Why does God allow slavery in the Old Testament?The reason the Bible talks about slavery is that slavery was a very common phenomenon in both Old Testament and New Testament times. It is only natural that the topic would come up, both from a legal stand point and simply as a common part of the history recorded in both Testaments.Your second question is more challenging. It would appear from the Old Testament that God did not specifically condemn slavery. That may seem odd to us, as slavery is such a clear violation of basic human justice. It is not as if the Bible ever encourages slavery. You will not find a single passage of scripture which in any way whatsoever encourages any follower of God to own slaves. However, in the Old Covenant, God did allow for slavery. God allowed a number of practices under the Old Covenant which he nevertheless did not want his people to do. God made concessions under the Old Covenant for divorce, although he never wanted divorce to happen. “Moses (and presumably, therefore God) permitted you to divorce because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” (Matthew 19:8) I would assume God’s attitude toward slavery in the Old Testament would fall under the same category. Slavery was a fact of life in the ancient world. Victory in battle produced slaves. Period. Therefore, for his own reasons, God chose to regulate the cruelty of slavery rather than to ban it outright for the Jews under the Law of Moses. He commanded that slaves be set free automatically after a certain amount of time. He forbade excessive cruelty to slaves. He commanded that they be allowed a certain level of access to the ceremonies of Judaism and so forth. See Deuteronomy 23:15, Leviticus 25:14 as examples.What about the New Testament? Slavery is neither specifically allowed not specifically condemned in the New Testament. At first, knowing Jesus’ teaching, this may seem a bit surprising. Clearly Jesus would never own slaves! Nevertheless, slavery was a massive institution under Greek/Roman civilization. As many as half of all people were slaves. If Jesus had declared all slaves free under the New Covenant, it would have brought massive and unnecessary persecution down on the early church. Perhaps this is why God chose not to specifically condemn slavery. Paul encouraged Philemon to free his slave Onesimus. Yet, in general, he encouraged new disciples to be willing to stay in the situation they were in when converted. As far as God is concerned, whether one is a slave or free here on earth is not the main issue. The chief concern is whether one is a slave to sin. God, through Paul, encouraged Christian slaves to be the best possible slaves, yet to seek freedom if they could. He did not incite slaves to revolt from their masters. I am sure that a slave who was owned by a disciple would have lived under exceedingly good and fair conditions, if he or she was not freed outright.It is worth bearing in mind that in the end, it was Christianity and the teachings of the Bible which led to the worldwide ban on slavery. Although it is true that due to the extreme level of slavery in the time of the New Testament, God chose not to ban the practice outright, history tells us that it was the teachings of Jesus Christ which caused the downfall of the cruelest institution mankind ever invented.John Oakes, PhD