this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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Kinda mad that if you click on his links, he's citing a very specific translation of the Bible, flip through them and it's clearly talking about servants as a blessing. Not necessarily slaves. The words in question are עֶ֫בֶד and שִׁפְחָה. Basically every other translation I flipped through rendered this as servants, including the likes of culturally significant ones that Christians draw on for doctrine like the KJV and ESV.
Is he trying to convince Christians that slave owning is okay or something? 🤣
Can you elaborate? He links to the NRSVUE which is the translation academics use because it focuses on eliminating modern biases.
I think the fact that other versions use "servants" is a reflection of the fact that Christians are embarrassed that the bible endorses slavery, and will tie themselves in pretzels to minimize this fact.
No, I think he is just being honest about what the bible is saying. Christians should know that the interpretive lens they use has a big impact on what they'll see the bible advocating.
The NRSVUE removed translation traditions. This is helpful, but the fact that both translations are correct, while for centuries if not millenia (in some cases the RSV versions ignored the Septuagint translations). While yeah, it's still a valid translation, the word for "slavery" in our modern western lens typically conjures up images of chattel slavery where the slaves were enslaved for life as well as their offspring. Such imagery just isn't really historically honest. Even throughout different time periods of the Bible's writing, slaves ranged from bondservants to ones sold through debt.
...and chattel slaves like in Exodus 21:20-21
Yes, that's Exodus. Jesus did underline this whole period as a time when Moses wrote compromises because people's hearts were hard. Another example is divorce which is what Jesus used:
Mark 10:3-5
Jesus said divorce was bad, did he say slavery was bad? You seem to be in denial of how okay with slavery Christianity was. Christianity changed between the composition of the bible and today.
The Gospels would be huge if they recorded literally everything Jesus said - the mention of the Law of Moses being written due to the hardness of hearts is enough.
Society was okay with slavery at the time. It didn't really have much to do with Christianity - slavery was happening and arguably started in pagan society, the nobles got converted, but the peasantry generally didn't. Slavery basically was just an unquestioned fact of life.
It was the Christians who abolished slavery and started questioning it - while the devout ones were against it for a while, it didn't really garner traction until the 1700s when people were learning to read and the reformation had already taken effect.
Yes and the bible reflects that.
Enough for what? Enough for it to take 1500 years for Christians to realize that beating people to death for insolence is wrong
Sure, but didn't the advocates of perpetuating slavery use the bible to justify themselves, because the bible doesn't take a clear position against slavery?
It's interesting that you point to the reformation as key because Las Casas (responsible for the first law banning enslavement in colonies) was reading the Book of Sirach when he realised slavery was wrong. I mention it because it is excluded from the protestant canon.
You seem to be in denial about how okay with slavery Christianity was. Do you prefer the work of impartial scholars to that from people that think it's important to protect the reputation of Christianity?
tbf, christian dogma supported slavery for hundreds of yesrs. almost like the religion isnt based on anything but vibes
Source?
it wasnt until 1888 that the pope denounced slavery wholesale, until that point is was various manners of "fine long as they're treated right", then "fine long as they're not (white) christians", "fine long as they're christians", "fine long as it's punishment for a crime". etc.
Before Messianic times, the likes of Philo of Alexandria rejected slavery. And even in the early Messianic times (from a secular standpoint, this is when Christianity became a thing) there were abolitionists such as St Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century bishop.
Protestants were denouncing slavery in the 1700s, such as John Wesley and the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade being formed in the late 1700s by Quakers - which was originally a Christian denomination.
There's a 40~ minute documentary on the subject available here: https://youtu.be/kA0-21H1TtU
All of these claims could be true, but even so, it does not mean that the Bible rejects slavery or that the church has rejected slavery historically. Many of the churches in the American south explicitly endorse slavery before the civil war. Not only due to biblical scripture but in order to preserve their hierarchical society.
