Response to review Dr. Stoutjesdijk on ‘Slavery throughout world history’

Response to review  Dr. Martijn Stoutjesdijk.

First of all I would like to thank Dr. Martijn Stoutjesdijk for the effort to read and review my book ‘Slavery throughout world history ’ at the online history magazine ‘The modern time’.  (https://demodernetijd.nl/boekzaal/slavernij-doorheen-de-wereldgeschiedenis/) That he disagrees with some things opens the way for a discussion on this topic. The review completely ignores the main theme of my book: the history of slavery at a glance. You know that seen from above, other things become visible than when one looks at them on the ground.  For example, from a bird's eye view, you can see what a maze looks like on the ground or how a crop circle can form an image. In this way, I have looked at the history of slavery from a bird's eye view and I have seen that in history there is an exodus from slavery. The exodus of the Israelites plays a major role in this. Not only do the Israelites experience an exodus from slavery in Egypt, but after them the laws of Israel help the rest of the world to extinguish slavery. These laws have one of the most important rules that you must love your neighbor as yourself. This also applies to peoples who are neighbors. By applying these laws, Christians have contributed to the extinction of slavery worldwide. After all, they recognize the laws of Israel in the Bible.

Cultural Marxist perspective 
The major problems that Dr. Martijn Stoutjesdijk believes he perceives in ‘Slavery throughout world history’ suggest that he views the book as well as the Bible from a cultural Marxist perspective. On the one hand, Judeo-Christianity is degraded and on the other hand, Islam is upgraded and a critical attitude towards Islam is interpreted as unfavorable. Judeo-Christianity does not influence the course of history, but for example the economy or the socio-economic power relations as Marx claimed. It seems as if Martijn ignores that Judeo-Christianity has a demonstrable influence on world history and therefore also on the history of slavery.

Contradictions in the Bible
His quotes to prove that the Bible contains texts by proponents of slavery, rather convince of the opposite. With those quotes he rather confirms the proposition that the Bible leads out of slavery! Martijn claims for example that the liberation of the people from Egyptian slavery goes hand in hand with the enslavement of that same people by the God who liberated them. According to Dr. Stoutjesdijk this is stated in Leviticus 25:42. Let us see what it says there.
‘For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as a slave is sold.’ (NKJV 1979)
In my opinion, this is the opposite of what Martijn claims. God says here that they are His servants and that they may not be sold as slaves. This chapter is about the right of the poor who must be supported by his brothers. No interest may be charged on borrowed money and the poor must be provided for his livelihood. He may not be sold as a slave!

Hegel

According to Dr. Stoutjesdijk various studies show that pro-slavery theologians had a much easier time defending slavery on the basis of the Bible and that they often had to use extra-biblical ideas such as Hegelian concepts regarding the workings of the world spirit.
Hegel himself was primarily a product of the Jewish-Christian civilization and Dr. Stoutjesdijk forgets that. According to Hegel, the development of all that exists was the development of the reasonableness of the Spirit or God and therefore that of the spirit itself.
There is no indication that Hegel had a demonstrably great influence with his theory on the abolition of the colonial overseas slave trade and slavery. In Europe itself, slavery in Europe had been abolished for centuries in Hegel's time! He was simply born too late for that. The Spirit of God that Hegel talks about, through which people will become increasingly free in the course of history,  this Spirit is comparable to the Holy Spirit from the Bible. So he says exactly what I demonstrate in 'Slavery throughout world history'. The Holy Spirit (through Judeo-Christianity) changes the world into a world where people are increasingly free, because they understand that serving God is equated with serving their fellow man. Every person who serves God voluntarily serves their fellow man out of free will. This is how the free West could come into being through Judeo-Christianity. The Spirit that Hegel talks about therefore had an enormous influence on world history in practice. The Spirit ensures unanimity with God and God leads from slavery to freedom.
It is also not true that one had to look outside the Bible to find arguments against slavery.
There was a so-called slave bible in which more than half of the texts, including Exodus, were omitted because they demonstrably condemned slavery. So it was easy to find texts against slavery! More than half of the Bible can be read as a condemnation of slavery. As more people had access to books because of the printing press and more people learned to read, they also found texts that condemned slavery more easily.

Joseph enslaved Egyptians?

