Peter Williams on the Bible and Slavery

The longer a video is the more it takes to convince me to watch a link. A few minutes tops as I prefer to read text. Partly because reading is generally quicker for conveying the same amount of information, and reading allows you to skim or skip around to see if you want to invest the time in reading the article. Nevertheless, this Peter Williams lecture is worth recommending even though it is over an hour long. I had not heard of Williams though came across this link twice in as many days. It was very useful, very sensible, very interesting.

For those who don't wish to invest the time Williams shows how "slavery" is a poor translation choice given how Westerners think of slavery, even though slave is increasingly used in modern translations. A helpful chart (reproduced below) from 22:31 minutes compares the rights of slaves (bondservants) in the Old Testament with Roman slaves and American slaves. He also introduces a very helpful interpretive point on Exodus 21:21 (from 25:40 minutes).

Does the Bible Support Slavery? by Peter Williams

Conditions	OT	Roman	New World
Holiday	Yes	No	Yes
Food enough	Yes	No	No
Legal redress	Yes	No	No
Sexual protection	Yes	No	No
Kidnapped	No	Yes	Yes
Chains	No	Yes	Yes
Torture	No	Yes	Yes
Physical abuse	No	Yes	Yes

Hat tip: Mark Ward, Andrew Wilson.