Does the Bible Endorse Slavery?

Christianity is a worldview rooted in love, a feature that sets it apart from other worldviews. Therefore, the sting is real when an accusation is made that the Bible endorses slavery. In several conversations with atheists, I have heard this issue raised. The underlying idea is that the cultural morality of the 21st century is superior to the morality of the Bible, and that the issue of slavery proves it. Critics from both secular academia and popular culture argue that Scripture not only tolerates the ownership of human beings but also provides a divine stamp of approval for one of history's greatest moral atrocities. Sam Harris, in The End of Faith, writes that the Old Testament regards slaves as "farm equipment," calling this "patently evil." Internet skeptics routinely cite passages such as Exodus 21, Leviticus 25, and Ephesians 6:5 as proof that the Bible is morally inferior to current thinking.

The accusation takes several forms. Some argue that because the Mosaic Law permitted Israelites to acquire servants, God must have approved of human bondage. Others point out that Jesus never explicitly condemned slavery and that Paul told slaves to obey their masters (Colossians 3:22), suggesting that the New Testament authors were complicit in perpetuating oppression. Perhaps most damaging is the historical fact that slaveholders in the American South cited Scripture to defend and justify their brutal system, claiming divine permission to treat African Americans as property.

Yet these accusations rest on a fundamental question: Is the word "slavery" used in the same sense across all time and cultures?

Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright writes, "slavery in relatively small societies like Israel was qualitatively vastly different from slavery in large imperial civilizations." If slavery differs simply by the size of the civilization, then could there be a significant difference in what "slavery" means across multiple cultures and ages?

To evaluate Scripture fairly, we will examine what the Bible actually says, how ancient servitude differed from modern slavery, and whether biblical principles ultimately support or condemn the enslavement of human beings.

Outline

1.0 Slavery in Old Testament Culture

2.0 Slavery in New Testament Culture

3.0 Slavery in the Last Two to Three Hundred Years

4.0 How the Bible Opposes Contemporary Slavery

1.0 Slavery in Old Testament Culture

The Nature of Israelite Servitude

When modern readers encounter the word "slave" in English translations of the Old Testament, they typically envision the brutal chattel slavery of the American South. This is a grave misunderstanding. Old Testament scholar J. A. Motyer notes that "Hebrew has no vocabulary of slavery, only of servanthood."(1) The Hebrew term ebed encompasses a range of relationships, from royal officials to household servants to debt laborers.

In most cases, what English Bibles call "slavery" in ancient Israel was closer to indentured servitude. It was a voluntary, contractual arrangement in which poor individuals worked to repay debts. Paul Copan compares it to "apprentice-like positions to pay off debts---much like the indentured servitude during America's founding when people worked for approximately seven years to pay off the debt for their passage to the New World."(2) One could voluntarily "sell" oneself to work in another household: "your brother ... becomes poor and sells himself" (Leviticus 25:47 ESV). This served as a survival mechanism for families facing economic catastrophe, not a form of forced bondage imposed by outsiders.

Crucially, in Old Testament Israel, "outsiders did not impose servanthood---as in the antebellum South."(3) The system was designed to help the poor survive, not to exploit them. God explicitly stated His intention: "But there will be no poor among you" (Deuteronomy 15:4 ESV). Servanthood existed precisely because poverty did; the goal was to eliminate both.

If the goal was to protect the poor, and therefore those who were forced to become servants, weren't they vulnerable to abuse? They definitely were. As a result, several laws were enacted to protect servants, so that they would not be mistreated by their masters during the (hopefully temporary) period of indenture.

Old Testament Laws Protecting Servants

The Mosaic Law afforded remarkable protections to servants, protections unprecedented in the ancient Near East. These laws indicate that God did not endorse an ideal system but rather regulated a fallen institution to protect the vulnerable.

1. Limited Term of Service

Hebrew servants were to serve only six years and then go free in the seventh year (Exodus 21:2; Deuteronomy 15:12). This applied equally to men and women: "If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you" (Deuteronomy 15:12, ESV). Unlike perpetual chattel slavery, Israelite servitude had a built-in expiration date.

