The Year of Jubilee  

Is this very common accusation valid, arguable, or just plain slander? Can these people be genuinely unaware the abolitionists "waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War"? Which side did in truth hold the Bible high ground?

From the time of the bruising struggle over the abolition of slavery that led to the American Civil War, interpreters have collected and segregated the Bible evidence favorable to their side and trumpeted that slice of the whole as 'what the Bible says about slavery.' Abolitionists insisted the Bible leaves no choice for the Christian but abolition, whereas the defenders of the racist South alleged the Bible authors found nothing wrong or questionable in this nearly universal (before Christianity) human institution. This page aims to restore the sundered whole.

Moses did not invent slavery. This near-universal human institution was a legacy of brute force and hard-heartedness toward those facing hunger or insolvency. When one warring tribe over-ran another, they held it for an act of mercy to spare the lives of the civilian populace. Instead, they took them as merchandise. Another route into slavery was debt; when a debtor could not repay, he himself was made repayment. Moses' law seeks to limit and ameliorate this ubiquitous institution, without abolishing it. Certainly no one was ever obliged by the law to buy a slave. Moses enslaved none but the improvident thief, while he liberated millions from slavery.

The 'red-states' which championed slavery in the years prior to the Civil War have taken upon themselves the mantle of 'Christian conservatives,' leading to an unfortunate eclipse of the thinking of those Northern Christians whose denominations upheld abolition. What those people saw in the Bible is strangely overlooked, though they were right. Nothing is more common than to hear from atheists, 'The Bible sees nothing wrong in slavery.' This simply isn't so.

What Is Slavery?

For purposes of this web-page, slavery is defined as that which is made illegal by the thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The Thirteenth Amendment

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

(Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution).

"Involuntary" servitude presupposes lack of consent on the part of the laborer whose services are coerced, without compensation, as in this case:

Six Years

In the Mosaic law, involuntary servitude by Jews is term-limited to six years:

This provision limiting the term of involuntary servitude to six years falls short of total abolition, but also falls well short of the unquestioning support for slavery claimed by atheists. Moreover the reader will notice a process of 'back-stopping.' A Hebrew who falls into debt slavery must be freed after six years, and must not leave empty-handed. However if the provisions of the Mosaic law were followed perfectly, things would not have come to this point because when he first fell into difficulties, his neighbors would have obeyed the injunction to "open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs." The ideal is for none of the congregation to be slaves, but the law also makes provision to rescue those who have fallen into it this state. It is only fair to Moses to recognize that if his law had been followed to the letter, there would have been no Jewish slaves awaiting liberation at six-year intervals, because the indigent debtor's neighbors would have 'opened their hands wide.' There is yet another back-stop in the form of the Jubilee as will be seen.

Confronted with this time-limit of six years, atheists reply, 'So what? It's still slavery.' 'So what'? Would it really have made no difference if those Africans brought to this country in chains aboard slave ships went free after a term of service limited to six years?

People can put up with a lot if they see a light at the end of the tunnel. Here in Maine, German prisoners of war worked on the potato farms during World War II. This situation was amicable enough: the farmers liked the free labor, and the captured soldiers did not mind working. They knew they were stuck in the camps for the duration, but once the war was over, they would be going home and could pick up their lives where they left off. It would have made a meaningful difference if the men had had reason to believe that they, and their descendents after them, would be working for these same potato farmers and their descendents, uncompensated, down to the last human generation. Moses' six-year limitation is not a small or inconsequential check on the evil of slavery.

One of the abolitionist pamphlets I've uploaded to the Thriceholy library makes this point:

"If the Mosaic law is to be resorted to in justification of slavery, let us take the whole of it as it was given by the inspired law-giver; and let not the hapless servant be deprived of its lenient provisions in his favor. If we are to be Jews and not Christians, let us at least be consistent Jews, and conform literally to all the instructions of our law-giver." (Evan Lewis, 'An Address to Christians of All Denominations').

This is a valid point. If you're going to keep the Mosaic law, then keep the whole of it: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10). If American slave-holders had obeyed Moses' injunctions, they would have let these people go after six years of service, loaded down with gifts and provisions. Did they do that? No! Then why claim that Moses supports an institution which flouts his law?

An Awl

What happened to a slave who did not want to be released after six years? He could stay:

This situation falls outside the scope of this web-page as it is not a case of involuntary servitude. Atheists condemn this provision nevertheless on grounds that it allows slavery. At some point however one must ask what is being contended for in the term 'slavery,' if what is meant is not a condition which was not chosen.

The Year of Jubilee

Every forty-ninth year a Jubilee was proclaimed:

"Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family." (Leviticus 25:9-10).

Any Hebrews that were at that time in a condition of bondage were freed:

A Jubilee year would not occur more than once in a man's lifetime; it is a back-stop if the other provisions were honored in the breach. Again, as in the prior passages, the children of Israel are admonished not to let a brother Israelite fall into poverty; but failing that, and failing his liberation at the six-year mark as already noted, he is to be freed without fail at the year of Jubilee. This 'back-stopping' in the Mosaic law can seem like inconsistency, and leads some interpreters to reason like this: 'If you take Moses literally ('open your hand wide'), then there would be no slaves; but there plainly are slaves, as there are provisions for freeing them at the Jubilee; therefore Moses cannot really have meant what he first said, and slavery is upheld.' There is no reason to think he did not mean it, yet there are still provisions for contrary outcomes, and not only because, historically, the Mosaic law was honored largely in the breach; the children of Israel did not even get monotheism right, much less freeing the slaves. Suppose the community is too poor to help; suppose they 'open their hand wide' and nothing but air falls out. These consecutive 'back-stops' catch those fallen through the cracks.

