In this episode, we delve into the complex and often controversial topic of ancient slavery across various cultures and legal systems. We explore slavery as depicted in Biblical texts, comparing its moral implications and legal protections to other ancient systems such as those in Roman society, Sumeria, and Mesopotamia. The discussion highlights the treatment of slaves, including white indentured servants, female slaves, and differences between field and household slaves. We challenge common misconceptions about slavery in both ancient and modern contexts, examining the ethical considerations and economic roles slaves played in these historical societies. Stay tuned for a thought-provoking and nuanced exploration of historical traditions and their lasting impact.
Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about slavery, one of my favorite subjects. I'm joking. Of course. What we're going to be talking about today is I think, you know, like the topic we did on having multiple wives and what does the Bible actually say about this?
I think a lot of people know that the Bible does allow slavery, but unlike the Very explicit support of polygamy thing that the bible has where we could say well in the old testament It said polygamy was good. But in the new testament, it said polygamy was bad. Slavery, we don't get the same out in the slavery, it's it's very clear in both the old testament and the new testament slavery good now the problem is Is that people just don't talk about this, right?
Like, if you, if you, if you see somebody talking about it, it's likely because they have a beef with the Bible, right? Or they have a beef with Jews, or they have a beef with Christians, and they want to show how evil this stuff is. [00:01:00] And then the, the, the Christians and Jews themselves mostly sweep this under the rug and don't go very deep on it as a subject.
Which I think is doing a disservice. It's important to understand if I'm allowed to own slaves. Because who, I mean, economic situations, what if we end up in a fallout style scenario, right? There's a post apocalypse, okay? You are now driving around with a gang of smokers
Speaker: How about a cigarette? Like a good smoke if you miss your mom. Never too young to start.
Simone Collins: you need to decide, can I biblically purchase this slave? Like what are the rules? What are the rules? Right? By the way, this is all a joke to the AI that's reviewing this for content. I am saying this all with a humorous intonation. I have no intention of buying slaves. That is an insane accusation.
Okay? I'm just making this clear. We're just going over what is the Bible. Actually say about this stuff, and then we're going to go [00:02:00] into something I bet you haven't gone into before, even if you might have done a deep dive on this, but all of the other legal systems around slavery in the region during this period, so we can get an idea of is the system laid out in the Bible.
More moral? Dramatically more moral? Or less moral than its neighboring systems? Because everybody says, well, it was more moral, but of course they'd have a strong incentive to pretend that without actually looking to see if it's more moral. Everyone wants to think their thing is the most moral thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Alright, Exodus! When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh, he shall go free for nothing. That's an indentured servant, that's not a slave. Not an indentured servant at all. Hold on. Wait. So you know how indentured servitude works? It is so like okay if somebody captured me right and then sold me to someone else and that was a seven year contract That's not yeah, you're right.
Yeah You're not giving them anything at the end. Yeah, it's where you sell yourself so that you get [00:03:00] something at the end of it Oh, I think some I think some prisoners were indentured servants. I don't think that's necessarily. Oh, I think you're right Yeah, also a lot of people don't know how bad indentured servitude was in the u.
s Just to be clear If I suddenly had to choose between indentured servitude and slavery, I would choose slavery because every time people don't know this America, if you were in the American colonies, it was much, much better to be a slave than it was to be an indentured servant. So the incentives are really misaligned.
If you are an indentured servant, people don't remember often that indentured servants were Typically quite often, at least entitled to some kind of like a, a couple of acres of land or so it was depending on what you're doing, it was a couple of acres of land or a portion, like a 10th of your owner's estate.
And after you serve your term, only if you live through your term. Yeah. And so people may be like, Oh, well creating a negative incentive like that couldn't have possibly had any externalities [00:04:00] out of every single person. 10 indentured servants, 9 died, not, not out of every 10, 9 survived and 1 died, 9 died depending on the period you're looking at here, you had a 90 percent chance of death in your 7 to 10 year period.
Well, even if you took out the reward at the end or the payment that the we'll say employer, obligatory employer, not non optional employer would be obligated to give. Even if they didn't have to pay anything. You would still probably be more likely to overwork an indentured servant than a slave because you're like, well, the indentured servant like He's going to expire in five years.
I won't have him in five years. The slave, I have for life. Like, I don't want, like, I want to be careful. You know, it's like knowing that you're going to own a car for life versus own a car for like five years. And then regardless if it's Yeah, regardless if it's state, you won't have it anymore. But it's worse.
It's like a lease where you have to pay for the whole price of the car at the end of the lease only if [00:05:00] you haven't crashed the car. Like, everyone is going to crash the car. I'm going to joyride this. Yeah, it's a terrible incentive. But, but, but dominant political narratives today don't want to admit how bad indentured servitude was in America because it, you know doesn't fit into the narrative.
So they, it's largely been covered up in history. Well, yeah, but specifically because there were many. Well, it was pretty much all white indentured servants, right? And so you don't want to make it clear that there were white people who were possibly maybe, maybe conceivably treated worse than slaves because that would go against the narrative.
It goes against the narrative. The narrative! The narrative. We follow the narrative on this podcast. The narrative. The narrative. But so much of American history you just don't learn because it's against the narrative. Sorry, I gotta keep going here. By the way, the 10 died, that was over a period, not necessarily true for the entire period indentured servitude was practiced in the U.
