hebrew societal chain that were captured in war and not fellow Hebrew slaves, were not treated as well as this, but even those slaves were required by law to be treated humanely and be provided with adequate protection, room and board. Compare how our own so-called “advanced” and “free” modern American society treats migrant workers and homeless day laborers; who are neither guaranteed board, clothing or even enough food; they are often raped and otherwise imprisoned, beaten and abused and, are frequently cheated out of even minimum wages; nor do they have much of an economic light shining at the end of the dark tunnel of their servitude.
Some ancient Hebrews who didn’t have the means themselves apparently sold or otherwise gave their own children to be enslaved by their fellow Hebrews who were of economic means, so that their child could learn a trade, have room and board provided and otherwise survive. Their child would also receive greater protection from thieves and in time of war, than a poor family with too many children to adequately care for could have provided.
To compare, homeless parents today in the United States have been known to cut their own children loose in their early teens to fend for themselves, not out of lack of love but rather, because they can’t otherwise afford to care for their younger children. While no caring parent wants their child to be enslaved, most progressive and fair-minded people today might agree that it would be better for your child to be indentured into a wealthier household, enslaved for a set seven-year period of time, than to be cast aside to fend for themselves among the estimated 1–3 million homeless children living in the United States today. Such children often find themselves enslaved into child prostitution and otherwise severely abused.
In Old Testament times, to be “cut off” from one’s people to fend for yourself was apparently considered a fate worse than death. Apart from the protection of the larger society, one would likely either slowly thirst and/or starve to death, be attacked by wild animals or be captured and enslaved by an enemy society; finding themselves in far worse conditions than a Hebrew slave would likely ever endure.
It is wise to remember that according to Jesus himself, God allowed things regarding the Old Testament Hebrews, because of the “hardness” of their hearts, that God himself does not endorse or approve of. Consider what the lessor of two evils would be: 1) To allow for a child to be enslaved for seven years until old and experienced enough to fend for themselves or 2) To not allow this and instead, a child of impoverished parents would be left to fend for themselves without food security or protection, at the mercy of the wild beasts and violent blood-thirsty nations of ancient Palestine.
And, lest anyone use this as an excuse to condemn the ancient Hebrews, consider the horrific reality of homelessness and violence displayed on daily media news and great and growing disparity of wealth here in a so-called post-enlightenment modern 21st Century. According to both the Old and New testaments, there can be a vast difference between what God allows because of the hardness of our hearts, so that ultimately the human race itself will survive and, what God himself either prefers or endorses.
In New Testament historical reality, slavery was an entrenched accepted part of life in the First Century Greco/Roman world. Publicly opposing slavery would have likely quickly led to arrest and crucifixion. If Jesus had publicly verbally opposed slavery, he would not only have placed himself in peril, but also have gravely endangered the thousands of men, women and children who hung around him on a daily basis. Those who rather foolishly ask, why didn’t Jesus openly condemn slavery, consider that in the modern United States, many Caucasian people who sympathized with slaves were beaten, tortured and lynched themselves not long ago.
It may also be true that Jesus did either publicly or privately speak against slavery but it was left out of the four New Testament narratives due to fear of persecution of his early followers. One of the many legitimate fears First Century followers of “the way” had was to be perceived as being a threat to the Roman societal structure. The narratives themselves tell us that much of what Jesus said and did is not included.
The poorly schooled today who criticize Jesus for not publicly opposing slavery truly don’t know their historical ass from a hole in the ground. This also may be the reason that Paul advises slave converts to either be content with remaining a slave or, if they can obtain their freedom, to like the rest of us, use their freedom wisely. A slave uprising could result in horrific punishment for both slaves and the rest of the community of Jesus followers.
In Paul’s short letter to Philemon, he beseeches a former master of a runaway slave, that he accept him as a freed brother. This obviously not a letter from someone who endorses slavery, as Paul has been wrongly accused of. And much more so, neither is Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which not only grants equal status to slaves, but also to women, as well as to people of every ethnicity, skin color and nationality.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Messiah Jesus.” This is by far one of the most liberal and greatest human-rights oriented statements in all of known history. This and similar statements are so far outside the bounds of the society Paul lived in, that some historians have labeled Paul the most liberal author in history.
This is what Jesus reveals in Revelation 13:9–10: “If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints.” Anyone who says the New Testament supports either slavery or war, has obviously not paid any attention to this passage.
Modern people today who routinely stand on the corner holding up a pro human rights or anti-war sign, often just arbitrarily transpose their ‘progressive’ requirements upon Jesus and the First Century authors of the Bible, without considering that they didn’t at all have the same freedom to do likewise. Historical reality back then called for wisdom to know what to say and do and what not to say and do and, historical reality today, likewise calls for the same.
Much of the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez and the modern Civil Rights Movement, lay in knowing where and when to strike and when not to strike. Consider for example, if they instead have advised their fellow oppressed humans to go on strike, march in every city and, disobey every racist law, all across America, all at the same time in 1954; most likely they would have been jailed for treason or worse, lynched.
There could well have been a second civil war, as we unfortunately may be heading towards today. If one considers this to be an exaggeration, ask anyone who lived in the United Sates South in the 1950’s or, in South Los Angeles during the Watts riots. As Jesus and MLK both taught by word and deed, practicing peace is always preferable to using violence as a means to an end and freedom is always preferable to slavery; to physical slavery and slavery to evil.
Contact author: www.FreedomTracks.com
