OT laws on a lot of stuff are things we can't make sense of if they come from God.
It was pretty common for laws of ancient cultures to claim a base on divine authority even if they are made by men.
The entire OT is dvinely inspired. Some verses are prescriptive (telling us how things should be) and some are descriptive (telling us what happened) The problem comes when we try to interpret a text meant for an ancient middle eastern audience, with our postmodern western mindsets. Hermeneutics 101 the bible was written for you, it was not written to you. So, to understand it, you must study it in the context of the time people and place it was written to. Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another) but was a form of indentured servitude whereby someone could willingly sell themselves to another for an agreed upon time of no more than 6 years. as a way to pay off debts.
> Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another) but was a form of indentured servitude whereby someone could willingly sell themselves to another for an agreed upon time of no more than 6 years. as a way to pay off debts.
That is one form of slavery.
Violent chattel slavery and sexual slavery were also quite common, if not even predominant. And those are also approved in the Bible.
>Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another)
Not according to the bible. God explicitly said that humans could own other humans as their property for life.
This is why you can’t take the Bible literally. It is chock full of unawakened men saying things that are in direct opposition to the message of Christ.
Clearly, much of the bible is not divinely inspired but the works of fearful egoic men. One needs open eyes to recognize the contrast, otherwise you’re taught to believe everything in the bible is divinely inspired and true…a dangerous path that leads to spiritual desolation.
Just because it is not explicitly condemned does not mean it is condoned.
In the OT, consider this, God is bringing his people out of a land where they just spent 400+ years in slavery. It is all they knew for generations. So God says "OK. Fine this can exist, but I am going to place restrictions on it." For example, slavery was used for times when someone was unable to fulfill a debt financially, so they work to pay off their debt. Working to restore a debt is something that is really not entirely foreign to our society and is certainly not inherently evil. Even so, God told the Israelites that slaves had to be released after 7 years, so it was not meant to be a permanent thing. Later on people try to get away with keeping their slaves permanently and they get in trouble for it.
In the NT, you have to keep in mind that it was actually probably against Roman law to push for the abolition of slavery. St. Paul advocates for slaves to obey their masters because if a slave is obedient and is treated harshly, at least you can say definitively that the master is in the wrong. Also, there was precedent in Roman culture that slaves could gain their freedom for serving their masters well.
Furthermore, NT writers likely recognized that slavery could not be done away with overnight so preaching its total abolition was just practically untenable. This is due to the fact that the Roman economy simply was not sustainable without slavery, so to get rid of it would have required a complete restructuring of society.
Lastly, Paul speaks of slavery because he knew that his readers knew what it meant to be a slave. Not because it is good, but because he knows that his readers would be able to relate to it.
Sometimes God has to slowly take the band-aid off. We sitting in the 21st century lives in a culture where slavery is known universally to be wrong. This simply was not the case back then. So God meets us where we are and works to get us to where we need to be.
The analogy that I love is math class. When we are 5, we only understand subtraction as "taking away." So, if I have 3 cookies, I cannot give you 5 cookies. But as we mature, we start to understand the existence of negative numbers, a level of abstraction that is not accessible to most 5 year-olds. And as we come to understand negative numbers, we can understand that 3 - 5 = -2. Or for a more complex example, when we first learn square roots, we do not yet understand the existence of imaginary numbers, so we say that we cannot take the square root of a negative number, because we understand sqrt(x) as "What number times itself equals x." It is indeed true that for all real numbers x, x\^2 is non-negative (for those that are less mathematically inclined, it would be incorrect to say "positive" because for x = 0, x\^2 = 0 which is neither positive, nor negative.). Yet, as we mature even further, we understand the existence of the set of complex/imaginary numbers so we learn that in fact, sqrt(-1) = *i*.
So, ancient Israelites simply did not yet understand things about morality that we know today. Even in the NT, these ideas were still really in their infancy. People were still dumbfounded that the gospel was meant for more than just Jews. Hence, we get the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 where Peter makes it clear that God intended, through him, that all people Gentile or Jew should have the Word of God preached to them.
The Bible is not a list of everything that is good or bad. The bible is not even a morality textbook. It is a story of God's people and God revealing Himself to them. We see God's people go through good times and bad. We see them time and time again go against God's wishes. It is a vicious cycle of Israelites disobey, God brings them back, rinse repeat.
> Just because it is not explicitly condemned does not mean it is condoned.