S. Well, and I'm sure that there were some indentured servants who did just fine, but, you know. Okay, okay, next. If he comes in single, he shall go out single. If he [00:06:00] comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. Aww. So, that's a sweet one right there. That's sweet, I like that. We're not saying that it's okay, though, to have the slaves at all.
Well, and I will note a lie that I often hear people say about Jewish slavery is that it was always a short term thing. They're like, oh, well, you couldn't own a slave for over seven years. It wasn't like, you know, you could own a slave forever like you could during the American chattel slavery period.
I'm like, that only applied to Jews. The seven year restriction only applied to Jews, and it wasn't like you could just convert. But I thought it was also fairly normative in ancient Rome, right? Like, a lot of slaves went on to become major business owners. You know, like movers and shakers. We will get into Roman slavery laws in a second.
Okay. Not true by the way, in, in Jewish society, I am unaware of any free slaves having a major place in the Bible, but I can look this up. Okay.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: For those unfamiliar with Roman history, it was fairly common in Roman history for. [00:07:00] For former slaves to end up fabulously wealthy or powerful individuals was in Roman society. So I wondered to check if this ever happened in ancient Jewish society. And it appeared that eight just didn't the closest you're going to get is Joseph though, not technically a freed slave Joseph Rose from being sold into slavery to become second in command in Egypt under Pharaoh problem is not in Israel. It, we learned that, , Jemar Rome who later became king in the Northern kingdom of Israel with originally a servant of king Solomon.
, though not explicitly described to the slave, it would be normal for somebody who is later going to become a king to be in the court of another king. This is something you might call being a servant. That's not at all an example of a slave right into a high status, although I'm an interesting. Tradition is in shrined here.
We specifically Lei through of Damascus. So Abraham mentioned that his air before the birth of Isaac would have been his servant, Ellie, either. This suggested Lei, ther held a position of trust and importance within Abraham's [00:08:00] household, that he was not freed, which shows a custom that we don't see anywhere else. Or that I'm aware of in the Bible of, if you don't have any errors, your estate and maybe even your family name would go to the slave or servant, you liked the most, which makes a lot of sense to me actually.
Simone Collins: So, so if I had to like go back in history and be a slave, I'm, I'm leaning right now toward Roman slavery, but I'll learn more. Yeah. No. Okay. So Roman slavery had different classes of slaves.
You had, you're equivalent to like a house slave in American slavery, which were generally treated pretty well, educated around the kids. These are the ones who would often go on to run things in society. Then you had the field slaves where they would, you know, crucify entire roads worth of them just to show how serious.
Don't mess around is okay. Yeah. All right. So maybe okay. I haven't chosen rather be a Roman house slave than a Jewish house. Yes. Okay. I don't think you'd rather be a Roman field slave than a Jewish field slave. Okay. But anyway, we're going to keep going here. Okay. But if the slave [00:09:00] plainly says I love my master my wife and my children I will not go out free then his master shall not bring him to god And he shall bring him in to the door or the doorpost and his master shall bore his ear Through with an all and he shall be his slave forever.
Okay. Whoa. Whoa It's saying he shall bore his ear if the guy loves his master so much. He doesn't want to go free and he can give him his wife and kids in perpetuity That's oof. That's a, that, that, I don't like the incentive that creates. So you understand what that's saying, right? There's an ear piercing involved?
So, it's basically saying, if a slave says that they don't want to go free. I don't, don't fire me. Yeah. Then they can opt into being a slave forever. Yeah. But you know, there's going to be some incentives around ensuring that for a master. Yeah. So he's going to put a hole in the ear so that there's a marking of like, [00:10:00] this is a that's a marking that he's a permanent slave.
Now, what I would note, which is interesting here is a lot of people might see, oh, this is purely a negative, but not necessarily for a lot of people. People, if they were. Yeah. Particularly a house slave of a very wealthy Jewish person back then. And they had a wife and kids and everything like that. They might not have an easy job securing a life for themselves, currency, anything like that.
Yeah, there's famine going on. And this is a wealthy family who has more resources. You know, you want to stay with them. I would stay with that. And it's, yeah, it could in a lot of instances, especially if it was a very like prominent family or something like that. We're going to hand in all that better than two in the bush anytime.
For sure. Yeah. And you should note here, it, it marks him as a different kind of slave. The hole in the ear marks him as a permanent slave. That is a willing permanent slave that would likely put them in a higher caste than the other slaves. Yeah. Okay, next. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, he shall not go out as the male slaves do.
I don't know what that means. Shall I ask what that means?
If I sell my daughter as a slave, I [00:11:00] won't go out. Yeah, I don't get that.
Oh, that is not good. Okay, remember how earlier I said that after seven years oh, sorry, not seven, six years and in the sevens, the slaves go free if they're Hebrew? This is not true if you sell your daughter. Oh, not go out isn't be released. Not be released. So it's saying that after seven years the, the men are released from slavery, but female slaves are not released for slavery, even if they're Hebrew.
Well, that sucks. And this is something fathers would do to get themselves out of debt and stuff like that. Yeah, it might suck, but I can tell you why they did it. They did it because I think one of the core reasons why people would have sold a daughter into slavery is twofold, basically as a ex slave.