2. Generous Discharge

At the end of their term, masters were not merely to release servants empty-handed. They were commanded to provide generously for their new start. "You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him." (Deuteronomy 15:14, ESV). The Lord intentionally reminded them that they were in the same boat and should therefore be sympathetic. But there, they had been slaves by force. "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today." (Deuteronomy 15:15 ESV).

3. Intentional Full Restoration

Leviticus 25 established that impoverished Israelites who had entered service were to be released in the Year of Jubilee (every fiftieth year), along with their children, and restored to their ancestral property (Leviticus 25:39--41). This prevented the permanent loss of family identity and inheritance that later forms of slavery entailed.

4. Protection Against Physical Abuse

The Mosaic Law contained extraordinary protections against mistreatment. If a master injured a servant, even knocking out a tooth or damaging an eye, the servant was to be freed immediately as compensation (Exodus 21:26--27). Wright notes that "no other ancient Near Eastern law has been found that holds a master to account for the treatment of his own slaves" (Old Testament Ethics, 292).

The Code of Hammurabi is an ancient Babylonian collection of laws issued by King Hammurabi of Babylon around the mid-18th century BCE. It consists of 282 laws. The final law reads, "If a slave says to his master, 'You are not my master,' and he is proven to be his master's slave, his master shall cut off his ear."

There is a significant contrast between the two sets of laws. In the Biblical law, if a master struck a servant and caused immediate death, the master faced capital punishment: "He must be avenged" (Exodus 21:20). The verb naqam, used here, consistently refers to the death penalty throughout Scripture. (4)

5. The Anti-Kidnapping Law

Perhaps most significantly, the Mosaic Law condemned kidnapping a person for sale as a capital offense. Kidnapping someone to sell them as slaves, and anyone who bought them, faced the same punishment as a murderer and would be subject to the death penalty!

"Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death" (Exodus 21:16, ESV; cf. Deuteronomy 24:7). Copan observes that "kidnapping, of course, is how slavery in the antebellum South could get off the ground." If this law had been enforced, the transatlantic slave trade could never have existed.

6. Safe Harbor for Runaway Slaves

What happens to those slaves who run away? Wright emphasizes that "the otherwise universal law regarding runaway slaves was that they must be sent back, with severe penalties for those who failed to comply" (Old Testament Ethics, 292). This was consistent with both ancient Near Eastern extradition treaties and the American Fugitive Slave Law.

The American Fugitive Slave Law (usually referring to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850) was a federal law that required enslaved people who escaped to free states to be captured and returned to their enslavers, and it forced officials and private citizens in free states to help in this process. It greatly expanded federal enforcement power in favor of slaveholders and became one of the most hated pro‑slavery laws in the North.

In stark contrast to the "norm" is the biblical standard. Deuteronomy 23:15--16 commanded the Israelites to give refuge to escaped slaves and forbade returning them to their masters. "You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him." (ESV). The laws favoured the slaves rather than the masters.

The Theological Foundation

How could the biblical laws be so different from those of its neighbors and from those of modern cultures? The laws were not arbitrary regulations but flowed from Israel's foundational beliefs. First, all human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26--27), which confers inherent dignity on every person, regardless of social status. Job affirmed this regarding his servants: "Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15 ESV).

Second, Israel's identity was rooted in its liberation from Egyptian bondage. The repeated command to "remember that you were slaves in Egypt" (Deuteronomy 5:15; 15:15; 24:18) ensured that Israelites would not repeat the oppression they had endured. Muhammad A. Dandamayev, writing in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, concludes: "We have in the Bible the first appeals in world literature to treat slaves as human beings for their own sake and not just in the interests of their masters."(5)

2.0 Slavery in New Testament Culture

The Greco-Roman Context

The world of the New Testament was markedly different from that of ancient Israel and from chattel slavery. In the Greco-Roman world, slavery was a deeply embedded institution that shaped the economy, household life, and social hierarchy. Enslaved people were legally treated as property, not persons, and could be bought, sold, punished, or even killed at an owner's discretion. Slavery was not based primarily on race; instead, most enslaved people were war captives, foreigners, or those born to enslaved mothers, though some were enslaved for debt or exposure as infants. They performed a wide range of work, from brutal agricultural and mining labor to skilled crafts, household service, accounting, and teaching, so daily experience varied from extreme cruelty to relatively privileged but still unfree conditions.

