How NOT to Read The Bible

How NOT to Read The Bible: A Comprehensive Book Review on The Section Regarding Biblical Slavery 

Introduction 

My sophomore origins of the Bible class took a field trip to Washington DC and Philadelphia. I bought Dan Kimball’s book “How (Not) To Read The Bible”. This book (published in 2020) has many surprising endorsements. If you are familiar with Christian apologetics or scholarship, the names will be known to you. The list includes Tremper Longman, Michael Bird, John Comer, Tim Mackie, Josh and Sean Mcdowell, Greg Koukl, the late Michael Heiser, and even the atheist Michael Shermer! 

Once I saw all these endorsements and the recent date I knew I had this had to be a good book so I bought it. While an overall review will come in another article, the purpose here is to review the section dealing with slavery in the Bible (P. 90-99). Biblical slavery has been a focus of mine, and I hope it brings clarity to Christians and non-Christians. 

The Good

There are a few things to praise about this section of the book. On page 90 he states, “We never find a “end all slavery immediately” verse in the Bible. This is a major and understandable criticism of the Bible … Take the question very seriously”. This speaks to the general feeling I get from the book. He sympathizes with critiques of the Bible and Christianity at large. This is such an essential attitude to have. Do not act triumphantly or badly as some have. Instead, understand and take these issues seriously. His use of memes and pictures also helps me (and I hope others) feel seen, heard, and valued in their concerns—phenomenal attitude on this issue. 

On the next page, he states, “Taking a person against their will and forcing them to become the property of another is evil… Slavery is one of many ways humans have strayed from God's perfect creation”. I want to articulate why this is so important for Christians and non-Christians to see and understand this point. 

Firstly, non-Christians need to see comments like this from us because of our history with slavery. We know that, even from the early church, Christians being slave owners, even while bishops, was “unexceptional” (Sommers, 2020). Furthermore, many Non-believers will think that Christian apologists defend the faith against the accusations of slavery, we are “slave apologists”. You are defending slavery. Due to this confusion, it’s important to state outright that these forms of slavery are abominable. 

Secondly, Christians with a certain kind of Divine Command Theory view of morality sometimes give up the belief that slavery is wrong because, if God commanded it, it must be good or indeed perfect.

Some apologists have even said they would be ok being a slave under the conditions of the mosaic law. The problem arises in that “divine command theory does not fit well with the New Testament’s vision of the moral life” (Jakobsen, 2023, Para. 1). As I argue in an article, using the support of scholarship and good hermeneutics, the NT teaches a Christianized virtue ethics (ThatChristianNerd, 2024a). This view also misunderstands the nature of the law of Moses. The Law was primarily legal wisdom, not obligatory legislation (Walton, 2019). The tension between “God commands (or regulates whatever word you wanna use here) slavery” and “slavery is morally evil” is partly solved if we adopt the ethical theory that maps on better with the Torah and NT. Christians must affirm, as a matter of moral imperative, that slavery is wrong. 

Why didn’t Jesus and the Bible tell people to end slavery? This is a great question that Dan navigates on page 98. Essentially, we do not know why this is the case. He states that some people theorize that calling for the end of all slavery would have caused social and economic upheaval, doing more harm than good in that context. 

He also argues that two main ideas drive the progression of slavery we see in the Bible 1: Creation of man and woman in the image of God and 2: All believers are one family under which takes priority over other statuses. I would agree that these two ideas, taken in conjunction, demand the end of slavery. This was also the argument of Christians like Gregory of Nyssa and the abolitionist movement. That said, I would like to offer my views on why the NT does not condemn slavery. These reasons will be expanded upon in a future article. One relates to the reason Dan gave, though the concern shifts. It's not just that this would have caused devastation and harm in that context, but we know how Rome treated rebellious slaves. They were executed and crucified. The NT authors would have essentially been signing the death warrant of their followers. 

The second reason is because, under the ethical view of the NT (Virtue Ethics), it is considered unnecessary to be told what to do about everything. In this view, people are supposed to use moral skill, or wisdom, to determine what to do in a given context. They also look to moral exemplars to figure out what to do. Given these factors, the NT does not need to call for abolition for later Christians and all people to call an end to it. 

The Bad

There is some oddity in this section that we must discuss. One relevant mistake he makes is not addressing the chattel slavery present in Leviticus 25:44-46. This is shocking because he cites from v39 and 43 (P. 94-95) but does not touch the very next verse. Instead, he makes the common apologist mistake of focusing on debt slavery in the law, while ignoring chattel slavery and other aspects of slavery in the law and Hebrew bible generally. I understand he cannot focus on everything, but at least discussing chattel slavery would have been helpful. 