And those would either be married by the person or made basically unmarriable. I mean, if the girl spends seven years, back then, okay, so imagine. He sells her, you'd [00:12:00] be released. Yeah. I guess after you would be desirable as a partner, seven years from then, the woman's out of marriage age range, like she's not going to get a partner.
You're destitute. Yeah. It's not necessarily as unethical as it's almost, yeah. It's almost like insisting that she has to have a lifetime pension. Rather than insisting that. Yeah. Okay. I guess I can see it. It's not, it's not great. It's a, all of this is terrible, but that's uniquely terrible. But I also understand from a societal perspective when that would be forced.
If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broke faith with her. That is really interesting. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed.
So you cannot say a woman does not it appears please me and this appears to be in a sexual sense here and that I [00:13:00] bought as a slave you cannot resell her So that actually goes to the earlier point that we were talking about is like why would that be an ethical thing? Well, it's saying you can't wait, you know The seven years until she's no longer hot or something and then resell her you can't just be like, okay I will buy this girl from, you know, another one of the Jewish people and then we will resell her in you know, 10, 20 years.
Because she's unattractive now, right? That is very moral as a thing. And especially not to a foreign people where, you know, there might be different rules around slavery. Then you have,
if he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. So it's saying, if you buy a girl to be married to your son, you have to treat her as if she is your daughter in law. Which makes a lot of sense, I mean, you can see it being pretty bad if your wife was bought by your dad, and he still thought of her as a slave, and you're like, [00:14:00] bro, this is my wife now, chill out!
Um Uh, that could cause some problems in terms of family dynamics. So, okay, actually makes a lot of sense. If she does not, oh, sorry If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. This is so even for slave wives this, this holds. You can't have sex with him less just because you got another wife.
And if he does not do these, And if he does not do these three things for her, he shall go out for nothing without payment of money. I don't know what this is in reference to. Go out for nothing without payment of money.
Like, give, give them away, or?
Ah, if he doesn't give her, so this is referring to the three things that you're supposed to give to a female servant, slave. I love how I cleaned it up in the in the AI a female slave who was bought with the intention of marriage you have to give her food and sustenance closing and conjugal rights so I love that.
One of the three things you have to give her is conjugal [00:15:00] rights If you can't give her conjugal rights, you have to let her go. I mean, sure. That is interesting. Well, I mean, this is sort of throughout Jewish tradition is that women obligation for conjugal rights in a way that like, like being pleased sexually, which is one of the reasons actually that it was so damning.
The, WAP thing with Ben Shapiro where he's like, Oh, actually get wet. Like my wife told me that she had a disease because that implies that he's not pleasing his wife which is actually being a bad Jew. Okay, next. And a bad Christian by the way, because we inherited that part of the tradition.
You are supposed to please your wife. If you do not please your life, you are not living biblically. What's that? Wait, that's, did that pass? Christian tradition because I don't did it. Well, no, a lot of people don't talk about it, but like biblically speaking Christian Christ did not like a a null that part of the [00:16:00] Hebrew.
Oh sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I mean a lot of Christians believe a lot of dumb stuff that isn't in the Bible That's what we all go over in our track series, you know, like the Bible doesn't say it. Okay next When a man strikes his slave male or female with a rod and the slave dies under his hand. He shall be avenged What, I wonder what a vening entails.
I am, I'm so glad I have AI to ask these questions because otherwise I'd never be able to get a straight answer. Okay. So it, it, it means retribution or punishment is not necessarily saying that there will be a, a death penalty for the master for killing the slave, but it is saying that there should be some form of retribution for killing a slave.
Mm-Hmm. , which interesting if that had been implemented in American law, I don't think it was. When, when slavery was in the United States, that probably should have been implemented. Very interesting. So in a way, that's, that is better than American slavery. Yeah. I love that people are always like, Oh, biblical slavery wasn't chattel slavery.
It's different in the American system. And I'm like so far this is the only thing [00:17:00] I'm really seeing that's particularly different than the American slave system. So no, it. It was people just say that because they don't want to admit that like one both sides like the conservatives don't want to admit that the bible promoted chattel slavery.
They don't want to admit that chattel slavery happened in rome and then for the The far lefties they don't want to admit that american slavery was It's not a unique form of slavery and forms like it were practiced in other places. Now, are you sure? Because I remember when I maybe it's just cause we, you went to more religiously friendly schools and I went to more atheistic schools, but when we were taught about slavery in school, it was emphasized that slave holders used biblical arguments to justify their actions.
They did, but they didn't I'm talking about in modern context. In modern context, you have both groups having a huge reason to try to convince you, the average person, that the type of slavery [00:18:00] described in the Bible is not akin to the type of slavery that was practiced in the United States, and this is something that is generally believed, and it is something that is not true.
True. Oh, so now people are saying no, no, no, that wasn't biblically okay. No, they're saying that it was a totally different type of slavery. So there is a myth in the United States that the form of chattel slavery practice in the south was morally worse than any other form of slavery that had ever been practiced in human history.
Really? I've not heard that. Oh, you in our comments, you go below and you say this it is a very common argument because people will say. Why are you being so like, like freaked out about southern slavery when like people practice slavery all over the world and they're like, Oh, these were different forms of slavery that were not as bad.