It was also obligatory that any Hebrew who fell into the possession of a heathen owner be redeemed, but failing that, he went free in the year of Jubilee:

"Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone who is near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. Thus he shall reckon with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years, from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Jubilee; it shall be according to the time of a hired servant for him. If there are still many years remaining, according to them he shall repay the price of his redemption from the money with which he was bought. And if there remain but a few years until the Year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him, and according to his years he shall repay him the price of his redemption. He shall be with him as a yearly hired servant, and he shall not rule with rigor over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed in these years, then he shall be released in the Year of Jubilee—he and his children with him. For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 25:47-55).

The Jubilee promise is to "all the inhabitants [of the land]," (KJV) which on its face includes resident aliens. The word 'inhabitant' does not specify religion; it simply means whoever is sitting around there, whether Jew or Gentile: "As for the Jebusites the inhabitants [yashab 03427] of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell [03427] with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day." (Joshua 15:63). To say "all the inhabitants" does not leave anyone out. It is simplest, and best, to suppose that "all the inhabitants" means "all the inhabitants," however astonishing some find it.

It is objected that, as will be seen, Leviticus promises foreign slaves as a possession "for ever:" "And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor." (Leviticus 25:46 KJV). As should be apparent, though, what is promised "for ever" is not the services of each individual bondsman, because human beings do not live here on this earth "for ever." It is of a succession of individuals that it is said, "they shall be your bondmen for ever." If this is said of a self-reproducing cohort, why is it necessary to keep making additions through purchase?: ". . .of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." (25:44). Who will be your servants "for ever"? Not Pedro, Max and Sam, but foreigners. If someone protests that the Jubilee represents economic suicide, and laments as they watch their foreign slaves walk out the door at the fiftieth year, Moses reassures them, 'Don't worry, there are always plenty more where those came from.'

By design the polity of Israel retained few resident aliens, owing to concerns about idolatrous proselytizing. What is in view is a continuous process of importation, a 'guest worker' program. This allowance to import slaves obtained abroad and to purchase resident aliens offered for sale will provide a source of labor "for ever," even while individuals are removed from this pool at each recurring Jubilee. The point is that Israel will not run out of slaves, in case anyone is concerned there will be a 'labor shortage,' because they can keep replenishing this pool, not that those who are in the pool remain "for ever." If someone wonders, 'Who will pick the lettuce?' The answer might be, 'Mexicans. We have a guest worker program.' This does not require each individual Mexican to do nothing in his life but pick lettuce. The Jubilee is for "all the inhabitants," not only the native-born or the circumcised.

The first two categories are discouraged ('open your hand wide'). It is a defeat for Moses if they happen at all; not so the third. This is not an equal deal; the Jew is not treated like the Gentile. In the New Testament, we will watch these categories collapse: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians3:28). Forty-nine years is a long time to wait for freedom. But as will be seen, there was a 'fast-track' for those prepared to trust the God of Israel, who led His people out of bitter bondage in Egypt.

Was the Jubilee year scrupulously observed by the Jews? It would appear not. The Babylonian Talmud suggests that this is part of the reason the Jews are in exile: "As a punishment for incest, idolatry, and non-observance of the years of release and jubilee exile comes to the world, they [the Jews] are exiled, and others come and dwell in their place, for it is said, for all these abominations have the men of the land done, etc.; and it is written, and the land is defiled. . ." (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbath, Folio 33a). These laws, alas, were theory rather than fact. The debt-release of the sabbatical years and the Jubilee requires the moneyed interests to take a hit in deference to the interests of the powerless. The prophets never stopped calling for it:

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward." (Isaiah 58:6-8)

The political difficulties are apparent: the people who benefit from the Jubilee are the poor and oppressed, while the high and mighty suffer a pay cut. But you cannot blame Moses for trying. The Mosaic law enslaves no one except the improvident thief; to the contrary, it frees the slaves, if enforced. God cannot be blamed for man's disobedience.

The prophet Isaiah promises a great Jubilee:

So far is Jesus from restricting or rescinding Moses' institution of the Jubilee that He applies this very passage to Himself:

"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." (Luke 4:17-21).

Some expositors have suggested that He meant this announcement as the proclamation of a literal or earthly Jubilee, but I would think He had in the mind the greater Jubilee. The earthly slave-masters who have seized hold of God's people, such as Pharaoh of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and the Southern slave-driver, are essentially weak and feeble in that they can only control the bodies of their captives, they cannot enter into their minds. No one need awaken the minds of the oppressed brick-makers in Egypt to the fact of their oppression. However, Satan is a more subtle slave-master in that he rules with the consent of the governed; he convinces his subjects he is their liberator. They sign up willingly because they have been persuaded that service to him means liberation from stultifying regulations. Moreover, enrollment in his service means eternal loss, not the earthly loss of slavery to the Egyptian. The earthly slave-driver, after he has ruined your life, can do no worse to you; his kingdom ends at death. But Jesus, while proclaiming liberty from the more dangerous and demeaning service, is in no way discounting or discouraging the lesser, earthly, periodic Jubilee Moses enjoined.

Concubine

Moses allows a man to sell his daughter into a lower grade of marriage:

At with slavery generally, Moses did not invent this institution; however he regularized it and ameliorated its worst abuses, giving the woman some measure of legal standing and rights as a wife. In a similar vein is Deuteronomy 21:11-14:

"And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her." (Deuteronomy 21:11-14).

These women are in a legal shadow-land; they cannot be sold, they are not chattel slaves. On the other hand their condition is not enviable, because they did not choose it.

Getting Away With Murder

One passage where atheist critics of the Bible see the unqualified acceptance of slavery is Exodus 21:20-21:

The slave-owner is not allowed to kill his slave outright, but if he beats him to within an inch of his life so that he dies within a few days, he gets away with murder, unless some other cause intervened. If the injured slave survives, he receives his freedom in exchange for the outrage he endured:

“If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth." (Exodus 21:26).

