All Bible translations have to navigate these waters, so the English Standard Version is really just an example of it, and they're kind of a fascinating example because they have marketed themselves as an essentially literal translation that resists the PC push. The general editor, Wayne Grudem, had for years denounced contemporary Bible translations, like the New International Version, for doing those kinds of things: becoming PC, changing the language to conform to modern sensibilities, that kind of thing, especially with regard to gender.

So for years they have said, "Hey, we're not going to translate certain things in a gender-neutral fashion, because we want to be as literal as possible, and if you like that it's capitulating to the feminist PC culture." So ESV has marketed themselves as a very popular evangelical translation that is used most faithfully by complementarian Protestant Christians for that reason: because it's conservative and because it's supposed to be literal.

But at the same time, the fact that that the "slave" language in the New Testament is so obvious creates a real apologetics problem, because of all this talk about "slaves obeying your masters," and how slaves should subject themselves not only to good masters but bad masters, and how slaves should stay in the station of life where they were called. It creates this really ugly impression of the New Testament, and especially Paul advocating for slavery.

So what you can see in the English Standard Version is that with each successive wave, from the 2001 revision of the Revised Standard Version to the 2011 revision and then finally in 2016, our most recent revision, was that they started by introducing a footnote in 2001 to the "slave" word, and then in 2011 they replace the slave word and put it in a footnote, and then they said, "We're going to call this a bondservant. So it's different from a slave."

By 2016 they didn't use slave language at all. If you read that translation you would have no idea that the original translation — and I think the most appropriate translation — would be "slave." All you see is this kind of Christian-used churchy word "bondservant," which you never hear outside of a biblical reference. Nobody knows what that means, but it's a way that the English Standard Version and other Bibles like it can kind of say, "Hey, these are slaves, but they're not real, real slaves. They're not really bad slaves like we think of in the antebellum South, like chattel slavery. It's something different."

1. Perry is correct that "bondservant" is a pretty obscure word to most modern readers. Given this, it seems like using it is meant to conceal more than it is to illuminate.
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2. This seems to demonstrate either the insincerity or unworkability of Biblical literalism as an interpretive framework. The basic idea as I understand it is that the plain meaning of the Biblical text will be obvious to any reader of good intent. The fact that a deliberately obscure word ("bondservant") has been substituted for a clear one ("slave") would seem counter-productive to someone genuinely working from the premise of Biblical literalism.
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3. The argument that Roman (or Israelite) slavery wasn't "as bad as" New World-style chattel slavery seems dubious and premised on comparing American agricultural slaves with enslaved domestic servants in Roman Senatorial households. A more accurate comparison might be between American plantation slaves and slaves working in Roman mines or latifundia. This seems like an exercise in motivated wishful thinking, assuring people that something they know very little (or possibly nothing) about isn't as bad as something very similar with which they are much more familiar and hoping that the audience is similarly motivated to believe what's being presented to them.