Ethics & Religion Talk: Does the Bible support patriarchy? Slavery?

Rabbi David Krishef

'RM' asks: "Does the Bible support slavery and patriarchy, and how do Christians get past that stuff?"


"The Bible supports slavery not only as a reality of the time of its authorship, but as an acceptable outcome regarding even favorable relationships. While it supports slavery, it does so with a caveat. The Galatians baptismal hymn states that there are to be no differences between slave and master, regarding them as equals. In those texts authentically authored by Paul you can see that he works diligently to eliminate inequality between master and slave, as between wives and husbands. The later pastorals indicate an explicit change in these household relationships, returning to masters and slaves "behaving" as "inferiors." I rely on Paul's letter to Philemon regarding the slave Onesimus to discuss this tension. Paul's ethic is to send the escaped slave (who would have been executed by the Romans if caught while escaped) back to Philemon with instruction- Philemon must treat Onesimus not as an inferior or slave, but as a full brother in Christ.

"God has not ordained slavery as a worthwhile economic model, and the church has since accepted that slavery does not reflect the kingdom of God, but rather reveals the evil connected to chattel slavery. The differences between biblical slavery and slavery in the United States -- Biblical slaves were never considered subhuman. Slaves in America did not have status as being fully human, were not treated humanely and were legal property, like livestock, and were sold, bred and executed like stock. The Bible speaks explicitly against such treatment of humans as evil. Nevertheless, the Bible was used to justify such slavery, and that is a fact of history, human brokenness, and soci-economic power and control differences that Jesus speaks out against. The fact that texts can be used to argue both sides of disagreement is not unique to religion or religious texts, but is part of human language and problem solving mechanisms that are as important to democracy as they are to discussion of the morality of slavery."


"The word 'slavery' is found thirty-one times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The word patriarchy is not found at all in the same version of the Bible. All but seven of the references to slavery are found in the Old Testament. All of these are historical references to the people of Israel suffering enslavement. The references to slavery in the New Testament are in reference to Jesus saving the faithful from bondage to sin or fear of death.

"No, the Bible does not support either slavery and patriarchy. Christians, by definition, are already 'past this stuff.' Sin, however, is rampant and people still fall into the traps set by social conventions that prevent people of faith from freeing themselves from both slavery and patriarchy."


"Yes, but as a document composed in a time when that was normative. The larger question is, what do we do when our ancient scriptures vary from current conditions? All three Abrahamic faiths deal with this question, and do so in similar ways. Each knows that we cannot live exactly as our ancestors did. So the question becomes what is essential and what is trivial? Nothing in the Bible mandates slavery. It exists but never is it required of Jews or Christians. Nor does the Qur'an require it. Likewise, the Qur'an allows four wives to a man, but does not require it. Being faithful does not require slavery, patriarchy, racism, sexism, even capitalism. Indeed, one could more easily argue that capitalism is more difficult as a Christian than any of those others."

My response:

"There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible supports slavery and envisions a patriarchal society. If I was an adherent of the religion of the Bible, this would greatly concern me. However, I do not practice the Biblical Israelite religion. As a Jew, I practice a post-Biblical Rabbinic religion that is based on the Bible, but continues to evolve. The evolution is the key, because it recognizes that our sacred texts need to address each new generation so a mechanism for deliberate and thoughtful change is built into Rabbinic Judaism. In this way, we can transcend offensive aspects of Israelite religion like slavery, and we can create egalitarian communities that are still faithful to Biblical principles. Note: Different Jewish movements have different justifications for evolving and different paces at which they do so. And some major movements remain patriarchal."

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