Bible Dictionary
Freedom
Freedom in Scripture includes the release of Hebrew servants under the Mosaic law and the legal distinction between those born free and those released from slavery under Roman rule. Biblical teaching also connects freedom with release from bondage and service to God.
Definition
Freedom includes the release of Hebrew servants under the Mosaic law and the legal distinction between persons born free and slaves who had been manumitted. The biblical material therefore uses freedom in both Israelite and Roman legal settings.
Biblical Usage
The law specified circumstances in which Hebrew servants were to receive freedom. In the New Testament context, Roman terminology distinguished the freeborn person, or freeman, from the freedman, a manumitted slave who did not possess equal rights with the freeborn.
Historical Background
Under Roman law, an ingenuus was born free, while a libertinus was a slave who had been freed. The latter remained legally distinct from the freeborn person.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
The law of Moses pointed out the cases in which the servants of the Hebrews were to receive their freedom (Ex. 21:2-4, 7, 8; Lev. 25:39-42, 47-55; Deut. 15:12-18). Under the Roman law the “freeman” (ingenuus) was one born free; the “freedman” (libertinus) was a manumitted slave, and had not equal rights with the freeman (Acts 22:28; comp. Acts 16:37-39; 21:39; 22:25; 25:11, 12).