The free and unrestrained use of physical punishment was a glaring feature of American slavery, noticed both by outside observers and by those who had survived the system, like Frederick Douglass:

"A mere look, word, or motion,— a mistake, accident, or want of power,— are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look dissatisfied? It is said, he has the devil in him, and it must be whipped out. Does he speak loudly when spoken to by his master? Then he is getting high-minded, and should be taken down a button-hole lower. Does he forget to pull off his hat at the approach of a white person? Then he is wanting in reverence, and should be whipped for it. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when censured for it? Then he is guilty of impudence,— one of the greatest crimes of which a slave can be guilty. Does he ever venture to suggest a different mode of doing things from that pointed out by his master? He is indeed presumptuous, and getting above himself; and nothing less than a flogging will do for him. Does he, while plowing, break a plow,— or, while hoeing, break a hoe? It is owing to his carelessness, and for it a slave must always be whipped." (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, p. 83).

The law of Moses was not proclaimed as a universal law applicable to all people at all times and in all places. To the contrary, it was ordained for a specific people in a specific place: "When ye come into the land. . ." What portions of the law are even applicable to Jews in the diaspora, especially after the destruction of the temple entailing the discontinuance of its court of final appeal, is a knotty problem. The reader of the Koran and Hadith will recall Mohammed's indignation at rabbis who covered Mosaic punishments with their finger; but taken strictly on its own terms, the law does not say 'everywhere' and 'at all times,' but "when ye come into the land. . ." This provision forbidding slave-murder in Exodus 21:20 is better than Roman pagan law, which allowed a slave-owner to kill his slave, without consequences, even if he died right there on the spot. While Moses' law is an improvement on paganism, it is still not yet God's perfect will. Pagan Roman law gave the murdered slave no justice:

"Even slaves have the right of refuge at the statue of a god; and although the law allows anything in dealing with a slave, yet in dealing with a human being there is an extreme which the right common to all living creatures refuses to allow. Who did not hate Vedius Pollio even more than his own slaves did, because he would fatten his lampreys on human blood, and order those who had for some reason incurred his displeasure to be thrown into his fishpond — or why not say his snake-preserve? The monster! He deserved to die a thousand deaths, whether he threw his slaves as food to lampreys he meant to eat, or whether he kept lampreys only to feed them on such food!" (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 'On Mercy,' Book 1).

I fervently hope this tale of Vedius Pollio feeding his slaves to his lampreys to fatten them is an urban legend; is it really possible for human nature to sink so low? In any event, if he did it, what he did wasn't illegal under Roman law; thankfully it was under Moses' law. Christians must interpret Moses' law through the lens of Jesus' teaching; it is surprising they would ever do otherwise. In those cases where Moses, taken by himself, might be interpreted as allowing less than to love one's neighbor as oneself, he should not be taken by himself but as explicated by Jesus. On the crucial point, "Who is my neighbor?"— Jesus addressed this point expressly, and His verdict is binding on those under His authority.

Another argument the atheists advance to prove the Bible supports slavery is the parable of the disappointed master who beats with "many stripes" the wayward slave:

"But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Luke 12:45-47).

This, they say, proves beyond question that the Bible finds nothing wrong with slavery and teaches that slave-masters ought to beat their slaves. But they are not reading a parable in the way a parable ought to be read. The master who returns, God, certainly has the right to beat his unfaithful servants, because He is the potter and they are the clay. That the human master who stands in for Him beats his unprofitable servant is a fact of life, not a moral imperative. For example, consider the parable of the unjust judge:

"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.  And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith." (Luke 18:1-5).

The moral of this story is not, 'Judges should be unjust,' nor even 'God is an unjust judge.' Rather the logic runs, 'If even an unjust human judge is swayed by persistence, so much more will the just Judge give way to persistent prayer.' The atheists who make this argument misunderstand how a parable works: a parable need not set forth the behavior it describes as morally exemplary. The parable of the unprofitable servant does not so much as address the question, 'Should human masters beat their slaves?', much less does it answer it.

Man-Stealing

Kidnapping a man in order to sell him into slavery was a capital crime:

The New Testament concurs that this is a grave offense:

"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,  for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;. . ." (1 Timothy 1:9-10).

When Europeans made contact with Africa during the era of discovery, they found there human beings held in slavery, an institution which a thousand years of Christian civilization had pushed into the background in Europe. As they began buying up this novel merchandise, not available at home, at some point it became apparent that the slaves being shipped to the New World were not persons long ago fallen into this condition, but persons specially stolen for the purpose. The European slave-ships were offering valuable goods in exchange for slaves. This market demand elicited a supply, which came from needless wars and skirmishes that would not otherwise have occurred without the imperative to collect slaves for trade. Indeed some traffickers even grabbed people at random who were walking along the road. 'Man-stealing' or kidnapping, reducing free persons into a condition of slavery, was never legal, not under Moses' law, not even under the laws of the pagans. Yet that was how the American Southerners had got their slaves.

Foreigners for Sale

This provision of Moses' law, which allows foreigners who are not part of the covenant people to be held in slavery and sold as slaves, as a possession, is the crux of the atheists' case that the Bible does, after all, allow slavery:

It is true that the children of Israel are permitted to keep heathen slaves, exceeding the otherwise applicable six-year limit. These are the long waiters who must endure up to forty-nine years of servitude; some of these people might not live so long as to see freedom. But there are other considerations, often over-looked, which go along with this arrangement. Who is a neighbor, and who is a stranger? Any stranger or sojourner who wanted to join the people of God was free to do so.