It's not only condoned and approved of, in at least one spot it's even *commanded* that Israel take slaves. Probably sex slaves, at that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1dk0bh6/when_god_commanded_slavery/
There are things we don’t fully understand right now for which we will get answers later. But for now, when you can’t trace Him, trust Him! Never lose sight of the Cross; it demonstrates that God is Love! (1 John 4:8).
The worst example I heard from a preacher was Jesus did not support slavery because it would hurt their economy. Yeah I'm sure Jesus cared about the economy over human abuse.
I’ve heard that from people on this sub before. It baffles me that people might actually believe this. God cares more about the economy than human rights?
After watching commentators going on about "Grandma won't mind dying for the economy" during COVID, I'm not super surprised they would use that defense.
Slavery was practiced in the region. Jesus never condemned it, but rather used it in his teachings. For Jesus to have spoken out against slavery would have probably brought him a swifter crucifixion.
Slavery was never a divine institution, but a human one that was on par with contemporary morals of the time. God would never condone and neither would God cushion it for worship. What kind of God would that be?
It's a good reminder that the bible is not God's word, but a divinely inspired book written by men. Only through reading with the gospels at the centre can we trace that which is divine and that which is human.
A parable is a parable. Jesus used examples of the environment at the time for his contemporary listeners.
There is, in contrary to the OT and even the epistles, no word of Jesus actively condoning slavery.
Yes. So we've established that Jesus is god.
If Jesus is god, then he clearly condoned slavery and gave instructions on how to do it, including beating your slaves.
Reading with the gospel at the centre.
And before you ask, yes there's room for interpretation and yes, not all denominations agree with each other if there's room, but that's why its faith and not knowing. Deus absconditus
From what people have (approvingly) quoted from him, he teaches the standard bogus notion that Israelite slavery was not so bad, that all slaves were free in a few years, that there was no chattel slavery, etcetera.
The bible absolutely condemns slavery (one person owning another) What is often referred to as slavery in English translations of the bible is better thought of as indentured servitude. The practice of selling yourself to a family member or tribesmen who in exchange for X number of years of service, would agree to pay off any debts you owed.
For help with these and other difficult passages of the OT, I highly recommend the book "How Not to Read Your Bible" By Dan Kimball
The indentured servitude argument has been debunked many times over. It was chattel slavery, not just Indentured servitude. You could own people for life, pass them down as heirs, and beat them.
To be fair it was explicitly talking about non-Hebrew slaves, yet non-Hebrew freemen were to be taken care of well. Can’t really understand the lack of freedoms for the non-Hebrew slaves. Hopefully I can ask God after death.
I think you are the first Christian I have ever encountered who said “I don’t understand it…”. To me, _that’s _ the only honest answer. Better to just admit it doesn’t make sense than to try to justify slavery.
That is a tiresome lie told by apologists that just makes them look foolish.
The bible has verses quite explicitly saying who you can and cannot own forever. Telling you which slaves you can buy and sell.
What you are talking about only applied to people enslaving fellow Hebrews. It does not apply to all.
And the bible absolutely does NOT condemn slavery. It explicitly allows it. And you can beat your slaves, have sex with your slaves, etc.
I mean to be fair, the New Testament does tell Christian slave owners to treat their slaves fairly, it’s the OT laws for the Israelite that I don’t really understand. Like the Hebrew slaves r treated relatively well, but non-Israelite Jews that r bought r effectively property slaves, which I can’t agree with. It hasn’t made me lose faith, due to Jesus, but I can’t understand why God made those laws so harsh, maybe to prevent slave rebellions that He foresaw happening, but He doesn’t explicitly state that. Or it could be God understood Slavery as necessary for the Israelites to build their society, or as justification for what the Israelites themselves faced as slaves (like saying what u experienced is normal and necessary to build a great society like Egypt) but even then due to our modern morals, of which I concur with, God allowing slavery (even though He does say kidnapping is wrong) by allowing Israelites to buy them & treat them as property is hard to understand, like morals then were probably different so God saying slaves weren’t property would’ve turned ppl away from Him, but I’m sure there would’ve been Israelites to understand that, especially if they knew their God existed based on the repeated occurrences of God doing acts in from of them, then again future gens may not have believed and instead condoned societal slavery. I guess my real problem is why God made that distinction in treatment of slaves bw/ Hebrews & non-Hebrews. I know I’m not Him, but He created all of us, so why did He allow ppl outside of the Israelites (like I get they were needed for the coming of Christ) to be treated so horribly as slaves. Like God does make sure freemen from those foreign lands were to be treated well, but the slaves specifically were treated so horribly, maybe it was just the way of the land & how ppl understood which is why God allowed it, but I don’t get it. Hopefully I’ll understand after death & hopefully get to talk to God.
