Exposing the Flaws in Joshua Bowen's Slavery Thesis:
The Universal Scope of Exodus 21:16
Introduction
In his critique of biblical ethics, Assyriologist Joshua Bowen argues in
Analogy: The Executive Contract vs. Human Trafficking
Imagine an NFL franchise signing a star quarterback to a multi-year contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Because the team legally controls the exclusive rights to his football labor and directly derives immense financial profit from his performance on the field, an overly broad definition would classify this multi-millionaire as an enslaved person. In the modern world, conflating a voluntarily signed, compensated labor agreement with human trafficking is recognized as an absurd category error. Yet this is precisely what occurs when critics equate ancient indentured debt covenants - voluntary agreements of "labor for payment and debt discharge" - with the involuntary capture, sale, and permanent dehumanization of human beings.
The Fatal Flaw in Bowen's Definition of SlaveryIn Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery?, Joshua Bowen establishes his baseline by defining slavery as:
"A condition in which an individual or rights to their labor is owned by another, either temporarily or permanently... The owner controls and is legally allowed to derive benefits from the actions and activities of the owned individual." (p. 23)
While this definition is framed to encompass ancient practices, it commits a fundamental category mistake by casting an impossibly wide net that renders the term "slavery" meaningless.
Eradicating the Distinction Between Employment and Bondage: By defining slavery as merely owning the "rights to [someone's] labor" while legally deriving "benefits from [their] actions," Bowen inadvertently classifies virtually every modern economic relationship as slavery. An employer who hires an hourly worker, a firm that signs a contracted software engineer, or a company that manages salaried staff legally holds the rights to that worker's labor during business hours. They derive surplus financial profit from their output. If economic benefit from another person's labor constitutes slavery, then every modern corporation, sports franchise, and small business is guilty of the practice.
The High-Profile Contract Absurdity: Consider a high-profile example: Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love signed a four-year, $220 million contract with $100 million guaranteed. The Packers organization owns the exclusive rights to his football labor, dictates his schedule, and generates massive financial revenue from his performance on the field. Under Bowen’s definition, Love—a multi-millionaire who freely negotiated his terms—would technically be classified as an enslaved person. When a definition makes everyone from a minimum-wage barista to a wealthy pro athlete a slave, it loses all analytical and moral utility.
Conflating Involuntary Chattel with Indentured Debt Relief: Bowen attempts to cover this gap by arguing that slavery "may be involuntary, in which case the slave is generally considered the property of the owner and as such can be bought and sold" (p. 97). However, this creates a false equivalence between two entirely distinct realities:
Involuntary Chattel Slavery: The non-consensual capture, trafficking, and reduction of a human being into subhuman, permanent property without personal legal rights.
Voluntary Indentured Servitude: A temporary, contractual arrangement where an individual voluntarily pledges future labor in exchange for immediate financial relief, debt cancellation, room, and board to prevent personal bankruptcy or starvation.
The Moral Core of Contractual Work:The Old Testament consistently outlaws the former on pain of death (Exodus 21:16) while strictly regulating the latter as an economic safety net. Agreeing to the terms "I will perform X labor for Y payment and debt discharge" is the foundation of legitimate contract work, not a moral evil. By collapsing voluntary labor contracts into the category of slavery, Bowen rigs his own premise—ensuring the Old Testament is found guilty of endorsing slavery simply by regulating ancient debt relief.
The Fatal Flaw in Bowen's Definition of Slavery
Bowen defines slavery as "a condition in which an individual or rights to their labor is owned by another, either temporarily or permanently... and is legally allowed to derive benefits from the actions and activities of the owned individual."
This definition casts an impossibly wide net:
Eradicating the Line Between Employment and Slavery: Under this standard, nearly every hourly employee, contracted specialist, or corporate worker would qualify as an enslaved laborer, since employers routinely hold rights to workers' time and derive substantial financial surplus from their labor.
Conflating Involuntary Chattel with Indentured Debt: The definition blurs the vital moral distinction between involuntary chattel slavery (where a person is stolen and treated as subhuman property) and voluntary indentured servitude (where a person freely contracts their labor to satisfy a debt or prevent economic ruin). The Old Testament strictly regulates the latter while executing perpetrators of the former.
Deconstructing Bowen's Restriction on Exodus 21:16
"Whoever kidnaps a person must be put to death, whether he sells him or the person is found in his possession."
To defend his thesis that the Old Testament sanctioned involuntary chattel bondage for foreigners, Joshua Bowen must find a way to neutralize this verse. In
This argument collapses when subjected to the actual literary, structural, and grammatical evidence of the text:
The Total Disappearance of 'Eved 'Ivri: Bowen's claim rests heavily on the occurrence of 'eved 'ivri in Exodus 21:2. Yet after this single opening instance, the phrase is never used again in the remainder of Exodus 21. If the author intended for the entire chapter to function as a narrow legal statute exclusively governing Hebrew servants, repeating the defining phrase or maintaining that explicit demographic modifier would be essential. Instead, it is abandoned immediately.
The Decisive Thematic and Syntactical Shift at Verse 12: While verses 1–11 focus on specific domestic and indentured contract cases (such as sabbatical releases and marriage arrangements), verse 12 marks a major pivot in both topic and Hebrew syntax:
Universal Identifiers: Beginning in verse 12, the text moves away from domestic contract language to universal criminal and civil jurisprudence. The legislation introduces broad, categorical terminology: four consecutive verses lead with the universal construction "whoever" (wəgōnēḇ / makkēh), followed by ten statutes using "when men" or "when a man does X" (wəḵî-).
Comprehensive Civil and Criminal Law: The surrounding statutes in verses 12–17 address foundational human capital crimes: premeditated murder (v. 12), violent assault against parents (v. 15), public cursing of parents (v. 17), and involuntary manslaughter (vv. 13–14). The kidnapping statute in verse 16 sits directly within this core criminal code.
The Absurdity of Selective Restriction: Bowen's interpretive method creates an unworkable double standard. If verse 16 applies strictly to Hebrews simply because verse 2 mentions Hebrew servants, consistent hermeneutics would force the conclusion that the prohibitions against premeditated murder (v. 12), striking a father or mother (v. 15), or cursing a parent (v. 17) also applied only to Hebrews—meaning the murder of a resident foreigner carried no legal penalty. This is obviously false. Biblical law universally punished murder and violent crimes regardless of demographic lines.
Lexical Shift: 'Ish vs. 'Eved: When the author reaches verse 16, the chosen terminology is deliberately universal: wəgōnēḇ ’îš ("and whoever steals a man / human being"). The text does not say "whoever steals a Hebrew" ('ivri) or "whoever steals a servant" ('eved). It employs the general Hebrew noun 'ish (person/human being), extending the legal protection across all humanity. Later in the chapter (vv. 20, 26, 32), when the author specifically intends to address servants, the generic noun 'ebed is used—not 'eved 'ivri.
Anachronistic Chapter and Verse Assumptions: Imposing a single, monolithic subject across all of Exodus 21 treats the chapter as if the biblical author outlined it under a modern heading. In reality, chapter divisions were introduced in the 13th century by Stephen Langton, and verse numbers were finalized in the 16th century. The original ancient Hebrew narrative flows by legal genre, pivoting cleanly at verse 12 from family debt regulations to universal capital statutes.
By attempting to force 'eved 'ivri onto a universal criminal statute, Bowen reads his conclusion into the text.
Also, this follow-up article: Has My "Seven Facts About Biblical Slavery Prove that It Was Not Chattel Slavery" Been Debunked?
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