Under the Old Testament, by and large any sojourners in the nation of Israel who remained outside the covenant people of God themselves chose that status. Entry was open to them, and encouraged by passages like Exodus 12:44: "But every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof." Once they had joined the congregation, Moses' protections covered these new-comers as well as the native-born. One formula of emancipation acknowledges the power of this new status: "R. Joshua b. Levi said: If a servant puts on phylacteries in the presence of his master, he becomes a free man." (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, 40a). The pro-slavery side assumes that membership in the people of God is in consequence of ethnicity, not confession: "But let it be noted that the peculiar mitigations of slavery affected only slaves of Hebrew blood, not Gentiles." (Robert Lewis Dabney, Defense of Virginia and the South, Kindle location 1495), but this is not scriptural nor could be long sustained.

Abraham had set a precedent: "And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him." (Genesis 17:27). Oddly enough, pro-slavery apologist Robert Lewis Dabney actually insists upon this point, without realizing he is eliminating the category of 'foreign slaves:' ". . .the circumcision of the slaves was God's act, and not Abraham's. God knows all things." (Robert Lewis Dabney, Defense of Virginia and the South, Kindle location 1303). If it is indeed God's will for slaves to be brought into the covenant, then foreign slaves in Israel cease to be such, embarking instead upon the 'up to six years then free' track. A conflict would arise between the rising Christian majority of the Roman empire and Jewish slave-owners, who persisted in the good deed of circumcising their slaves, even if the slaves had been Christians. Through fear of this engrained custom of Jewish slave-owners proselytizing their non-Jewish slaves, several of the later emperors legislated against Jewish ownership of Christian slaves: "Jewish teachers cited biblical texts to support the view that a Jewish master should circumcise his Gentile slaves. If the slaves disagreed, it was a common opinion that they should be given a year to think the matter over. If they still refused, they should be sold to a pagan master. . .The circumcision of slaves had played an important part in the spread of the Jewish faith and the conspicuous numbers of Jewish freedmen. By circumcision, slaves were 'brought under the wings of the Shekinah.'" (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p. 296). The assumption 'once a foreigner, always a foreigner' tracks with neither the Bible design nor with practice.

Even failing the foreign slave's conversion to Judaism, under Moses' law, the standard of behavior toward strangers dwelling in the land was not 'anything goes,' but fair treatment. Though not covered by the six-year term-limit protecting the congregation, these people were by no means fair game for plunder or "men-stealing":

"And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:33-34).

What is the relevance of this oft-cited point to Southern slavery? The Southern slaves were neither heathen nor foreigners; after the importation of slaves was prohibited early in the life of the Republic, the bulk of the slave population were native-born. When Africans were brought to this country, they initially practiced a variety of religions, mostly animist but some few Muslims. Partly owing to the mingling of different languages and cultures, these religions did not survive as ongoing concerns. By the time of the Civil War the slave population was Christian: these people were not heathen, they were the people of God just as much as were their owners, if indeed these wicked slave-owners can be counted such. So why did the Southern slave-owners refer to this provision of the law, when the slaves whose condition of servitude they wished to prolong to infinity were neither foreigners nor heathens? What is the relevance? The relevance seems to be, that if the Bible allows some loop-hole somewhere through which some people at some time were lawfully held in bondage, then let's drive a steam locomotive through that little gap, perhaps it will get bigger.

The abolitionists originally made their case against this inhuman institution on the grounds of Christian charity. But when the pro-slavery side came back with the law of Moses, they replied, 'Fine, let's go there. If we are to live under the law of Moses, though not placed under this yoke by the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15), when may we expect the Jubilee?' Certainly a Jubilee would have been the death knell of Southern slavery, because Congress had already closed the door to African slave importation. Going 'shopping' to foreign nations to replenish the slaves liberated by the Jubilee, as allowed but not required by Leviticus, was not going to happen. But it turned out the South did not really want to live under the law of Moses after all. When the Jubilee came, it came at the hands of a racist Northern general carrying the Emancipation Proclamation, not at the hands of Southern enthusiasts for the law of Moses:

"Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia."
     (Marching Through Georgia)

Who is a neighbor, and who is a foreigner? Jesus addressed this very question, so it is perplexing that any of those who say they follow him do not know the answer by heart:

"And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise." (Luke 10:27-37).

It is a genuine mystery how there can be any Christian who does not know that this is how Jesus answered this very important legal question, or knows the answer but does not feel bound by it. Who is your neighbor? There is no one who is not.

There is a modern religion for which these issues are central. Fueled by a just indignation against slavery and strangely incomplete information about history, the Nation of Islam saw fit to discard the religion which freed humanity from the scourge of slavery in favor of a religion whose founder was a slave-owner:

Slow Learners

According to Jesus, there are provisions of the Mosaic law which are there because the people were unteachable:

“They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:7-9)

In other words the provisions of Moses' law do not represent God's perfect and unchanging will, but are in some measure a compromise between God's will and what was possible to a particular people at a particular time. The reader of Moses' law notices also that it is written for a pastoral and agrarian people; a contemporary sea-faring nation might have required different laws. This principle explains the limited permission for slavery allowed in the Mosaic law. Though, as shown, this permission was narrowly circumscribed with strict limits set as to the term of service, involuntary servitude nevertheless was allowed for a six-year span. The Christian who follows Jesus' precepts cannot go down that road, even bound and circumscribed as Moses leaves it. We can follow our Lawgiver more closely: our bankruptcy laws allow for a rolling Jubilee, which makes a better fit to a credit economy, causing less disruption than a fixed Jubilee year. So debtor slavery, which Moses strongly discouraged ('open your hand'), can be eradicated. We can do better also with civilian war captives, who were the vast ocean of supply for the pagan Roman slave machine: the Geneva convention protects their safety and property, so they are not left with the forlorn and only hope their lives will be spared for the slave-market. In setting up these arrangements we obey Jesus' precepts and also honor the spirit of Moses' Jubilee. This is the way to obey the Bible. The people who made these arrangements were not 'better' than the Bible; they learned how to be good from the Bible.