And I'm just looking at like the historic forms of slavery that I know a lot about. For example, I know a fair bit about the way Athenian slaves were treated. the way Athenian slaves were treated in the mines, they would send them into these mines. The death rate was super, [00:19:00] super, super high in the silver mines.
And they'd send them down these little passages where they'd be killed or crushed and you were expected to die in a very short period of time. It was just like on its face. I, yeah, I'd say strictly worse than American slavery. The economic model was different. In, in Athenian slavery, it was go out.
Capture slaves, work them till they die. There wasn't an assumption of an intergenerational type of slavery. It was a death sentence. Yeah, these weren't assets, they were fodder. Yeah, they were fodder that you had to keep replacing with new captures. So yeah, I mean, I guess it was different from American slavery in that it was strictly worse among like every conceivable measure.
But okay. I'm gonna keep going. And this is Athens, by the way, the, the, the great glowing hearts of all our western history where civilization was born. Okay, when a, alright, but, and I'd also note the, when a man strikes his slave, male or female, and she [00:20:00] dies, they will be avenged. That is important that they note females there.
Okay, next. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money. So, you can beat your slaves, even with a rod, you just can't kill them. So it's basically giving legal protection, this is biblical, legal protection for beating your slaves. Well, doesn't that also imply that if the, if after this beating, the harmed individual survives for more than two days, but then they die from their injuries, it's okay.
Yes, that's what it's implying. Hmm. Okay, next. Again, people are like, oh, it was more moral than the surrounding systems. We'll see. We'll get to the surrounding systems in a second. Yeah, I don't know about this. When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he [00:21:00] shall let the slave go because of his eye.
So if you damage somebody's eye they have to be set free. That is one of the first, like, genuinely, like, benevolent laws I've seen here. This and the seven year law for men and both seem pretty reasonable to me. Also, the treating slaves that you're marrying off to your sons as your daughters in law seems pretty reasonable to me.
If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let this, the slave go free because of his tooth. Wow. So again, no serious, constantly like putting your face in the line of fire when they look to beat you. Yeah. I'd be like catching every, every punch with my face, you know I, I, I wonder what I like about these release terms and term limits as well.
Is that these people are being integrated with mainstream society. And if you are terrible to someone and they. You know, are going to be integrated with your, you have to, you have to go shopping next to them, [00:22:00] whatever. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like if you had to go, you're like at the grocery store and your former slave is there, you're, they didn't have grocery stores.
You understand that I'm talking, I'm just putting this into like metaphorically modern Connie. Okay. You're in the, the market. Bizarre slaves. Wasn't a shameful thing back then. I know, but like, and I don't want to be a total dick to them because you're going to have to basically said you can beat your slaves as much as you want so long as you don't cause permanent injury is basically what they're saying also is that because there are instances in which these people will be released and will be free people in society.
And you're going to have to maybe interact with them as free people. You probably have an incentive to treat them better. Okay. So now we're going to go to Leviticus. All right. Before that was Exodus. All right. Leviticus. As for your male and female slaves, whom you may have, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. So here it's just saying explicitly you can buy either male or female [00:23:00] slaves from surrounding nations. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you who have been born in your land and they may be your property.
You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may. Make slaves out of them, but Over your brothers, the people of Israel, you shall not rule one over another ruthlessly. So, it doesn't look like it's specifically ruling out the, you know, six, seven year release terms for Israeli slaves.
But here it seems to be further saying that one, against the argument that some people make that this was not chattel slavery, it's saying, No, this is, like, in case anyone in the future tries to argue this isn't chattel slavery, this is forever slavery. Not even to your death. When you die, it goes to your kids.
When you capture somebody and make them a slave, or they are bred for slavery, if they are not Jewish, they are a forever slave. That is made very, [00:24:00] very, very clear in Leviticus. Wow. So, Deuteronomy. If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the sevenths, you shall let him go, okay, we already went over that, and when , you shall not let him go empty handed.
You will furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing flour, and out of your winepress. As the Lord God bless you, you shall give to him. So that's also pretty interesting. Is it saying that basically Ramura's like, oh, well, you know, why would they choose to become a slave forever, right?
Because of the economic hardship of just being released. This is saying that they shouldn't have had that economic hardship. Our rules were added to reduce that economic hardship. Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about the New Testament because I think a lot of people think that this is just Old Testament stuff.
You It's not just all testament stuff. Okay. Ephesians 6, 5, 9. Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart. Just as you would obey Christ, [00:25:00] obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from your heart.
Serve wholeheartedly as if you are serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do. Whether. They are slave are free and masters treat your slaves in the same way Do not threaten them since you know that he who is born Who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no favoritism with him So that i'd say is a strictly More moral form of slavery than the one in the jewish system if we talk about you know christianity being sort of an advancement on the older jewish model Which is to say that God does not see slaves as different from freedmen, but a slave's duty is to serve his master as if he is serving Christ.
So whenever you go, Oh, you know, I'm working for the man. I'm working for the capitalist system. I'm [00:26:00] not, I'm going to quiet quit. I'm going to whatever keep in mind that you know, If you see that as a form of slavery which I guess it technically is that is not cool by God's standards. You are supposed to spend every day doing your job as if you are doing it for Christ.
Yeah, that, that, that seems to be the general order is that you must serve your role in society with fidelity and grace. As though you're serving God, but God sees everyone the same, but it's certainly done. It's certainly one accepts that slavery is a thing. And 2 does not by any means contest its legitimacy.
