Old Testament Law and Slavery
The Mosaic law has many requirements regarding workers. These workers are more like a servants instead of a slaves. This becomes clear in the details of the law as we look past the word “slave.” The people of this time and region did not have the ability to sail to far away lands and obtain slaves. Slaves were the result of conquest and war. There was also a form of servitude often called “debt slavery.” Here a person had borrowed money and could not pay it back. So he sold himself as a servant for money that paid off the debt. He would then be required to work as repayment. As we read the Mosaic law as well as the law code of Hammurabi, this form of being a debt servant becomes obvious. But it confuses modern readers because we are unfamiliar with it. Debt Servitude, Not Slavery 1: Servants are paid money up front for work. This is because the person owed a debt that could not be paid and becoming a servant was a way to pay it off. I should...