Thievery and Restitution

There is a case in which Moses' law requires a man to be sold into slavery:

"If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him.  If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft." (Exodus 22:1-3)

The thief must make restitution. But if he cannot, he himself must be the restitution. Since the thirteenth amendment does not prohibit chain gangs or other similar ventures, this case falls outside our sphere of concern. Those in prison have not had their liberty stolen from them, rather they themselves forfeited it, when they did whatever it is they did that landed them in prison.

Central Narrative

The central story-line of the larger of the two testaments revolves around the liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. In light of the crucial importance of this history, it is perplexing that some people have managed to talk themselves into believing the Bible is a pro-slavery tract. If slavery is a good thing, why was leading the Israelites out from slavery also a good thing?

Though they entered Egypt as invited guests, by the time of the exodus the Jews had fallen into harsh and bitter bondage:

"And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." (Exodus 2:23-25)

God heard their cries:

"And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:  And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians." (Exodus 6:5-7).

It did not escape the notice of the African slaves that the Old Testament is the story of a slave population liberated by God. For some reason this inescapable fact still escapes the notice of the atheists.

Essenes

The Essenes were a Jewish sect not in receipt of the New Testament or the good news of God in Christ. Though lacking any scripture but the Old Testament, they reportedly rejected slavery:

"And they do not use the ministrations of slaves, looking upon the possession of servants or slaves to be a thing absolutely and wholly contrary to nature, for nature has created all men free, but the injustice and covetousness of some men who prefer inequality, that cause of all evil, having subdued some, has given to the more powerful authority over those who are weaker." (Philo Judaeus, On the Contemplative Life, Chapter IX).

"Among those men you will find no makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or breastplates, or shields; no makers of arms or of military engines; no one, in short, attending to any employment whatever connected with war, or even to any of those occupations even in peace which are easily perverted to wicked purposes; for they are utterly ignorant of all traffic, and of all commercial dealings, and of all navigation, but they repudiate and keep aloof from everything which can possibly afford any inducement to covetousness; and there is not a single slave among them, but they are all free, aiding one another with a reciprocal interchange of good offices; and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, inasmuch as they corrupt the very principle of equality, but likewise as impious, because they destroy the ordinances of nature, which generated them all equally, and brought them up like a mother, as if they were all legitimate brethren, not in name only, but in reality and truth." (Philo Judaeus, Every Good Man is Free, Chapter XII).

Philemon

There is a book of the New Testament devoted to smoothing over the situation of a run-away slave who came to know the Lord. Paul sends Onesimus, the slave, back to his Christian master Philemon:

"I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave—a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay—not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides." (Philemon 1:10-19).

Taken literally the "no longer as a slave" of verse 16 would suggest that Paul wants Philemon to set Onesimus free, however he may not mean it literally. Verse 16 does make clear that Paul perceives an incongruity between being a "slave" and being a "brother," and he expects Philemon to receive Onesimus as "a brother beloved." If he perceived no incongruity, why not say, 'receive him back as a slave and as a brother'? Instead he says, "no longer as a slave."

Unlike the Supreme Court justices who rendered the monstrous Dred Scott decision, Paul is not scandalized that a slave fled from his master; he does not want Philemon to punish him for it, though Philemon had the right in law and custom to do so. Paul wants Philemon to receive the returning run-away "as myself." He expects Philemon to do even more than this: "Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say." (Philemon 1:21). What is this "more"?

Moses' law did not require the community to return an escaped slave: “You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you. He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your gates, where it seems best to him; you shall not oppress him." (Exodus 23:15-16). Whether Paul respected civil enactments comparable to that upheld by the Dred Scott decision or not, he did ultimately speed Onesimus on his way back to his master. Nevertheless he does not send him back as a slave but as a brother.

The New Testament does not contain any direct command for Christians slave-owners to free all their slaves, or for Christian citizens to work for the abolition of slavery. Those who ponder what it means for Philemon to receive Onesimus back as a brother may yet feel led in those directions. The general provisions of Christian morality: the command to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,— leave no room for this cruel institution, which no one chooses for himself. No one in classical antiquity was under any illusion on this score; Plato gives an analogy of a slave-owner transported to the wilderness with his slaves. What will he expect them to do? Kill him, of course:

"What is your illustration?
"The case of rich individuals in cities who possess many slaves. . .You know that they live securely and have nothing to apprehend from their servants?
"What should they fear?
"Nothing. But do you observe the reason of this?
"Yes; the reason is, that the whole city is leagued together for the protection of each individual.
"Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves?" (Plato, Republic, Book IX).

Slave-owners have always feared from their slaves what John Brown delivered. If their security arrangements fail them, the slave-owner cannot expect gratitude and good-will. This is not an institution that can be defended by the Golden Rule. As the author asks in one of the anti-slavery tracts I've uploaded,

"If we fulfill the injunction of our religion, to do to others as we would wish them to do unto us — if we love our neighbor as ourselves, can we consign him and his posterity to hopeless and interminable slavery?" (Evan Lewis, 'An Address to Christians of All Denominations, On the Inconsistency of Admitting Slave-Holders to Communion and Church Membership.')

To ask that question is also to answer it; it can be answered only one way. Even the pagans of classical antiquity felt it was a civic and philanthropic duty to free slaves: "Do we not free our slaves chiefly for the express purpose of making out of them as many citizens as possible?" (Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book LVI, Chapter 7.6). The atheists' case that the New Testament is pro-slavery demands much of the reader's indulgence: when Paul tells Philemon to receive back his run-away slave "no longer as a slave," of course he does not mean that the way it sounds. But if he did not mean what he said, what did he mean?

