Servant or slave?

This interesting theological treatise intrigues me, as it responds to a question that has arisen in my mind after the past two years of extensive Mass attendance, engagement in the new and old testaments, and that is this: In the gospel or the readings, what does the term 'servant' really mean? Why, depending upon the translation, do some texts use "servant" where other bibles use "slave"?

From the treatise:

I was on a flight one night from Los Angeles to London, I was flying to Leicester, England to the University of Leicester to speak for a week to young people and ministers at The Banner of Truth Conference with Iain Murray. It was on that all-night flight that I was studying this word, and by the time I got to the end of the flight, it had captivated my mind and my heart to a profound degree. That’s several years ago now, two and a half. And that word has really dominated my thinking ever since. It is the word slave, slave.

Now, if you look at your English Bible, you won’t find that word very often. If you look at the Old Testament in the King James, you will find the word “slave” once. But the Hebrew word appears 800 times in the noun, and nearly 300 in the verb. There is a word in the Old Testament for “slave” that appears eleven hundred times, but in your English Bible it’s translated “slave” once. If you go to the New Testament, you will find the Greek word for “slave” about 150 times in all its forms. And you will find it actually translated “slave” only a few of those 150 times.

The New Testament translators only translate the Greek word for slave, “slave,” when it’s referring to an actual physical slave, or when it’s referring to an inanimate object, like “slaves of sin” or “slaves of righteousness.” So there is this concept of slavery in the Scripture that has been completely hidden to the English reader. Now this was by design because the word “slave” is the most important, all-encompassing and clarifying word to describe a Christian used in the New Testament. And yet whenever a Christian is in view, it’s not translated “slave.”

The word is doulos. Have you heard that word? The word is doulos. In the Greek, that word means “slave,” never means anything but “slave.” It doesn’t mean “servant,” it doesn’t mean “worker,” it doesn’t mean “hired hand,” it doesn’t mean “helper.” There are six or seven Greek words that mean “servant” in some form. Doulos never means “servant.” A servant is someone hired to do something. The slave is someone owned. Big difference, huge difference, and yet all through the New Testament the word “slave” is masked by the word “servant,” or some form of the word “servant.” Truly a remarkable thing.

The logical question to ask is, "Why?" Here is the author's explanation:

Why don’t they translate doulos “slave”?

For the answer to that question, you have to go back to the first English Bibles, back to the sixteenth century, back to Calvin and John Knox and other translators putting together the Geneva Bible, who made a decision not to translate doulos “slave.” The reason? There’s too much stigma with the concept of being a slave. It’s too strong a downside. It’s too humiliating, too belittling. So they opted to cover the word by replacing it with “servant,” “bondservant,” and eliminated the word “slave,” except when the New Testament talks about an actual, physical slave, or an inanimate object, as I said, like slaves of sin or righteousness. They said it’s just too negative.

You then should ask, "Does this distinction (and decision) matter? If so, why?" To me, in today's discussion of slavery, reparations and woke-based cancel culture, it matters a lot. First, let's note that there does not appear to be much if any evidence in the bible for the role of "servant," at least not in the way we think of a paid, voluntary servant today and for hundreds of years outside the bible. In all the times we hear or read the world "servant" at Mass, shouldn't we be saying, hearing and reading "slave."As such should someone such as Abraham be 'cancelled' for having owned a slave? And is slavery condemned in the bible, or tolerated as a cultural fact of that time and hundreds of years before and after the time of Christ? When Georgetown Jesuits sold slaves, were they demonstrating part of an ancient custom, widely recognized in the bible, or were they deserving of absolute condemnation? Jesus and the disciples drive out evil demons from people.If slave owners were evil, why did not the apostles or Jesus drive these 'demons' out of the slave owners, causing them to free their slaves?

Yet it gets even more complicated. Read two key paragraphs from this second analysis:

Although God liberated the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, slavery is not universally prohibited in the Bible. Slavery was permissible in certain situations, so long as slaves were regarded as full members of the community (Gen. 17:12), received the same rest periods and holidays as non-slaves (Exod. 23:12; Deut. 5:14-15, 12:12), and were treated humanely (Exod. 21:7, 26-27). Most importantly, slavery among Hebrews was not intended as a permanent condition, but a voluntary, temporary refuge for people suffering what would otherwise be desperate poverty. “When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt” (Exod. 21:2). Cruelty on the part of the owner resulted in immediate freedom for the slave (Exod. 21:26-27). This made male Hebrew slavery more like a kind of long-term labor contract among individuals, and less like the kind of permanent exploitation that has characterized slavery in modern times.

*****

As in much of the Bible, God’s word in Exodus did not abolish the existing social and economic order, but instructed God’s people how to live with justice and compassion in their present circumstances. To our eyes, the results do--and should--appear very disquieting.

Now consider various forms of and attitudes towards slavery, now and then. Think of indentured servants, of people who sell/rent themselves into permanent/temporary slavery, of women claiming a fetus is their property (rather than separate, living entity), of the Jesuit Peter Canisius working with slaves in the Caribbean and Maryland Jesuits selling slaves to finance Georgetown. Better yet, ask "How did the Jesuits come to be owners of slaves in the first place?" And "What didn't the Georgetown Jesuits simply free their slaves rather than sell them?"

If you feel let after reading this, join the club.