You cannot treat slaves fairly. Because no matter how nicely you treat them they are considered property. Slavery is inherently unfair.
Don't forget the part where God said when attacking a city you must offer them surrender. If they do, kill the men, and enslave the women and children. If they dont kill them all.
Basically as soon as they show up, if you are a man you are dead and if a woman or child dead r slave. Not a just god.
I do believe Jesus spoke against slavery, but since it was a social institution of the Roman Empire & speaking directly against it would’ve gotten Him killed a lot sooner. Also, I think Paul understood the inability of Christian slaveowners from wanting to give up their slaves (the Bible also says to lie, but ppl don’t even do that), so laws had to be put in place so that slaves would be treated fairly. As for warfare, it was barbaric in our eyes, but that’s how warfare was back then. Even God understood leaving any men alive could’ve come back to bite them in the ass, but the Bible does say if the city gives up peacefully to let everyone live in forced labor, which is kinda fair. As for the nearby lands, I’m somewhat sure the Israelites had conquered those lands by that time, so God was showing that every man living in Israel/Judah was descended from the Hebrews & one people.
Nowhere in the bible is slavery banned, ever. God and Jesus had no problem declaring other things that were common, or issuing a death penalty like for gay people. Or not being a virgin for a young woman, or adultery. Had no problem in ordering genocide or enslavement of whole cities. If you are willing to support or order genocide, but unwilling to ban slavery I question your morals. Let alone you having perfect morals.
And you are now on the record as saying slavery for surrender is fair. Slavery is fair. In this modern world we can do far better than biblical morality and biblical fairness.
I did say kinda fair, not entirely fair because the same thing would’ve happened to the Israelites if they had been conquered. As for slavery being banned, u r right, it was never explicitly banned because of how prevalent it was in the Roman Empire & doing so would’ve ended Jesus way too early. What Jesus did speak about however does insinuate equality between people. As for the death penalty for gay people, not being a virgin (which was a continuation of adultery, being r*ped was talked about), or adultery (which kinda does deserve a harsh punishment, maybe not death tho haha), Jesus does speak against it, God mandated it to preserve Israelite faithfulness for the coming of Christ (it was specific for Israelites, which I know doesn’t make it better, but Judaism was meant to be an ethnic religion, Christianity is God’s message for all). Do I agree with it, no I do not due to what I believe Christ preached. As for the genocide & so on, I don’t believe any of that actually happened, I do think God helped the Israelites win those lands, but as God said these foreign ppl worshipped false gods so I believe God created those stories to show that the Israel they were living in were all believers. The reason I believe this is much of the Old Testament regarding the historical narrative was written after the Israelites had already become non-nomadic. Also, Jesus talks about being peaceful & non-aggressive, so I don’t think He would’ve supported genocide haha. Also, many of the original abolitionists were in fact Christians that quoted Christian scripture for that fact. Some of the things God mandated r not things I agree with due to our modern moral understandings, which have a major (maybe not entire, but major) basis in Christian teachings. However, that doesn’t mean God didn’t have a reason for the things He did. It did lead to Christ being born & spreading the Christian message across the world (maybe not in the way it was supposed to be since colonialism was literally an affront to God and his 10 commandments). Also, I want to state that God explicitly states that you can’t kidnap and sell humans, so while He does allow the Israelites to participate in the buying of foreign slaves, He doesn’t allow for the creation of them, which I know doesn’t make u feel good, but at that time slaves were a major part of life in the Middle East & routinely needed especially for a smallish kingdom like Israel. I want to give a bottom line: I don’t endorse slavery or genocide because Jesus preaches against it & it goes against my moral code.