Manumission (being freed) was possible, especially in urban settings, and freed slaves could sometimes become citizens, but social stigma and obligations to former owners often persisted, ensuring that slavery continued to support the overall structure of Greco-Roman society. A Roman slave is "someone whose person and service belong wholly to another." Roman slaves could be beaten, branded, sexually exploited, and treated as property, with minimal legal recourse. Yet Roman slavery, unlike its later American counterpart, was not race-based; slaves came from all ethnicities, and many could eventually earn or purchase their freedom.

New Testament Teachings Protecting Slaves

The New Testament did not provide a new civil law code to replace Roman law. Instead, it addressed Christians living within existing structures, planting seeds that would eventually transform those structures from within.

1. Spiritual Equality in Christ

The most revolutionary New Testament statement on slavery appears in Galatians 3:28 (ESV): There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This declaration transformed all social distinctions by grounding human identity in union with Christ. Stephen B. Clark explains that this was "socially radical because it placed slave and master on the same spiritual footing."(6) The same principle appears in Colossians 3:11 and 1 Corinthians 12:13.

2. Mutual Obligations in Household Codes

The so-called "household codes" in Ephesians 5--6 and Colossians 3--4 are often cited as evidence that Paul endorsed slavery. However, these passages are notable for what they require of masters. While slaves are told to obey their masters, masters are commanded to "treat your slaves in the same way." What is that same way? With the attitude of service! Masters are also told to stop threatening their slaves, "since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him" (Ephesians 6:9, NIV). The master and slave are supposed to treat each other similarly.

Paul's command here is outrageous in that era. (7) Colossians 4:1 commands masters to "provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven" (NIV). In a legal system where slaves had virtually no rights, such moral requirements for masters were unthinkable.

3. Slaves as Brothers and Sisters

Paul treated Christian slaves as morally responsible persons and full members of the body of Christ. In 1 Timothy 6:2, he instructs slaves with Christian masters to serve them well "because those who benefit from their service are dear to them as fellow believers" (NIV). The New Testament greeting lists in Romans 16 include people with common slave names (such as Andronicus and Urbanus), whom Paul calls "kinsman," "fellow prisoner," and "fellow worker" (Romans 16:7, 9). Slaves even held leadership positions in early churches. This stands in stark contrast to Aristotle's claim that certain humans were "slaves by nature" (Politics I.13).

4. Condemnation of Slave Trading

In 1 Timothy 1:9--10, Paul lists "slave traders" among those who oppose "sound doctrine." The Greek term refers specifically to those who kidnap or traffic in human beings.(8) This condemnation echoes the Old Testament prohibition against kidnapping and selling people.(9) By the same standard, the entire transatlantic slave trade would be condemned.

5. The Letter to Philemon

The Epistle to Philemon is often cited as evidence that Paul returned a runaway slave without condemning slavery. However, the text is more complex. Paul urges Philemon to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord" (Philemon 16, NIV). Some scholars suggest that Onesimus was not a runaway but an estranged brother seeking Paul's mediation. (10) James Tunstead Burtchaell summarizes Paul's strategy as "instead of forbidding slavery, impose fellowship."(11) By making slaves and masters into a family, Paul undermined the very logic of slavery.

