Slavery And The Bible.

¹⁵ If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. ¹⁶ Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

The default position of the Bible - Old and New Testaments - is that Man is essentially free.

Haters of The Scriptures loudly criticise OT rules on slave-keeping as they claim that this was justifying the system. What is the case, is that the system was endemic and, for certain apparent victims, attractive. Some of the rules were about selling oneself into slavery - which was far from uncommon. Clearly, this was for those who faced extreme poverty and possible death from it. In this sense - it could be a lesser evil. In this context, it is perfectly understandable why the Bible moderates slave-keeping rather than simply banned it.

In a modern world, the same situations would rarely apply.