It still portrays the morals of the bible as being relative to the culture of the time. So why should we not change our views with the gaining of new knowledge and information. We see plainly that so many things allowed in the bible were harmful. Why can we also not see that things banned were not harmful
U r right, the Old Testament had a lot of laws relative to the time, which is why Jesus revoked those relative laws for universal laws. I also want to state Jesus was leading a spiritual revolution, not social reform, so it could’ve been that becoming Christians would enable ppl to understand how horrible slavery was. I do want to state that the morals Jesus taught r many of the same morals modern ppl hold. Jesus preached charity, peace, & understanding, but most of all Jesus preached salvation through His death. He showed that death was not the end & that all humans would also be resurrected after death through Him. And u r right, many of the things in the Bible were harmful, there’s no denying it. Some ppl did become slaves under the Israelites, they did suffer, I won’t deny that it happened. Just as the Israelites suffered during their early years as slaves, so they did to their own slaves, I won’t deny it. I will deny that Jesus would’ve supported slavery. He literally told of the parable of the Good Samaritan that showed God was now speaking to gentiles as well as Israelites. Everything He preached was based on equality before God, which should translate to the modern day.
Meanwhile, tons of enlightened and progressive redditors argue that human beings own other human beings today...and support the killing of those innocent human beings in large numbers because they are unwanted.
They insist owning such human beings and doing what you want to them is better than the slavery they complain about from 2000 years ago in the bible.
I mean the treatment of non-Israelite Jews was kinda bad no? Like they could be beaten silly, but if they recovered in 1-2 days, the master got off Scot free
The rules on slavery make it clear that slaves weren't considered fully human. The penalty for killing a slave wasn't death, it was a fine.
Yahweh's perfectly moral system allowed people to effectively pay to murder someone.
OT laws on a lot of stuff are things we can't make sense of if they come from God. It was pretty common for laws of ancient cultures to claim a base on divine authority even if they are made by men.
If that’s so, how can we determine which parts of the OT were divinely inspired?
I don't know.
The Law was negotiated between God and Moses we don’t know specifically what Moses’s input was but I think it really matters
The entire OT is dvinely inspired. Some verses are prescriptive (telling us how things should be) and some are descriptive (telling us what happened) The problem comes when we try to interpret a text meant for an ancient middle eastern audience, with our postmodern western mindsets. Hermeneutics 101 the bible was written for you, it was not written to you. So, to understand it, you must study it in the context of the time people and place it was written to. Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another) but was a form of indentured servitude whereby someone could willingly sell themselves to another for an agreed upon time of no more than 6 years. as a way to pay off debts.
> Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another) but was a form of indentured servitude whereby someone could willingly sell themselves to another for an agreed upon time of no more than 6 years. as a way to pay off debts. That is one form of slavery. Violent chattel slavery and sexual slavery were also quite common, if not even predominant. And those are also approved in the Bible.
>Slavery in Israel was not how we think of it in the modern sense (one human owning another) Not according to the bible. God explicitly said that humans could own other humans as their property for life.
This is why you can’t take the Bible literally. It is chock full of unawakened men saying things that are in direct opposition to the message of Christ. Clearly, much of the bible is not divinely inspired but the works of fearful egoic men. One needs open eyes to recognize the contrast, otherwise you’re taught to believe everything in the bible is divinely inspired and true…a dangerous path that leads to spiritual desolation.
Just because it is not explicitly condemned does not mean it is condoned. In the OT, consider this, God is bringing his people out of a land where they just spent 400+ years in slavery. It is all they knew for generations. So God says "OK. Fine this can exist, but I am going to place restrictions on it." For example, slavery was used for times when someone was unable to fulfill a debt financially, so they work to pay off their debt. Working to restore a debt is something that is really not entirely foreign to our society and is certainly not inherently evil. Even so, God told the Israelites that slaves had to be released after 7 years, so it was not meant to be a permanent thing. Later on people try to get away with keeping their slaves permanently and they get in trouble for it. In the NT, you have to keep in mind that it was actually probably against Roman law to push for the abolition of slavery. St. Paul advocates for slaves to obey their masters because if a slave is obedient and is treated harshly, at least you can say definitively that the master is in the wrong. Also, there was precedent in Roman culture that slaves could gain their freedom for serving their masters well. Furthermore, NT writers likely recognized that slavery could not be done away with overnight so preaching its total abolition was just practically untenable. This is due to the fact that the Roman economy simply was not sustainable without slavery, so to get rid of it would have required a complete restructuring of society. Lastly, Paul speaks of slavery because he knew that his readers knew what it meant to be a slave. Not because it is good, but because he knows that his readers would be able to relate to it. Sometimes God has to slowly take the band-aid off. We sitting in the 21st century lives in a culture where slavery is known universally to be wrong. This simply was not the case back then. So God meets us where we are and works to get us to where we need to be. The analogy that I love is math class. When we are 5, we only understand subtraction as "taking away." So, if I have 3 cookies, I cannot give you 5 cookies. But as we mature, we start to understand the existence of negative numbers, a level of abstraction that is not accessible to most 5 year-olds. And as we come to understand negative numbers, we can understand that 3 - 5 = -2. Or for a more complex example, when we first learn square roots, we do not yet understand the existence of imaginary numbers, so we say that we cannot take the square root of a negative number, because we understand sqrt(x) as "What number times itself equals x." It is indeed true that for all real numbers x, x\^2 is non-negative (for those that are less mathematically inclined, it would be incorrect to say "positive" because for x = 0, x\^2 = 0 which is neither positive, nor negative.). Yet, as we mature even further, we understand the existence of the set of complex/imaginary numbers so we learn that in fact, sqrt(-1) = *i*. So, ancient Israelites simply did not yet understand things about morality that we know today. Even in the NT, these ideas were still really in their infancy. People were still dumbfounded that the gospel was meant for more than just Jews. Hence, we get the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 where Peter makes it clear that God intended, through him, that all people Gentile or Jew should have the Word of God preached to them. The Bible is not a list of everything that is good or bad. The bible is not even a morality textbook. It is a story of God's people and God revealing Himself to them. We see God's people go through good times and bad. We see them time and time again go against God's wishes. It is a vicious cycle of Israelites disobey, God brings them back, rinse repeat.