How Ancient Slavery Differed from Modern Slavery

Several critical differences distinguish biblical-era servitude from modern chattel slavery:

Characteristic	Biblical-Era Servitude	Modern Chattel Slavery
Basis	Economic (debt, poverty, war)	Racial (skin color, ethnicity)
Duration	Often time-limited (6 years)	Permanent and hereditary
Legal Status	Some legal protections	Slaves were legal non-persons
Path to Freedom	Release provisions, Jubilee, manumission	Rare and legally restricted
Kidnapping	Capital offense	Foundation of the system
Family	Families could remain together	Deliberate family separation

Table 1: Comparison of Biblical-Era Servitude and Modern Chattel Slavery

While ancient and modern slavery shared some essential characteristics, the addition of racial prejudice in the early modern period "made it even easier for whites to dehumanize enslaved African or Native American people and ultimately to treat enslaved African Americans as 'chattel,' or transferable pieces of property."(12)

3.0 Slavery in the Last Two to Three Hundred Years

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The slavery that emerged in the Americas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries was qualitatively different from ancient servitude. The transatlantic slave trade forcibly transported approximately 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic, with an estimated two million dying during the Middle Passage alone, a mortality rate of approximately 14 percent. Conditions were deplorable, and enslaved people were transported in horrific conditions. Men and women were separated during the Middle Passage, and disease, dehydration, and hopelessness claimed numerous lives.

The Brutality of American Slavery

American chattel slavery became one of history's most oppressive systems. Its defining characteristics stood in stark contrast to biblical principles:

1. Race-Based and Hereditary

Unlike ancient servitude, American slavery was defined by race. A person born to an enslaved mother was automatically enslaved for life, regardless of the father's status. This created a permanent underclass based solely on skin color, a concept foreign to both the Old and New Testaments. Race was the defining difference between American slavery and the slavery of biblical times. (13)

2. No Path to Freedom

American slaves had no sabbatical release, no Jubilee restoration, and no legal right to buy their freedom. The system was designed to be perpetual. Harriet Beecher Stowe described it accurately: "The legal power of the master amounts to an absolute despotism over body and soul, and there is no protection for the slave's life."(14)

3. Built on Kidnapping

The entire transatlantic slave trade rested on the systematic kidnapping of African men, women, and children, exactly what Exodus 21:16 condemned as a capital offense (as we saw earlier). An estimated 18 million Africans were captured, and one-third died before even reaching the coast. If the kidnapper of a slave had received the death sentence as the Old Testament commanded, the transatlantic slave trade would never have existed.

4. Deliberate Family Destruction

American slavery routinely separated families as a mechanism of control and profit. Family members were separated from each other, Husbands, wives, children, and even infants, and then sold.(15) This mental and emotional torture compounded the physical suffering and stands in direct violation of biblical principles protecting family integrity.

5. Systematic Dehumanization

American slaves, like the Roman ones, were legally classified as property. They were chattel that could be bought, sold, mortgaged, and bequeathed like livestock. They could not legally marry, testify in court, own property, or learn to read. Slavery was permanent and hereditary, with no hope of any kind, and it was characterized by the subordination of Black people. (16)

How Scripture Was Twisted

Pro-slavery advocates in the antebellum South twisted Scripture to justify their brutal system. They cited Old Testament passages that permit servitude, New Testament instructions for slaves to obey their masters, and, in particular, the so-called "Curse of Ham" (Genesis 9:25--27). This last text, which actually cursed Canaan (not Ham), was reinterpreted to claim that Africans were destined for perpetual servitude, an interpretation with no biblical basis that was falsely used to justify slavery. (17)

The Caucasian Christians in the South, rather than viewing slavery as a moral evil and a sin, generally concluded that God established slavery in the Bible. They challenged abolitionists to produce a Bible verse in which Jesus condemned slavery. But this horrible approach to biblical interpretation undermines everything the Bible teaches while giving them a false basis to oppress a fellow human being.

4.0 How the Bible Opposes Contemporary Slavery

When we examine the full testimony of Scripture, we find that the Bible not only fails to endorse modern slavery but actively opposes its foundational assumptions.

The Image of God

The Bible's most fundamental teaching about humanity is that every person is created in God's image: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27, NIV). This doctrine affirms universal human dignity that transcends race, ethnicity, or social status. Proverbs 14:31 states: "Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God" (NIV).

