Slavery before the Flood?

In The Coming Wrath, the first book of the Lost Worlds Trilogy, the warlord Delonias captures twelve Nephilim boys in battle to become slaves. He sends the most promising one, Sechiall, to Jared. Is it realistic that slavery as an institution was already established before the Flood of Noah's day?

Let us consider the most ancient written historical records that are available to us.

In ancient Babylon, in the land of Mesopotamia (currently Iraq), "The Code of Hammurabi, from Babylon in the 18th century BC, gives chilling details of the different Rewards and penalties for surgeons operating on free men or slaves."¹

Egyptian slaves

In ancient Egypt, from the very 1st dynasty before the year 2000 BC, "Hem (Hm), generally translated as 'slave' and originally meaning body, was seemingly a person with lessened rights dedicated to a certain task such as the service of a god or the royal administration."^2,3

In ancient India, "the institution of slavery originated in India when the Aryans captured a number of dasas in the battle. According to Mahabharata it is a law of war that the vanquished should become slave of the victor and should serve his captor until ransomed. In course of time certain other categories of slaves also came into existence. For-example children born to a slave automatically became the slaves of the same masters."⁴

In ancient China, "Slaves occupied a large portion of the population in ancient China since 2,100 BC, when Xia Dynasty started."⁵

Thus we see from the earliest records of the great civilizations, slavery was an evil presence in all of them. Is there somewhere a common thread here?

Yes! The Bible supplies us with many valuable clues, that historians ignore at the detriment of their own profession.

There are two events that the Bible records in detail which occurred before all of these ancient civilizations. They are the global Flood of Noah's day, and only four generation later, the Tower of Babel. The book of Genesis tells us about the worldwide flood which Noah, his family of eight, and all land creatures survived through God's provision of the Ark. Noah's, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives lived on to tell the next generations many true stories about what the world was like before the Flood.

Tower of Babel?

Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, was a mighty ruler who built great cities in the land of Mesopotamia, among them Babylon (also known as Babel), Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in the area of Shinar, and Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen in the area of Assyria (Genesis 10:9-11). By this time, most of the newer generations no longer had faith in the Creator God in the way Noah and his family did. Instead, they followed Nimrod. They "wanted to make a name for themselves." As told in the Bible's book of Genesis chapter 11, at the city of Babel which Nimrod built:

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:3-8)

The Tower of Babel account explains many things. Shortly afterward we see four separate advanced civilizations springing up: in Babylon, Egypt, India, and China. All of them had slavery! Though God confused their languages, he did not take away their memory. It is likely that the Tower of Babel itself was built by slave labor (!), spurred on by the leadership of men such as Nimrod.

Did Nimrod and his followers come up with the idea of slavery themselves? Perhaps. But it is extremely likely that they heard all about slavery and the evils that resulted from it from their forefathers Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and from Noah himself who was still alive at the time. (From clues in Chinese history, after the Tower of Babel incident, Noah with one of the scattered groups to China, and lived out the remainder of his years there.⁶)

Genesis chapter 6 paints a brief picture of the world prior to the Flood. We are told "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." (Genesis 6:5). The fact that slavery was an integral part of the earliest historic civilizations in Babylon, Egypt, India, and China, points to the presence of slavery before the Flood. Slavery was very likely one huge area of the "wickedness of the human race" that brought the Flood judgment upon them.

Yet God extended his grace and mercy to Noah and his family, knowing that their descendants Nimrod and his adversaries would hear about the evil of slavery before the Flood, and like the idea! Knowing that the Tower of Babel would be built by slaves. Knowing that wickedness would once again be widespread upon the earth?! This is the topic of Mystery of Lawlessness, the third book of the Lost Worlds Trilogy.

God extends his grace and mercy to sinful people today, if they turn to him in repentance and accept the give of Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for our behalf. This makes this all so extremely relevant to people of every day and age, including for us today.

(For historical fiction that touches on this topic, see Chapter 7: Protégé of The Coming Wrath)

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written by Marko Malyj

References 

1. History of Slavery, An Evil of Civilization, History World, retrieved 1/16/2013.

2. Slavery in Ancient Egypt, An introduction to the history and culture of Pharaonic Egypt, retrieved 1/16/2013.

3. Jimmy Dunn, Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Egypt , http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/slaves.htm, retrieved 1/16/2013.

4. Srouti Modha, Essay on system of slavery in Ancient India, retrieved 1/16/2013.

5. Slavery in Ancient China, Slaveryinjustice blog, retrieved 1/16/2013.

6. Roy L. Hales, Archaeology, The Bible and The Post-Flood Origins of Chinese History, retrieved 1/26/2013.