I am a great admirer of the pre-emptive strike. Thus at some point in any discussion of the Bible there will be one or two unbelieving people who quote the Bible, expound on the meaning (negatively) and then –kaboom - drop the big one: “and Christians will explain this away by saying it is taken out of context / changing the meaning / or otherwise disagreeing which proves that they are cheating liars.
Gob is not one to do that. In response to his large post about slavery, I disagree and trust that I can do so without a context defence and without changing meanings. I leave judgement as to whether these are cheating lies to others
Slavery existed as a fact of life before the Bible, in Hebrew and non-Hebrew cultures - everywhere. For as long as one tribe has conquered another, losers became either dead or vassals or slaves and combinations thereof. All societies addressed the problems of how to self-regulate their realities, understandably not using 21st century norms.
Yes, that is so. “Like livestock” only to the extent that livestock, chairs, cloaks and mustard seeds could also be purchased and sold. The conduct of such selling would differ from kind to kind, just as today.Gob wrote:The following passage (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) shows that slaves are clearly property to be bought and sold like livestock
The following passage (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT) describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated
Yes, that is so.
Notice how that is not what the passage says. If the male Hebrew slave was given a wife (i.e. another slave belonging to his owner – perhaps even one purchased especially for him) then that woman remained the property of the owner. After the six years and in the seventh, the man had a choice of taking his legal freedom or staying. Where is it stated that Hebrew law was intended to promote “family values”?Notice how they can get a male Hebrew slave to become a permanent slave by keeping his wife and children hostage until he says he wants to become a permanent slave. What kind of family values are these?
The following passage (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT) describes the sickening practice of sex slavery. How can anyone think it is moral to sell your own daughter as a sex slave?
Evidently it was an existing practise that in extreme poverty a father could sell a daughter in betrothal into another family, as a maidservant, as slave (scholars disagree on the Hebrew meaning – not unusual in a language without vowels). No one knows if this was common or rare. The regulation neither commends nor condemns the practise but instead lays down regulations that protect the rights of the one sold. Where is it stated that the practise was “moral”?
So these are the Bible family values! A man can buy as many sex slaves as he wants as long as he feeds them, clothes them, and screws them!
The Bible does not address that particular fantasy.
What does the Bible say about beating slaves? It says (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB) you can beat both male and female slaves with a rod so hard that as long as they don't die right away you are cleared of any wrong doing
This section deals with violence with intent to harm. A man who strikes another (not a slave) without killing him shall, if the victim gets up and walks about (i.e. does not die immediately) compensate that man for his hurt. In the case of a pregnant woman being struck there are compensatory penalties. In the case of a slave, the owner has the right to chastise (beat) the slave in punishment but if he kills the slave in so doing it is assumed that he did it on purpose and he is punish accordingly (see punishment for murder). If on the other hand, the victim lived – even a day or two – it is assumed that the owner did not intend to destroy his valuable property. There is no one to whom compensation is owed.
Omitted from your regulations: Exodus 21:26 which lays down that an owner who injures a slave (eye or tooth) must free that slave at once – a strong disincentive to beatings. Exodus 21:16 bars involuntary slavery - whether the “stolen” person is sold or kept, the slaver must be put to death.
You would think that Jesus and the New Testament would have a different view of slavery, but slavery is still approved of in the New Testament, as the following passages show. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT) (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)
The passages do not “approve” of slavery. Both deal with Christians bearing up in and dealing with the circumstances in which they are. Fact: there were slaves. If a slave became a Christian did that imply some kind of insurrection was called for? A reading of Philemon and other passages make clear that Paul considered faith in Christ to be beyond issues of free or slave, race, sex and so on. To a large extent this is probably because the early Christian expectation was of an early return of Christ.
In the following parable, Jesus clearly approves of beating slaves even if they didn't know they were doing anything wrong (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)
Oh, that is really a false reach, Gob. Jesus is not approving either the keeping or the beating of slaves. He told a story that people would recognise in real life as a parable to show that God distinguishes between knowing (chosen) sin and inadvertent sin. You twist the point in entirely the opposite direction and onto a different subject.
Regards always
Meade