Turn the Other Cheek

Christian ethics is upside-down by the world's standards. The carnal man, when he is injured unjustly, wants pay-back. But this is not what Christians are called to:

"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39).

When New Testament authors counsel Christian slaves to serve their masters faithfully, this is sometimes taken as a confident endorsement of the slave system. After all, if these authors thought slavery in any way unjust, they would surely not recommend the slaves to excel at their work:

"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;  Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him." (Ephesians 6:5-9).

What might surprise some people is that this advice is exactly the same if it is stipulated that the master is unjust:

"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2:18-24).

This is what Jesus did; He was not crucified justly, for crimes He had committed. He was innocent of the charge of blasphemy, yet He suffered patiently. Not everyone likes the ethic of 'turn the other cheek;' Tom Paine accused the maxim of "assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and sinking man into a spaniel." (Tom Paine, The Age of Reason, p. 172). Like today's atheists, the Deist Tom Paine wanted to claim that you don't need revealed religion to be moral, because the moral guidance that comes from nature is sufficient: "As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing called revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are nearly the same in all religions and in all societies." (Tom Paine, The Age of Reason, p. 171). His argument implodes immediately when he reaches this thing which is not the same, because most human societies and most systems of ethics do not encourage a wronged person to turn the other cheek. Callicles thought it was the part of a slave to suffer injury without being able to retaliate: "For the suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; since when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself, or any other about whom he cares." (Plato, 'Gorgias').

However you can't take it away from Christians:

That the reciprocal advice to slave-masters: that they should treat their slaves as Onesimus, as brothers, no longer as slaves,— would have undermined and subverted the institution of slavery as it then existed is freely admitted by pro-slavery apologists like Douglas Wilson. If they had done that,— really done it, not continued with the status quo while saying they were doing it,— nothing recognizable as slavery would have remained.

The New Testament authors, as representatives of a small, persecuted sect within the empire, were not in a position to dictate terms to the world. What terms they might have dictated had they been in such a position is open to dispute. Jesus Himself said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36); the church is not a sovereign state nor a civil government nor an interest group cemented around a political program. But once the church became strong under Constantine, Christians politicians began to make small, incremental changes to this ubiquitous and universal ancient institution. First they demanded respect for slave marriages. Then they made other changes, until ultimately the institution was no longer recognizable.

This New Testament advice would be the same whether the apostles thought slavery just or unjust. Paul encourages his enslaved readers to claim their freedom if possible: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." (1 Corinthians 7:21). If this is not within reach, they are to "care not." These principles neither condemn the slave system nor endorse it.

Form of a Servant

When the Word of God came in to this world, He took the "form of a servant:"

"But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant [μορφην δουλου, form of a slave], and was made in the likeness of men:. . ." (Philippians 2:7).

Someone might say, 'Yes, but that is just high-flown language, all men are as slaves before God, Jesus, a carpenter, never held the civil status of a slave.' This is true but He was sold for the same price as a slave is valued, thirty pieces of silver: "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.' (Zechariah 11:12). This is the restitution price for a slave: "If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned." (Exodus 21:32). Free-born Roman citizens were exempt from crucifixion, which thus became a punishment the Roman writers think of as especially fit for a slave: "The cruelty even of men in private station has been avenged by the hands of slaves despite their certain risk of crucifixion. . ." (Seneca, Essay on Mercy, 1. xxvi.). Juvenal reports the mistress of the house crying, "Crucify that slave!" (Juvenal, Satires, Book VI, 219). So Jesus, while not a slave by legal status, was sold for money at the valuation of a slave and suffered the death of a slave.

"For the mystery of Christ is in peril of being disbelieved by reason of the intensity of its marvellousness: God was in human nature, and in our estate He that is over all creation; the Invisible, visible by reason of flesh; He that is out of Heaven and from above in likeness of things earthy; the Impalpable subject to touch; He that is in His own Nature Free in bondman's form; He Who blesseth the creation was made subject to curse, among the transgressors All-Righteousness, and in guise of death Life." (Clement of Alexandria, That Christ is One, by Way of Dispute with Hermias, p. 249).

Seeing humanity divided into slave and free, the living God, in becoming incarnate, chose one side of that man-made divide. We Christians worship a risen and ascended slave.

Conclusion

The same Bible which inspired the abolitionists was also cited by the Southern slave-owners, who developed a particularly vicious form of the institution, in support of their crimes. Does this prove that the Bible is hopelessly ambiguous, or just that it is subject to misuse by ill-intentioned men? Realize that other students of Moses have drawn very different conclusions about how we are to live. The church at Jerusalem included many zealous for the law: "And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law:. . ." (Acts 21:20). They drew the conclusion, in their zeal, that they should hold all things in common:

"And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." (Acts 4:32).

This is the principle of the Jubilee taken to its furthest extreme. Where is the atheists' Bible, which fully supports, they say, the rights of slave-owners, in this Jerusalem church? Is it possible that slaves and slave-owners "had all things common," and yet slavery persisted? The atheists tell us that the Bible was concocted to support the claims of property owners. These atheist critics need to read the law of Moses more carefully; it is not what they think. Moses proclaims the economics of the Jubilee, not an absolute defense of the rights of proprietors. They are projecting an agenda into the Bible suggested to them by its Marxist critics, not by anything in the text.