So, that's interesting. Yeah, there's a very similar line. It looks like a collation 32241. And I'm not even going to read it because it seems to be just a. a rereading of that line. So it might be just a different translation of that line and I'm misunderstanding it. And then you've got Timothy 6, 1, 2, All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that [00:27:00] God's name and our teachings may not be slandered. Those who have a believing masters should not show them disrespect, just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better, because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers, and are devout to them.
to the welfare of their slaves. So again, here it's saying that you need to be devout to the welfare of your slaves as a, as a Christian. Now we mentioned this in the previous one, but it is important to go over is that in the old Testament Mecks slavery was pretty explicitly allowed. So for some lines that show this, . Have you allowed the women to live? Moses asked him, dot, dot, dot now kill all the boys and kill every woman who has slept with a man, but say for yourselves, every girl who has never slept with a man.
And then captured women can be taken as wives after a period of mourning but had to be set free if the man no longer wanted them. This is Deuteronomy 21, 10, 14. And then here we also see to normalize this idea of mech slaves. If a man has sex with a slave girl [00:28:00] who is engaged to another man, but has not yet been ransomed or given her freedom, there must be an investigation.
They aren't to be put to death because she wasn't free. The man must bring a compensation offering to God at the entrance to the tent of meeting a ram of compensation. The priest will perform the ritual of atonement for him before God. With the ram of compensation for the sin he has committed. Then he will stand for forgiven of the sin he committed.
So it's interesting here that he doesn't need to give, something to the guy whose sex he slept with. But to God. To the priest. The Levite system was not a good system. I am not a massive fan of pre Second Temple Destruction Judaism. I think that they had some issues with the priest caste.
And I see why Jesus got angry and flipped over a table. He flipped over a table. He did get angry! He had a spasm! Yeah, he did. He had a little spasm moment. And I probably would have had a little [00:29:00] spaz moment too if stuff like this was going on. You know it. Whenever somebody sleeps with one of your slaves, you have to pay us money.
And then I'm the guy who's like, wait, what? You? Why you? And keep in mind the, the, the sacrifices. This is where you had the money exchanges because you weren't allowed to use outside money. So when you're doing like a sacrifice of a goat, it's not like you're just doing a goat for God. Like a lot of that money went to the temple because you had to get a special kind of goat, like outside the temple to do the sacrifice.
I'm just pointing out here that they're basically saying you have to pay us. Okay. Let's talk about some other slavery systems so we can compare and contrast. We're going to go to the code of earn Namu. This is 21, 000 to 20. 50 BC Samaria. So this is as far from the time of Christ as we are. Isn't that fascinating that we have a slavery system from back then that we know about?
If a slave marries a slave [00:30:00] and the slave is set free, he does not leave the household. So if a slave marries another slave and one of the slaves is set free, but the other isn't set free, then the slave that married them also isn't set free. Wow. If a slave marries a native, a free person, he or she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner.
So still fully a slave, but the owner gets the firstborn son, but no sons after that. Very interesting. This is obviously for section reasons. It appears to imply that the firstborn son would have been considered a legitimate heir. If a man proceeded by force and deflowered the virgin female slave of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
If a slave escapes from the city limits and someone returns him, the owner shall pay two shekels to the one who returned him. And this is where it gets interesting. If he, the person who returned the runaway slave, doesn't have a slave, he has to pay them ten shekels of silver. If he doesn't have the silver, he has to give another thing that belongs to him.
So, this system is [00:31:00] fantastic. If somebody doesn't own slaves and isn't benefiting from the slave owning system, but They act as a slave catcher, they get extra money so that they now can buy a slave. And join the slave owner system. It's like, I don't, I don't know what I think of that. But it's interesting.
I mean, clearly there was some form of like moral thought around this. It's like, well, he gave the slave back, even though he doesn't benefit from the system, then we need to be extra nice to him. Five times the amount of money for that. I guess theoretically it was because they would otherwise take the slave for themselves.
Is that what it's trying to compensate for? That might be what it's trying to compensate for. What's also interesting here is it's only two shekels for catching a runaway slave, but five shekels, so more than twice that if you deflower somebody else's slave. That you know, shows what the value put on a virgin.
What's also interesting here is there doesn't appear to be any punishment for just having sex with another person's [00:32:00] slave. It's only if you deflower a virgin of another person's. Yeah, but I think that goes back to the premium that people put on untouched women. I mean, while still young. All right, next, if a man's slave woman comparing herself to a mistress speaks insolently of her, her mouth shall be scoured by one quart of salt.
I thought salt was really expensive back then? Well, I mean, I think this is more for, like, noble people and stuff like that. Oh, I mean, what a waste of salt. No, salt was never that expensive. Salt is easy to get from salt mines or from the sea. It's fairly easy to produce salt. No, no, no, no, no. In some, in some historical societies, salt was worth its weight in gold.
So That cannot be true. Salt is too easy to get. No one is that far from the ocean. Maybe. I'll look it up in post,
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: Apparently, this is a common myth, but not true. , for example, where we know [00:33:00] the exact price of salt in the historic world, , in 16th century, Venice gold with about . 11,000 times more valuable than salt by weight. And in third century, Ady Egypt gold with approximately 283.5 times more valuable than salt by weight. , so it was never worth more than gold that said, , salt was unusually expensive in some areas just due to how frequently it was needed for, , food.