Another surprising mistake is a case of Eisegesis (an interpretation that expresses the views of the interpreter, not the text). Kimball states, “God was seeking better treatment for slaves in Israel than they would have received in the surrounding cultures outside of Israel” (P. 95). He then cites Lev 25:43 to support his case. The problem is that the “Them” in the passage is clearly about Hebrew “Hired workers” not all slaves in Israel. We must remember that the law reflects a top-down system by which free Israelite men are on top. There were “classes” and this is made apparent by 1: the patriarchal, slave-holding context Israel is in and 2: Israel's own Torah. 

There is a sharp contrast made between the Hebrew and the foreigner. To cite from my college exegetical paper on this passage. 

"We see in verse 43 that Israelites are not to be held as slaves, but foreigners can be. Israelites are not to be held in perpetuity, but foreigners are. You are not to rule over Israelites ruthlessly, and the implication, though not stated explicitly, is that foreigners can be treated ruthlessly," (ThatChristianNerd, 2024b) 

Now, I would encourage the reader to see that paper because I go more in-depth and discuss what “ruthlessly” means in this verse. That said, a book about hermeneutics should not make such interpretive mistakes, especially when the mistake is effortlessly cleared up by reading the neighboring verses. 

These pages also contain some word games. On page 93 he argues for his preferred word to describe debt slavery- servant. This is a common apologetic mistake is to play word games with the word slave. Firstly, bringing debt slavery up for the NT is irrelevant because most were not debt slaves by the time of the NT (Bonar, 2023). Secondly, the word we use does not soften the blow of the situation these people could be in. These servants could still be beaten and become chattel slaves under the law (Ex 21:20-21, Deut 15:17-18). 

You may notice from some of these verses that the people of God, as part of the covenant people, are treated differently when it comes to slavery (Lev 25, 1 Cor 7). This is another point that he does not address. To be equitable, many slaves were household slaves and the idea of the household was a big deal anciently. So if one person converted to Christianity they likely all would have, a point made in Sommer's (2020) book on slavery in church history. Still, seeing him discuss this idea would have been great. 

Minor Points 

I will make some points here that are not good or bad per se. One such example is the statement “Slavery was not race-based as slavery was in the United States” (P. 95). This is important for historical context, but not apologetics. It is a needed interpretive step to remember the distinctions between your culture and the culture of ancient authors. However, given the different treatment for foreigners than Hebrews in Lev 25:44-46, there is certainly an ethnic or national prejudice. In the context of Lev 25, the prejudice is grounded on the historical-theological idea of slavery to God (v42, 55). 

Dan states,”...more than 30 percent of the population in the New Testament Roman and Greek world living as slaves…” This may be accurate and it may not be. It does not detract from the main point he establishes with no trouble that slavery in the bible has a very different historical context than what we have today. But he cites no sources for this. Some sources that arrive at the 30% number qualify it by saying the exact population of a specific place under the Roman Empire rather than the entire Greco-Roman world (Cartwright, 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the discussion of slavery Dan has is a good one. He makes many good points and I feel the honesty he is trying to display as he grapples with these issues. As a reader studying this topic, my concerns felt respected and understood. That said, he makes common and shocking mistakes when discussing biblical slavery. These would cause a reader to still have questions that this section does not bother answering. He had been more forthright with the resources he used so we could track with him and verify some of this ourselves. I think this book is a great resource for people to learn from and understand, even non-believers! Hopefully, the one who reads this keeps studying to make sure they have a fuller and less misleading understanding of biblical slavery.

References:

Bonar, C. (2023, August 3). Dismantling the myth that ancient slavery ‘wasn’t that bad.’ The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/ 

Cartwright, M. (2013). Slavery in the Roman world. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/article/629/slavery-in-the-roman-world/ 

Image by Tasha Jolley on Unsplash

Jakobsen, M. (2023). A Christological Critique of Divine Command Theory. Religions, 14(4), 558. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040558 

Sommar, E.M. (2020). The Slaves of The Church: A History. Oxford University Press. ThatChristianNerd. (2024a). 

What is Christian virtue ethics? Medium. https://medium.com/@ThatChristianNerd/what-is-christian-virtue-ethics-52d915181411 

ThatChristianNerd. (2024b). The Exegesis of Leviticus 25:44–46. Medium. https://medium.com/@ThatChristianNerd/the-exegesis-of-leviticus-25-44-46-fcc4b6d9b16d 

Walton & Walton. (2019). The Lost World of the Torah. IVP Academic.

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