When the apostles travelled through the Gentile world preaching the good news of the kingdom, they did not intend to spark a political revolution devoted to the goal of establishing Moses' law as a universal polity. Their reticence on this point resulted not only from a prudential concern to avoid being crushed like an insect, but also from a sincere conviction that Moses' law, which had never been intended as a universal regime, had been nailed to the cross. However, it cannot plausibly be maintained that their politics had been upended, as if God, who had been for the slave in the Old Testament, had switched sides and was now for the slave-owner. When Christians go from being a tiny, persecuted minority in a pagan world to the nominal majority, the fact that their consciences have been formed by diligent study of Moses cannot help but influence the institutions they choose for themselves, the choice being freely their own.

Slavery in pagan Rome held out a 'career path:' the diligent slave could hope for manumission. He would still be attached to his former owner as patron, but otherwise free to live his life as he wished, and his money was his own. Southern slavery held out no similar path to upward mobility because of the racism of the Southern slave-owners, who scarcely regarded their African slaves as human beings. The American slave was in a hopeless condition; he could not expect anything better either for himself or for his children. The nineteenth century did not invent racism, though it perfected it under the guise of science. This brutal and inhuman institution, even worse than ancient pagan slavery, was justly overthrown, by a Christian people whose morals were informed by both testaments of the Bible.

The Christian abolitionists were wonderfully successful by all normal historical standards. The ideal they set out seemed at first unreachable, yet there are hardly any slaves left now in the world, owing strictly to their efforts. By the mid-nineteenth century, the abolitionists had already won, by Biblical persuasion, in all but one dark and unchristian corner of this nation:

"The labors of those who conscientiously engaged in the cause of abolition as religious duty, gave a tone to public opinion in the northern and middle states, which resulted in the enactment of laws for the total extinction of slavery in those states." (Evan Lewis,  'An Address to Christians of All Denominations, On the Inconsistency of Admitting Slave-Holders to Communion and Church Membership').

Even the blazing, murderous fury of the 'red states' could not save and preserve this evil institution, once Americans understood it as such. Yet to listen to atheists, you would think the Christian abolitionists never even existed; or, if they did exist, they never said anything about the Bible, or if they did say anything about the Bible, no one ever listened or took it to heart, because it must have been just silly inasmuch as everyone knows the Bible gives unquestioning and unconditional support to slavery. It must have been atheists,— did they parachute down from Mars?— who abolished slavery. These people deserve to get back their voice; they opposed slavery because they thought it unchristian, and they had good reason for so thinking. Their argument is much more than special pleading: it is those who wish to defend slavery who have a Bible problem, not the abolitionists.

The abolitionists won the debate, in the sense that they persuaded those who were persuadable that no Christian should practice slavery. But not all were open to persuasion. To have an open mind on this or other questions, it helps to have no vested monetary interest. The majority of the country accepted the conclusion that slavery was unchristian and set about abolishing it. A minority insisted otherwise and the issue ended in Civil War. To listen to atheists today, you would think the pro-slavery side had such wonderful and convincing arguments, that no rational person could argue the point, whether the Bible did or did not support slavery. In reality their defense was farcical, hinging upon wild leaps like the idea that 'black skin' is the 'mark of Cain.' Where in the text is it suggested that 'black skin' is the 'mark of Cain'? And given that the mark was placed on Cain to protect him, why would this justify mistreatment and abuse if it were? And realizing that eight persons, belonging to one family, survived the flood of Noah's day, how is it genetically possible for two of these persons to be descendents of Cain, yet for none of the others to be? This is an argument that makes no sense, yet because it is after a fashion a 'Bible' argument, the atheists solemnly assure us that the Bible supports slavery.

The credit for ending slavery should go to those who advocated this proposition. Of  this group, some were Quakers or Unitarians, but most were orthodox evangelical Christians. Not many were atheists! It is unjust to see slavery used as an argument against the Bible and Biblical religion, when in historical fact it was fidelity to the Bible that overturned it.

For the Other Side

Though one might like to think that the old pro-slavery apologetic is as dead as the Dodo, in fact there are still to this day neo-Confederates,— these are the progressives, who want a renewed and reformed confederacy,— and for that matter paleo-Confederates: "And nothing is clearer than that the New Testament opposes anything like the strident abolitionism of our country prior to the War between the States." (Douglas Wilson, 'Black and Tan,' Southern Slavery and Our Culture Wars, Kindle location 559). Really, the Bible opposes abolitionism? Who holds the Bible high ground: the abolitionists, or their detractors?:

This contemporary Reformed author wants to revive the pro-slavery apologetic of Robert Lewis Dabney, a racist Confederate, however without going into too much detail lest anyone laugh. This involves, in a nutshell: Noah's curse of Canaan, which some want to back-date to Ham, even though Ham in the form of Egypt actually held Israel in bondage for a time! Though the details don't work out, and it is a man, albeit a righteous man, who delivers this curse, not God, in a general sense the actual fulfillment of this curse establishes that bondage might be a form which the wrath of God against an individual or group might take. This is certainly true; as Israel itself is threatened in the curses of Deuteronomy 28,

"Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually." (Deuteronomy 28:32-33).

It is certainly true that God's judgment against a nation might take this form, but this does not mean that inflicting such injuries, on human initiative, is morally benign, any more than murder becomes okay because God might bring the destroyer against a nation. Assyria was the razor hired beyond the river: "In the same day the Lord will shave with a hired razor, with those from beyond the River, with the king of Assyria. . ." (Isaiah 7:20), but Assyria was also punished for the very same acts which God thus ordained. The possibility of God's wrath taking the form of slavery, mass death or arson does not establish the moral goodness of these actions. God may ordain slavery for Israel, but woe to the nation which enslaves Israel!