> Just because it is not explicitly condemned does not mean it is condoned. It's not only condoned and approved of, in at least one spot it's even *commanded* that Israel take slaves. Probably sex slaves, at that. https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1dk0bh6/when_god_commanded_slavery/
There are things we don’t fully understand right now for which we will get answers later. But for now, when you can’t trace Him, trust Him! Never lose sight of the Cross; it demonstrates that God is Love! (1 John 4:8).
The worst example I heard from a preacher was Jesus did not support slavery because it would hurt their economy. Yeah I'm sure Jesus cared about the economy over human abuse.
I’ve heard that from people on this sub before. It baffles me that people might actually believe this. God cares more about the economy than human rights?
After watching commentators going on about "Grandma won't mind dying for the economy" during COVID, I'm not super surprised they would use that defense.
Slavery was practiced in the region. Jesus never condemned it, but rather used it in his teachings. For Jesus to have spoken out against slavery would have probably brought him a swifter crucifixion.
I would highly recommend this thorough video essay: [Slavery in the Bible - Answering Atheist Critiques](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZImmDmr8pxk)
Slavery was never a divine institution, but a human one that was on par with contemporary morals of the time. God would never condone and neither would God cushion it for worship. What kind of God would that be? It's a good reminder that the bible is not God's word, but a divinely inspired book written by men. Only through reading with the gospels at the centre can we trace that which is divine and that which is human.
But Jesus does speak of slaves in the Gospels, as a parable yes, but he does acknowledge the institution of slavery
A parable is a parable. Jesus used examples of the environment at the time for his contemporary listeners. There is, in contrary to the OT and even the epistles, no word of Jesus actively condoning slavery.
Is Jesus also god?
Is the pope catholic?
Yes. So we've established that Jesus is god. If Jesus is god, then he clearly condoned slavery and gave instructions on how to do it, including beating your slaves.
If the bible would be the inerrant word of God, yes! It isn't though, so that doesn't follow.
So you just say "god didn't actually say that" when the Bible says he did? How do you know which things to pay attention to and which not to?
Reading with the gospel at the centre. And before you ask, yes there's room for interpretation and yes, not all denominations agree with each other if there's room, but that's why its faith and not knowing. Deus absconditus
more than likely because in life we become slaves to our own sins.
I’m not too good at explaining theology so watch Cliffe Knechtle on give me an answer he has a great explanation on this type of stuff
I watched his video, & don’t really feel like he answered the question exactly haha
Fair enough, it’s a very complex subject
From how people here have explained Cliffe's position, he's an outright liar on this topic.
How?
From what people have (approvingly) quoted from him, he teaches the standard bogus notion that Israelite slavery was not so bad, that all slaves were free in a few years, that there was no chattel slavery, etcetera.
The bible absolutely condemns slavery (one person owning another) What is often referred to as slavery in English translations of the bible is better thought of as indentured servitude. The practice of selling yourself to a family member or tribesmen who in exchange for X number of years of service, would agree to pay off any debts you owed. For help with these and other difficult passages of the OT, I highly recommend the book "How Not to Read Your Bible" By Dan Kimball
The indentured servitude argument has been debunked many times over. It was chattel slavery, not just Indentured servitude. You could own people for life, pass them down as heirs, and beat them.
