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We Still Experience the Hazards of the Slave Bible
Without the full story, people get hurt.
Taking the Bible out of context doesn’t just lead to simple misunderstandings about what certain passages mean. It leads to justifying outright evil, especially when the people taking the Bible out of context are members of a more powerful class trying to maintain power over a less powerful class. The existence of the Slave Bible is a prime example of how this power dynamic plays out.
The Slave Bible was a missionary Bible designed to teach enslaved Black people in Britain’s Caribbean and American colonies how to read. This way, as they learned how to read, the learning process would impose Christianity upon them, and they would lose their culture. Along with teaching literacy, the Slave Bible was designed to induce theophobia and prevent rebellions like the Haitian Revolution.
Although the Slave Bible was technically a Bible in the sense that it was a compilation of various ancient books used in Judaism and Christianity, it was hardly a proper “Bible” at all. Instead, 90% of the Old and New Testaments were removed save for select passages that could be used to justify enslaving Black people. It even omits the book of Revelation, which gives hope for a new heaven and earth: one in which slavery wouldn’t exist and in which Black, White, and…