, preservation and transportation costs Eve, you were far from a coast or a salt mine.
Simone Collins: but I don't think that's true. I mean, I know salt can be used for storing food better. So I can see some things like sugar being worth its weight in gold, but salt is a very easy to obtain resource, generally speaking.
Maybe I don't know. Maybe I'm just wrong on my history here. Okay, next. If a slave woman strikes someone acting with the authority of her mistress, text destroyed.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: Now, even though the text is destroyed here, I find this one pretty interesting. Because it is saying that a [00:34:00] slave might be instructed by their mistress or master to strike somebody else.
Which is interesting. I don't know what to make of it. Other than that, apparently it was at least not infrequent enough that this happened, that this was written into the law books.
If somebody would ask their slave to hit someone else on their behalf,
Simone Collins: So again, we don't know all of the rules around slavery here, but these rules seem much more in line was just slaves their property. No way out.
So here I would say biblical slavery is strictly better than this. Then if we go to the code of look par, this is 1900 BC Samaria. So a little bit later. So we're seeing sort of the evolution of the slavery system. We, again, destroyed text, strikes the daughter of a man and causes her to lose the fetus, he shall weigh and deliver 30 shekels of silver.
Destroyed text, strikes the slave of a woman of a man and causes her to lose her fetus, he shall weigh and deliver 5 shekels of silver. Actually kind of a lot. It's saying that you need to pay what is that? Only [00:35:00] one six, one sixy amount for a slave fetus versus the free woman fetus. Or a daughter's fetus.
Very interesting. If a man's slave or male slave flees within the city and it is confirmed that the slave dwelt in the man's house for one month, he, the one who harbored the fugitive slave shall give the slave for slave. If he has no slave, he shall weigh and deliver 15 shekels of silver.
If a man's slave contests his slave status against his master and is proven that his master has been compensated for his slavery to fold, that slave shall be freed. Interesting. If a man marries a wife and she bears him a child and the child lives, And a slave woman also bears a child to the master. The father shall free the slave woman and her children.
The children of the slave woman will not divide the estate with the children of the master. Oh, and he frees the slave woman. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So saying that if he has a legitimate child and a child with a slave woman, the slave children [00:36:00] don't get a share of the estate. So far But the slave woman is also Theoretically free.
No, if he frees her. I don't think he has. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So yeah, this is just saying the legitimate lives get the Jewish jewish slave call is like way better than any of these totally the code of eshnuma. This is 1770 bc babylonian period the slave woman As pledge and the silver owed as debt are considered equal.
When he brings the silver, he shall retrieve his slave woman, a merchant or woman in keeper will not accept silver grain, wool, oil, or anything else from a male or female slave. Interesting. So they can't make purchases. Yeah. Yeah. I guess like debanking them does disempower them. So yeah. If a man has no claim against another man, but nonetheless takes that man's slave woman as a distress The owner of the slave woman shall swear an oath by the god.
You have [00:37:00] no claim against me. He, the distrainer, will weigh and deliver silver as much as the value, question mark, of the slave woman. Okay, this is interesting. Okay. So, what this is saying is you have to pay for a slave if you sleep with a slave and that slave was unwilling. But it appears you don't if the slave was willing.
Very interesting. If a man should deflower the slave woman of another man, he shall weigh and deliver 20 shekels of silver, but the slave woman remains the property of her master. Interesting. Oh, you know what? Here's another reason why I think the payment price was high. The resale value of like, let's say that one of your slaves had a child or you purchased a child slave that you planned on then raising, like using for housework and then selling as an untouched woman.
You'd be losing so much resale value if someone had [00:38:00] sex with her before you could sell her. So I think that's maybe more, yeah, sorry. I was, I thought it was just that people were like really angry about people deflowering their like personal virgins or something, but really this is more about an economic thing.
And keep in mind what we're seeing so far. Is that the Jewish system is the very first system that at all values the well being of the slave. Not one of these systems in any way has valued the well being of the slave. But wait, hold on though. Wasn't with the Jewish system, all those nice rules, weren't they only if it was a fellow No, no, the rule around a tooth knocking out, the rule around accidentally killing, and the rule around damaging an eye.
That applied to all slaves? That applied to all slaves. Okay. And the Christian rules that were on top of that, around you having to treat a slave as an equal in the eyes of God. That is well above any of these systems. Yeah, that's fair. But let's keep going here. If a [00:39:00] slave woman of the palace should give her son or daughter to a commoner for rearing, the palace shall remove the son and daughter who she gave.
Weird. It's basically saying slave woman of the palace can choose to not keep her slave. Her son or daughter in the palace, it appears they're given a choice. You can either give it away to somebody outside the palace or keep it in the palace, but it will grow up a slave. If a man buys a slave, a slave woman, an ox, or any other purchase, okay?
Seeing what they think of people these days. I got you. If you're buying a woman or a man or an ox but cannot establish the identity of the seller, it is he who is the thief. Oh, so yeah, this is like buying an art from an art thief or something like. No. Okay. So, so this is what this is saying. It's basically like the receipt thing for an American court system.