The best way to show the fallacy in this argument is to take the stronger case, that of murder. This author assumes there is a pre-existing moral law, higher than God, to which God is subject. The only things God can do rightly are things which are innocent in themselves. What does it mean that acts are innocent in themselves? That we could, on our own initiative, for our own advantage, do the very same things as God does, and be blameless. Now, certainly God's judgments are righteous altogether; He is the Judge of the whole world, the offended party against whom mankind sin, and from His judicial verdict of execution no appeal is allowed. Does it therefore follow that we can walk out the door tomorrow morning and slay with the sword the first human being we come across? This is, after all, what Dabney wishes to prove: that, because Israel enslaved some of the surviving Canaanites (whom they were ordered to extirpate not enslave), then slavery is a good thing, innocent in itself. But they were ordered to extirpate those people! Can anyone argue that indiscriminate slaughter is a good thing to do on human initiative, being innocent in itself?

No law-giver has yet discovered that killing at will is innocent in itself, not God's own Moses, nor even such of the heathen as have legislated, including Solon and Hammurabi and Lycurgus. One cannot imagine any state of human society which would be inhabitable if it were legal to go out and kill whomever you came across, for what ever reason you felt like it. It is of course lawful for God to do just that:

"Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand." (Deuteronomy 32:39).

God can do these things, because He is God! We are not God! If God curses those who defy His will and brings upon them chastisements including servitude, even upon Israel, that does not serve to show that slavery is a good in itself. The reasoning here is that whatever God does, in whatever form He pours out His wrath, His sentence must always be of cupcakes and soft pillows, something innocent in itself, because God could not rightly bring harm upon His enemies. One might as well say, because God can rightly bring epidemic disease upon a guilty nation by His righteous sentence, therefore we might as well unleash biological warfare, why not even today. Do we have the standing or moral authority to make ourselves God over our neighbors, who are like creatures as ourselves, and destroy the world we did not make? If God denounces captivity against His enemies then He is right, we are wrong. Dabney's thesis is the same as the atheists' familiar plaint: the same rules apply to Him as to us. No, they do not. He is the source of all moral good, not the subject of judgment by comparison.

Another argument is the argument of devolution. This argument was a great favorite of Mohammed ibn Abdallah, the unlettered Arabian prophet, though he did not really originate it; an existing group of seekers in Arabia had already formulated this clever bit of sophistry. They could not comprehend the endless arguments of the local Jews and the Christians; the Jews said you must obey the law of Moses, the Christians said you didn't have to; the Christians said you must believe Jesus is the Son of God if you would be saved, the Jews said He was a false prophet. They would listen to these two sides go at each other, and their heads would spin! But wait: all freely concede that Abraham is in heaven; indeed the righteous are in Abraham's bosom. But Abraham lived before the law was given on Mount Sinai, and long before the incarnation! Therefore, they say, we today who adopt the faith of Abraham will surely also be saved. Thus they hope to dispense with doctrines like the Trinity which they do not understand (these people assumed that Abraham did not believe the doctrine of the Trinity, but consider the visitation at Mamre). The question before us therefore becomes, does the public at large have a standing invitation to hop onto this time travel machine, or not? Is it permissible to shuck off subsequent revelation, if we're on the 'subsequent' side of it?

The abolitionists said, slavery is not Christian. The slave-owners replied, well maybe it's not Christian. . .but it sure is patriarchal! Abraham was a slave-owner:

"Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan." (Genesis 14:14).

He was also the friend of God. Therefore, runs the argument, slave-owning is morally benign. And we haven't even got started on polygamy! Some of the Rabbis claim that Abraham obeyed the Mosaic law, as if by natural inspiration; but Paul points out he lived before the law was given, "And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect." (Galatians 3:17). Four hundred thirty years is mentioned in Exodus 12:40 as the time of Israel's sojourning in Egypt. If, however, the law came four hundred and thirty years after the patriarchs, the same cannot be said about us! The time arrow runs only one way; we know God's mind on slavery because He has revealed it to us, whether Abraham understood His will on this subject or not. We know He wants us to break every yoke, because He has said so. This approach does not so much take the throne out from under King Jesus, but takes away His podium; our King cannot teach, He cannot legislate for His people, because if He teaches Abraham's progeny anything Abraham did not already know, we convict Him as a liar and innovator!

In fairness to Abraham, there were obvious differences between his practice of slavery and that of the Southern slave-owners. First of all, he was not reluctant to put arms in their hands, a measure the Confederacy adopted only in final desperation as the walls were falling in. Dabney explains,

". . .Abraham was not afraid to arm his slaves, though actual slaves, because there were no saucy, meddling, Yankee Abolitionists in those days to preach insubordination and make ill blood between masters and servants." (Robert Lewis Dabney, Defense of Virginia and the South, Kindle location 1257).

Moreover, before the birth of the child of promise, Abraham's appointed heir was "one born in my house," i.e., a slave:

“But Abram said, 'Lord GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?' Then Abram said, 'Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!'” (Genesis 15:2-3).

No doubt lots and lots of slaves in the American Southland inherited the plantation. The patriarchs are 'Exhibit A' in the case that salvation is by faith, not by works, and this is why Paul went back to them in the letter to Romans. Jacob was a schemer; is it good to be a schemer? To make the argument that, anything the patriarchs did must be good and holy, because they are saved (as they certainly are, they followed God with a whole heart, albeit with imperfect knowledge), takes away from God any ability to offer subsequent instruction to mankind or to expect to have it heeded. By the testimony of His own word, God grades on a curve: "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:. . ." (Acts 17:30). Ignorance is, before a holy God, a legitimate excuse; an excuse we may not offer, who live after the law came down at Sinai, and after the gospel proclamation. To say, God may not reveal it, if Abraham did not already know it, binds the divine hands; with what cords? Abraham lived in a rough world, and did the best he could; but some of the things he did to get by, like slavery, polygamy, concubinage, and deception, are sub-optimal.