Dr. Stoutjesdijk says that Joseph enslaves the entire population of Egypt to the pharaoh in Genesis 47:13-26.
Martijn ignores the fact that the word ebed in Hebrew can mean slave, servant, servant and even advisor. Ebed JHWH is the Hebrew name for the Servant of JHWH and with that Christ is indicated from before the foundation of the world. So one must look at the context to see what meaning the word has in this text. Since the Egyptians are in famine, they first give all their money to the pharaoh in exchange for food. If the famine continues, they give their cattle in exchange for food. Then the Egyptians end up in famine again a year later and they give their land and themselves in exchange for food. With that, the land came into the hands of the pharaoh and the Egyptians had to give a fifth of the produce to the pharaoh. If you read this carefully, the Egyptians become so impoverished by famine that they sell all their possessions and from then on have to give up a kind of lease.
However, they are allowed to continue living on the land, are given seeds to sow and only have to give up a fifth to the pharaoh. In principle, they offer themselves as servants of the pharaoh in a relationship that is somewhat comparable to the feudal system that we also encounter in the Middle Ages.
In contrast, there is slavery in which people are kidnapped, sold on the market, held against their will, the men castrated and cut off from offspring, the slave women serving the offspring of their master, only having to work for a meager food under duress, in principle being seen as already dead or as just a tool.
A fifth lease for the use of land and living in a house seems to me a reasonable thing. Not something we should understand as slavery.
So there are very many gradations of so-called slavery. If someone became impoverished in Israel, it was the community's duty to keep that person alive. In Israel, they were not allowed to use such a person to work for him for more than 7 years. That was actually very progressive at that time. Incidentally, the story takes place in Egypt, where the Egyptian laws on debt slavery apply.
With this measure, Joseph not only saves his own family, but also the entire Egyptian people from starvation. At the end, it also says that everyone is grateful to him for this. Someone who has just been enslaved would never give thanks for everything.
The TANAKH states: Genesis 47: 25
'And they said: 'You have saved our lives!' We are grateful to you, Lord, and we will serve Pharaoh.'  I see more of a connection here between the giver and the receiver. The Egyptians receive food and shelter in times of need and the Pharaoh is the giver of that life saving food. Therefore they serve him in gratitude.
Finally, it is true that Joseph is the vizier of Egypt and there he has power under Pharaoh. If it is so according to the laws of Egypt that debtors can end up in debt slavery, the power does not belong to that one foreigner, who came in as a slave, Joseph, who works at the court to change that law. It may very well be that he did not have the power to do so. As a slave he had risen to vizier, which was possible in exceptional cases, but he was still considered a slave. Slaves could rise to very high positions in those days, but they were not in a real position of power because they were expected to commit themselves completely to those in power. Even if they seemed powerful outwardly, their position and even their lives were still at risk at any moment because they themselves could fall from grace if they turned against the pharaoh.
That is exactly why there is a turning point in my book: the exodus from Egypt in which the formation of the people of Israel is described and in which they will now receive their own constitution, the Ten Commandments. From then on they are responsible as a nation for their own people. This is a first, because before that they were just a family that was a ‘guest’ (even as slaves!) in foreign lands. Before the exodus from Egypt and entering the promised land, the Hebrews were just immigrants who had to abide by the laws of the host country. Even in that position they tried to follow the most humane path, by the way.