The imago Dei doctrine directly contradicts race-based slavery, which rests on viewing certain groups as inherently inferior or less than fully human. For the first time in the ancient Near East, the biblical mandate that servants be treated as persons rather than property would have been shocking.(18)

The Exodus Paradigm

If there is one event that is key and foundational to the Old Testament, it is the liberation of Israel from Egyptian slavery by God. This event was so critical that they were constantly reminded of who they were until God rescued them and revealed the extravagance of God's grace. A recurring verse in the Old Testament is: "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" (Deuteronomy 5:15, NIV). The God of the Exodus is a defender of the oppressed and the enslaved and an enemy of unjust systems.

African Americans who were enslaved in America connected deeply with the Exeter story. Like the people of Israel, they were slaves in a foreign land, and they held onto Hope that their time would come, just as they held onto God.(19) The biblical narrative of liberation became their anthem of hope.

Direct Condemnation of Slave Trading

The Bible explicitly and unequivocally condemns the practices that made modern slavery possible:

• Kidnapping for sale is a capital offense (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7)

• Slave traders are listed among the lawless (1 Timothy 1:9--10)

• Treating humans as "cargo" is condemned (Revelation 18:11--13, which lists "slaves---that is, human beings" among doomed Babylon's merchandise)

Although the Israelites could own servants, these laws prevented them from engaging in the trade of enslaved people as captors and vendors. The God of the Israelite masters was also the God of the slaves, and the masters knew it.

Christianity and the Abolition of Slavery

The same biblical principles twisted to defend slavery ultimately fueled its abolition. Repeated, fervent appeals grounded in Christian morality to the powers that be played a key role in governments' efforts to end slavery completely. William Wilberforce, the British parliamentarian who led the decades-long fight against the slave trade, was explicitly motivated by his Christian faith. In 1787, he wrote in his diary: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners." His tireless efforts, counseled by former slave trader turned pastor John Newton, resulted in the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833.

Slavery could not coexist with an accurate interpretation of biblical principles, including human dignity, spiritual equality, and divine justice. Does the Bible endorse slavery? Absolutely not, not in the way the modern world has known it. The Old Testament had a regulated system of debt servitude, with significant protections for those unfortunate enough to be subject to it. The New Testament proclaimed spiritual equality in Christ, commanded masters to treat servants justly, condemned slave trading, and planted seeds that would eventually destroy the institution entirely.

The brutal, race-based, hereditary chattel slavery of the last few centuries violated every biblical principle meant to protect the vulnerable. Those who used Scripture to defend such a system did so by ignoring its context, its commands, and its overarching theological vision. When Christians have faithfully followed the Bible's deepest teachings on the imago dei, the liberation of the oppressed, and the truth that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, slavery is ultimately dismantled.

Notes

(1) J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 239.

(2) Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 124.

(3) Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?, 125.

(4) Gregory C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 141 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 155--63.

(5) Muhammad A. Dandamayev, "Slavery (Old Testament)," in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992).

(6) Stephen B. Clark, Man and Woman in Christ (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1980), 170--75.

(7) Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 454.

(8) "Andrapodistēs," in Strong's Greek Concordance, Bible Hub, accessed February 5, 2026.

(9) Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, New International Biblical Commentary 13 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 45--46.

(10) Allen Dwight Callahan, "Paul's Epistle to Philemon: Toward an Alternative Argumentum," Harvard Theological Review 86, no. 4 (October 1993): 357--76.

(11) James Tunstead Burtchaell, Philemon's Problem: A Theology of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 21.

(12) Murray J. Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 44.

(13) Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 68--70.

(14) Harriet Beecher Stowe, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1853), 139.

(15) Miller Center, "U.S. Presidents and Slavery," Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, accessed February 5, 2026.

(16) Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019), 35.

(17) Noel Rae, The Great Stain: Witnessing American Slavery (New York: Overlook Press, 2018), 25--28.

(18) Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?, 126.

(19) Allen Dwight Callahan, "Sacred and Undesirable: Examining the Theological Import of Hiding Places in Exodus," Priscilla Papers 29, no. 3 (Summer 2015).