There are a number of lgbtq affirming churches today in America. Some are splitting up over this issue. I can point to verses in the Bible such as when Jesus tells people to become eunuchs or when Paul says "there is is neither Jew nor gentile nor male nor female" and say that the Bible allows lgbtq people to live normally. But if in 50 years, lgbtq people are accepted by the church, and I said that it was always that way, that would be intellectually dishonest. The tradition of eunuchs that people would point out in history was condemned by the council of Nicaea around 500 AD and marginalization would continue and has continued today. I'd be intellectually dishonest if I said that the church had always respected lgbtq people.
Likewise, it's the same with slavery. It wasn't condemned and it was supported by scriptures and the people who practice Christianity. Christian countries would conquer land and take slaves. It's intellectually dishonest to say that the church has always condemned slavery or that it was the majority position until recently.
You're right that the southern baptist convention happened and had doctrine over slavery - which they have repented and apologised for. The mainstream Catholic Protestant churches generally haven't been in favour of it as far as I know.
The LGBTQ issue is different - The Bible full on anathematises homosexuality, for example in 1 Corinthians 6:9, or Romans 1, stating that they "will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven" and categorises them with adulterers, idolaters, greedy, thieves, etc. St Paul asks Philemon to free Onesimus and doesn't - so such a condemnation was never issued against abolitionists.
Again, the transgender issue isn't full-on anathematised, except for perhaps an old law on cross-dressing which doesn't really hold much water due to it being OT in it's context. So I wouldn't say that such a thing would not be accepted, I think I'll depend on how much scientific and societal study of the subject will continue to evolve. I don't even know if it's possible to categorise an asexual/chaste transgender person as sinful (the reason I put that qualifier in would be if we can't know whether or not a trans woman is a woman theologically speaking, then her engaging with a man could be homosexuality, but likewise if she is, then her engaging with a woman can be of the same). I wouldn't really consider them to be living a life of sin as it's not specifically addressed nor condemned.
When Jesus was talking about Eunuchs, it was moreso celibacy than literally cutting off your genitals. And He doesn't command people to, he moreso asks for respect for those who do. This was after He was talking about marriage.
Oh, they said sorry. Isn't that nice of them. They still did it at the time. There were plenty of verses for them to pull support from.
I'm not going to defend the Southern Baptist Convention, lol. But it is worth noting that slavery had existed since civilisations have existed - likely before the first words of The Torah were ever penned. Despite it taking almost two millenia, Christianity was the force that generally stopped it around the time it gained the most influence, as well as the global reach of colonial empires, even if they were just acting to appease the voters back home - although it still exists underground.
It's quite silly to blame someone for partaking in a practice they didn't start, but eventually stopped.
If anything, you could probably argue that if Christianity didn't have the influence that it had, there'll still be slaves in our society today.
History? Tf do you mean?
The support of slavery has never been Christian dogma.
If all of the cited passages are actually talking about servants, they're treating their servants so badly that the difference is merely semantic. Note that American (including both USA and other countries' colonies in the Americas) chattle slavery was unusually depraved, in mediterranean antiquity slaves were generally treated better than that (or so the surviving accounts would have us believe).
Yeah, I don't think it really matters what word is considered a better translation. It is talking about humans becoming property.
In Exodus 21:2-11, it says Hebrew men are restricted to being indentured servants for 6 years unless they volunteer for more. And Hebrew girls/women are sold forever, just not to foreign nations. And in Leviticus 25:44-46, it directly addresses that gentiles can be enslaved, sold, and inherited with no special restrictions.
A slave by another name is still a slave.
Christians already have to convince themselves of that. At least once it's brought to their attention. It's not exactly something that gets brought up during your typical Sunday School session.
This type of thing is exactly what's brought up during Sunday school
Most of the Sunday School I remeber was just making like, paper Jesus puppets and shit.
In Sunday school I learned what a prostitute was (from the story of Jericho) about King Solomon suggesting cutting a baby in half, that dude that sacrificed his daughter because she was the first to come out of her house, how scripture has been misused to justify slavery, how it's been misused to justify violence, Noah's nakedness, the left handed dude who used his left handedness to assassinate a king, Asherah poles being destroyed, David cutting Saul's robe while he was peeing, to name a few