Slave Bibles excised liberation passages while keeping obedience commands
Evidence
To its credit, the museum added an exhibit featuring a “slave Bible” in November 2018, which is on loan from Fisk University in Nashville. The title page reads, “Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the use of the Negro Slaves, in the British West-India Islands.” The slave Bible, one of only three known still to exist, was constructed specifically to help white Christian missionaries emphasize passages demanding obedience to masters and to exclude passages suggesting equality or liberation. As a large wall display notes, the slave Bible excludes 90 percent of the Old Testament and about half of the New Testament. For example, the revised book of Exodus, which is named for the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian servitude, contains the story of their enslavement and of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, but it excises the story of the Israelites finding their freedom. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 225
Categorization
- CANDY: A slave Bible keeping Exodus’s enslavement and commandments while deleting the liberation itself is a striking, self-contained dinner-party fact.
- XREF: Connects to a pattern of scriptural/legal texts curated to keep subordinate groups docile — echoes Ambedkar’s analysis of caste scriptures as instruments of control in Annihilation of Caste. — connects to: Slaveholders weaponized biblical texts to justify whipping disabled slaves — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 248; Fundamentalist movements seek domination using selected scriptural texts — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 91; Christian conversion prepared some slaves for passive resistance, others for revolt. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 809 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Slaveholders weaponized biblical texts to justify whipping disabled slaves
#exemplifies(0.82) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 248 - Fundamentalist movements seek domination using selected scriptural texts
#expands(0.72) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 91 - Christian conversion prepared some slaves for passive resistance, others for revolt.
#complicates(0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 809