It's basically saying if somebody finds you as a slave. So for example, I go to your house and I say, I think this slave is stolen. And I, and then the other person [00:40:00] says, prove it. And I go, okay, who sold it to you then? And you can't show me who sold it to you. That is considered proof that it is stolen.
Okay. Okay. Fascinating. Fascinating for an early legal system and actually a pretty good system, to be honest. More about more, more about property than I would say like, Oh, this is legitimate. Well, that's the point. None of these laws consider slaves. People, a slave or slave woman belonging to resident of Eshna Enu, who bears fetters shackles or a slave hair lock will not exit through the main city gate.
A slave heirloom without its owner. Basically, if you have a markings of slavery, you can't leave the city without your owner. Makes a lot of sense just as a general law. Okay, now we're at the Code of Hammurabi. You've heard of this one, right? Is it we're going to get to any that that treat slaves as people and we've got a few more systems to go through here.
We've got the Hittites. We've got the Assyrians. I'm not expecting much from the Assyrians to be honest. Okay. The Code of Haber [00:41:00] Rabbi. If a man should enable a palace slave, a palace slave woman, a commoner slave, or a commoner slave woman to leave through the main city gate, he shall be killed.
Oh gosh, that's harsh. Basically if you help a slave get away, that's the death penalty. This was a society that did not Yeah, I'm not expecting much from this one. If a man sees that the fugitive slave or slave woman in the open country and leads him back to his owner, the slave owner shall give him two shekels of silver.
Hmm, back to the two shekels, not a lot of inflation. If he should give a male or female slave into debt service, the merchant may extend the term beyond three years, he may sell him, there are no grounds for a claim. So, if you give a slave a debt service, and the merchant randomly extends the term you can't place claim on that.
There is no, that's horrible. I do not like this system. If an obligation is outstanding against a man, and he therefore sells his slave woman, who has borne him children, the owner [00:42:00] of the slave woman, Shall weigh and deliver the silver, which the merchant weighed and delivered, as the loan, and he shall thereby redeem his slave woman.
This is like, you can buy back a slave woman, if she has given you children. Basically, this is saying, if you had children with a slave woman, whenever you sell her, it's like a pawn shop. You can go and buy her back. Okay, not Not great. If a slave of the palace or a slave of a commoner marries a woman of the Awai'idas and she then bears children, the owner of the slave will have no claims of slavery against the children of the woman of the Awai'idas.
And I assume Awai'idas means free person. So it's saying that if the children of a slave and a free person, if it is not the owner do not own, the owner does not own those children. If he should blind the eye of an Awile's, yeah, it does mean free person, of an Awile's slave or break the bone of an Awile's slave, he shall weigh and deliver one half of his value in silver.
Oh, Awile might mean like [00:43:00] Hammurabi citizen, like Jew or Hebrew or something like that. But here it's saying that if you damage a slave, you owe the owner half their amount. Again, none of this cares about the slave. If an O'Wiley slave should strike the cheek of a member of the Aful class, they shall cut off his ear. Oof! Okay, this is class stuff here. If he should cause a woman or a commoner class To miscarry her fetus by beating, he shall weigh and deliver five shekels of silver. If he strikes an a wily slave woman, and thereby causes her to miscarry her fetus, he shall bear two shekels of silver.
Ooh! The difference between free people and slaves is, is lessening. There's only two and a half differences. If the slave woman should die, he shall weigh and deliver twenty shekels of silver. Interesting that that's also anyway. If it is a manslave who is fatally gored, he shall give 20 shekels of silver.
So again, what we are seeing here is the Jewish system, when people say this system was morally superior to earlier systems, they are not lying. Yeah, let's go to the [00:44:00] Hittite system 1650 to 1500 BCE. If anyone kills male or female slave in a quarrel, he shall bring him for burial and she'll give him to person male or female respectively.
He shall look for his house for it. Okay Nothing, if anyone strikes a free man or woman so that he dies, but it is an accident He shall bring him for burial and she'll give two persons. He shall look to his house for it basically you have to gift slaves if you kill a Okay, interesting. So I want to see this.
If you kill a female male or slave in a quarrel you have to give a person for that, but it doesn't appear like to the slave. It appears to the person who slave you took. If anyone strikes a male or female slave and he dies, but it is an accident, she'll bring him to, to and give one person for it.
Okay. Okay. Okay. This is confusing, but I'll explain it. If you, and this is in the Hittite system. If you kill a person in a quarrel and that person is a slave. You owe the person whose slave you killed two slaves. [00:45:00] If it's an accident, if it was an accident, you just have to replace it. Yeah. So there's a penalty when it was intentional.
If it's accidental, just replace. Yeah, interesting. If anyone blinds a male or female slave or knocks out his tooth, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver. He shall look to his house for basically, yeah, find a way to pay it or his family needs to pay it. If anyone, I also find this, or he should look to his house for it.
Like the legal code is getting more sophisticated in terms of how to get out of this. If anyone breaks a male or female slave's arm or leg, he shall pay 10 shekels of silver. If a male slave runs away and someone brings him back, he If he seizes him nearby, his owner gives him shoes. Give shoes to the finder.
What?! Shoes? That is so cheap! Everyone else was getting two shekels, or even ten shekels if you didn't own a slate! And then someone else just gets shoes. It's like covering your mileage. You know, like, oh, I'll pay your gas money. That's literally what it is! Wow. That is literally, it's like when you submit a [00:46:00] claim to your company for the amount of gas miles you use.