The meaning of ebed
It is also important to remember that the Hebrew word for slave, ebed, can also mean servant, servant, subject, or advisor. The meaning of the verb abad is to work, to perform labor, to work as a slave or servant, forced or of one's own free will. It is therefore very important to read the context carefully, so that we can choose the right meaning. In the latest translations of the Bible, the word slave is used more and more often, while if we look at the context, something else is most likely meant.
In Isaiah 42:1-4, 49:1-7, 50:13 and 53:12, the Ebed JAHWEH, the Servant of JAHWEH, is spoken of, who is recognized by Christians as Jesus the Messiah. Here, Ebed cannot of course be translated as slave. After all, it is about the image of the Messiah who is also the Son of God in the Christian faith. In the Trinity, one cannot speak of a master-slave relationship, can one? In a strictly theological sense, the word abad means to serve and worship God. Already in the Garden of Eden (Gen 7:15) the word abad is used to mean working in the garden, which in fact meant serving God and maintaining the relationship between man and God, such as not eating from the tree of good and evil.
It is also important to remember that slavery was omnipresent, also in the Old Testament, and that the exodus from slavery in Egypt is a turning point in history. God leads his people out of slavery and that people then commit themselves to God by keeping the commandments. So they have a voluntary relationship with each other! Israel is only a people when they have been led out! The road to freedom is also the road to God! The commandments are the so-called constitution of freedom! This is what Rabbi Sachs says in ‘The slow end of slavery’. In the biblical sense, the image of slave-master is often used to clarify something, but in Christianity the image of the relationship between the church as a congregation and God or Christ is that of bridegroom and bride. This better indicates the relationship between God and people. It is a voluntary relationship. The relationship slave and sin is the opposite. People are slaves to sin if they do not adhere to the rules of life. Slavery and sin go together. On the other hand, freedom and serving God go together. Furthermore, there is the Jewish view of the relationship with God and the church that of He versus She. He (God) stands for the giver and she (the community of believers) stands for the receiver according to Rabbi Friedman.

No slaves in the Kingdom of God

That in ‘Slavery throughout world history’ I (E van Amstel) do not go into the so-called Haustafln, the passages with direct instructions to slaves, among others, that we find in various New Testament letters and in which slaves are called upon to obey their masters, even if they are bad masters. For example, in 1 Peter 2:18 it says:
‘Slaves, submit to your masters and have respect for them.’
The fact that there are passages in the Bible to regulate slavery is because at that time, according to custom, there were already slaves everywhere. Those who were already slaves were not called upon to revolution, but the master was taught that all people are equal in Christ. With that, the master could then gain his light and set his slave free. That is the Biblical way. It is a way of freedom, also for the master to choose whether or not he wants to set his slave free. The God of the Bible does not force people but lets them cooperate in the Kingdom of God. That starts here and now. Or do you think that slaves can be found in the Kingdom of God? The prominent Jewish rabbi Sachs in his article ‘The slow end of slavery’ also believes that God wants to extinguish slavery by making people themselves work for the abolition of slavery. They will serve others of their own free will.

Small Christian  communities without slaves
Furthermore, Dr. Stoutjesdijk indicates that it was not always the case that Christians were in too precarious a position to abolish slavery immediately.
He indicates that there were also exceptions in antiquity, such as the communities of the Essenes and the Therapeurai, but also the Christian communities founded by Gregory of Nyssa and his sister Macrina. This showed that slave-free communities were conceivable and feasible. However, I never said that such communities could not exist. He also confirms that it was precisely Jewish and Christian communities that, when given the opportunity, founded a community without slaves. However, it is somewhat easy to call such small communities, actually small sects, because this was not so difficult on a small scale. The point was that anyone could be enslaved at any time by the invasion of an enemy.
In the Roman Empire, it was quite a different story to convince the rulers as an underdog that they had to abolish slavery. These great empires had a real slave economy and did not initially think about it.

Bird’s -eye view perspective 

Finally, I would like to note that it is good to look at the Bible very minutely and in detail. For example, you can ask yourself in which texts the word slave should indeed appear and where not. However, this should be based on the time and the customs of that time and then in comparison with other cultures in that same period. Slavery also slowly faded away among the Israelites when they were inspired by the words given to them at Sinai. Initially, they were not allowed to enslave fellow believers. In Judeo-Christianity, one slowly moves from a society where slavery was normal to a society where it is frowned upon. This disapproval was already contained in the Bible stories that the Jews wrote down in their holy books. With this, they were always ahead of other cultures in alleviating the fate of their fellow human beings. In Christianity, this trend is continued, which of course also has its effect on world history. The fact that we live in freedom today in the free West and find it normal that there is no more slavery, has a seed in the Bible.
In ‘Slavery through world history’, the aim is to take a bird’s-eye view of history and to see what influence the Judeo-Christian religion had on the course of history. My thesis was that Judeo-Christianity contributed in a crucial way to the extinction and abolition of slavery. As a result, slavery had already been extinguished in Europe in the Middle Ages. This extinction took place in small steps. It is undeniable that it was the English who forced the abolition of the slave trade among other nations after they had first with great difficulty had the abolition of the slave trade included in the constitution by parliament. They did this under the influence of Christian-inspired abolitionists.

E.J van Amstel