Anti Slavery In The Bible

People have debated the use of the bible against or with slavery, however, according to the bible in Exodus 3, they do not use the word slaves or slavery, instead they use the word servants as slavery is not a fitting word due to it’s negative connotation. It also mentions that if the servant is a man, he may go free after the seventh year of labor without having to pay any sort of fee or fine, if he brings a wife with him his wife may go as well. If his wife is given to him by his master and he bears children, the wife and children are required to stay with the master and may not leave with the servant.

There is also a prohibition on the kidnapping of other people in Leviticus 25 and one of the main ways that people have acquired slaves was through travelling to another country, then kidnapping and enslaving people thus adding to the fact that the bible does not support the notion of slavery.

In the new testament, the meeting between jesus and the people that were interpreted to be slaves were actually servants, apprentaces, and employees. It also mentions that they willingly hired and were not forced into it.Again the new testament they also use the greek word doulos which many misinterpreted it to mean slaves when in fact it means servant. Those who were in charge of writing and translating the bible said “ If they were slaves, the translators of our bible would have called them so”. This quote further supports the idea that the bible does not condone slavery otherwise they would have used the word slaves in the bible instead.

A quote from author Daniel Goodwin states: “If the new testament approved and sanctioned slavery, as a legallized system, it approved and sanctioned Roman slavery. Hebrew slavery no longer existed to be sanctioned or abrogated. Now the system of Roman slavery was perhaps the most outrageously cruel and inhuman that every existed. Moreover, it was slavery of whites. Can a christian believe that christ and his apostles approved and sanctioned slavery such as that?”.

I used these sites as my sources as they can provide quotes directly from the bible and one of which is a book that is written about slavery in the bible

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021&version=NIV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%203&version=NIV

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