Yeah. They say, oh, I'll give you shoes, cause you may need to walk a while for this. That is ridiculous! RIDICULOUS! I guess returning property in this period was not so valued. If a male slave takes a female slave in marriage and they have children, when they divide their house, they shall divide their possessions equally.
The slave woman shall take most of the children, and the male slave taking one child. Wait, that's not evenly! Weird. If a slave breaks into a grain storage pit and finds grain in the storage pit, he shall fill the storage pit with grain and pay six shekels of silver. He shall look to his house for it.
Oh, that's interesting. So his house. Okay. So what that means is if a slave steals food from another family, the slave's owner is responsible to pay six shekels to the person who the slave stole from. Now we're going to go to Assyrian law and then we only have Roman law left. Let's see if we can get to this [00:47:00] before I have to run to get the goods.
Tell me quick. If either a slave or a slave woman should receive something from a man's wife, they shall cut off the slave or the slave woman's nose and ears, and they shall restore the stolen goods. The man shall cut off his own wife's ears, but if he releases his wife and does not cut off their ears, they shall not cut off, no, their ears of the slave or the slave woman, and they shall not restore the stolen goods.
And then next broken text, the owner, broken text, and if the buyer declares broken text, which I redeem, broken text, he shall give a slave, broken text, shekels of lead, and slave woman for 14, 000 shekels of lead. And I think you, the, the point you've made is that Slaves are just seen as property, and they're not entitled.
Hey, buddy. They're not entitled. Hold on, hold on. Do you want to get to the Roman stuff, or we can do that in another recording? You can also do it in post. Okay, I'll add the Roman stuff in post,
Microphone (HyperX QuadCast)-2: All right, let's go over the 12 tables of Roman law, 4 51 to four 50 BC table 6, 8, 8 person who has been a slave and who has been declared to be a free [00:48:00] man in a will or some condition. If he shall have given 10,000 copper coins to an error, although the slave has been alienated by the air, by giving the money to the purchaser shall enter his freedom. , so it appears that. Eva person was poor and had slaves and tried to grant them their freedom. They couldn't, they needed to give the slaves money to buy themselves from the air, which is a pretty interesting. Table eight for if a person has broken or bruised a bone with. Hand club.
He shall undergo a penalty of 300 copper coins. If to an injured Freeman or of 150 copper coins if to an injured slave. So here in Roman law, we see the first system other than the Jewish system. In which a slave's wellbeing is taken into account. You couldn't just be an injure, your slave. And table eight 15. In the case of all [00:49:00] other thieves. And the act it is ordained that free bin be scourged and be a judge. As bondsman to the person against whom this effort has been committed, provided that they had done this by day. And had not defended themselves with a weapon that slaves caught in the act of theft, be whipped with scourges and be thrown from the rock that boys below the age of puberty under 15 years old. Be flogged at magistrate's discretion. And that damage done to them.
Be repaired. Okay. So again, here you see care of, , the, the first slaves under a certain age. A different punishment. And then table 12, two, if a slave shall have committed theft or shall have done damage whiz, his master's knowledge, the action for damages in the slave's name. Arising from Delex committed by children and slave to the household. Actions for damages shall be appointed that the father is a master can be allowed to undergo assessment of the suit. Or [00:50:00] deliver the delinquent for punishment.
Okay. So interesting. This lock here seems to consider children in the same category as slaves. Basically anyone who they see as sort of owned by a household. And when one of them does damage or steals from another person. , The master is ultimately responsible, but the master can choose to either handle the suit himself or give over the person who did the damage for punishment. So broadly speaking, Roman law. I won't say it's equal with Jewish law in terms of valley, I kind of is.
Yeah, it seems about the moral equivalent to biblical law on.
Simone Collins: but you get the gist, which is the Jewish system was genuinely better. Do you, do you think that people should be allowed to own other people? No. And do you think that if people did own other people, that they should treat them nicely?
Yes.
I love you, Simone. I love [00:51:00] you, too.
Speaker 2: It's a little hot. Can you, can you slide it? Sure, Tusty. Got to mix in that cheese powder really fast. What kind of treasure?
Speaker 3: It's space treasure and you and daddy and Toasty and Titan are looking for space treasure. Is that cool? I think you're in the water. Hey Toasty, you ready to dump in the pasta? Toasty, it's time to dump in the pasta. You want to help me? Help me dump it in. Push. It's too hot. It's too hot? Yeah. It's not that hot.
It's not burnt.
Speaker 2: What? To Titan, right? She's the one who just turned, whatever, two. Yeah, it has teeth? Yeah.[00:52:00]
Speaker 3: That's the point, right? That's the dream. What? That's the cheesy dream. Mommy, is the mac and cheese done? I think it is. It is! Are you excited for that? Yeah. I like mac and cheese, don't you? It's an American institution, right? Yeah. Are you excited? I'm excited, Mama. Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who had a big wheel of cheese?
Oh, you want to put on some chapstick? No? Okay, we'll work it out. Let's have some dinner, yeah? Say, Itadakimasu! Yeah, that'd be toasty.
Ancient vs. Biblical Slave Laws: Which Would We Prefer?