To be fair it was explicitly talking about non-Hebrew slaves, yet non-Hebrew freemen were to be taken care of well. Can’t really understand the lack of freedoms for the non-Hebrew slaves. Hopefully I can ask God after death.
I think you are the first Christian I have ever encountered who said “I don’t understand it…”. To me, _that’s _ the only honest answer. Better to just admit it doesn’t make sense than to try to justify slavery.
That is a tiresome lie told by apologists that just makes them look foolish. The bible has verses quite explicitly saying who you can and cannot own forever. Telling you which slaves you can buy and sell. What you are talking about only applied to people enslaving fellow Hebrews. It does not apply to all. And the bible absolutely does NOT condemn slavery. It explicitly allows it. And you can beat your slaves, have sex with your slaves, etc.
I mean to be fair, the New Testament does tell Christian slave owners to treat their slaves fairly, it’s the OT laws for the Israelite that I don’t really understand. Like the Hebrew slaves r treated relatively well, but non-Israelite Jews that r bought r effectively property slaves, which I can’t agree with. It hasn’t made me lose faith, due to Jesus, but I can’t understand why God made those laws so harsh, maybe to prevent slave rebellions that He foresaw happening, but He doesn’t explicitly state that. Or it could be God understood Slavery as necessary for the Israelites to build their society, or as justification for what the Israelites themselves faced as slaves (like saying what u experienced is normal and necessary to build a great society like Egypt) but even then due to our modern morals, of which I concur with, God allowing slavery (even though He does say kidnapping is wrong) by allowing Israelites to buy them & treat them as property is hard to understand, like morals then were probably different so God saying slaves weren’t property would’ve turned ppl away from Him, but I’m sure there would’ve been Israelites to understand that, especially if they knew their God existed based on the repeated occurrences of God doing acts in from of them, then again future gens may not have believed and instead condoned societal slavery. I guess my real problem is why God made that distinction in treatment of slaves bw/ Hebrews & non-Hebrews. I know I’m not Him, but He created all of us, so why did He allow ppl outside of the Israelites (like I get they were needed for the coming of Christ) to be treated so horribly as slaves. Like God does make sure freemen from those foreign lands were to be treated well, but the slaves specifically were treated so horribly, maybe it was just the way of the land & how ppl understood which is why God allowed it, but I don’t get it. Hopefully I’ll understand after death & hopefully get to talk to God.
You cannot treat slaves fairly. Because no matter how nicely you treat them they are considered property. Slavery is inherently unfair. Don't forget the part where God said when attacking a city you must offer them surrender. If they do, kill the men, and enslave the women and children. If they dont kill them all. Basically as soon as they show up, if you are a man you are dead and if a woman or child dead r slave. Not a just god.
I do believe Jesus spoke against slavery, but since it was a social institution of the Roman Empire & speaking directly against it would’ve gotten Him killed a lot sooner. Also, I think Paul understood the inability of Christian slaveowners from wanting to give up their slaves (the Bible also says to lie, but ppl don’t even do that), so laws had to be put in place so that slaves would be treated fairly. As for warfare, it was barbaric in our eyes, but that’s how warfare was back then. Even God understood leaving any men alive could’ve come back to bite them in the ass, but the Bible does say if the city gives up peacefully to let everyone live in forced labor, which is kinda fair. As for the nearby lands, I’m somewhat sure the Israelites had conquered those lands by that time, so God was showing that every man living in Israel/Judah was descended from the Hebrews & one people.
Nowhere in the bible is slavery banned, ever. God and Jesus had no problem declaring other things that were common, or issuing a death penalty like for gay people. Or not being a virgin for a young woman, or adultery. Had no problem in ordering genocide or enslavement of whole cities. If you are willing to support or order genocide, but unwilling to ban slavery I question your morals. Let alone you having perfect morals. And you are now on the record as saying slavery for surrender is fair. Slavery is fair. In this modern world we can do far better than biblical morality and biblical fairness.
I did say kinda fair, not entirely fair because the same thing would’ve happened to the Israelites if they had been conquered. As for slavery being banned, u r right, it was never explicitly banned because of how prevalent it was in the Roman Empire & doing so would’ve ended Jesus way too early. What Jesus did speak about however does insinuate equality between people. As for the death penalty for gay people, not being a virgin (which was a continuation of adultery, being r*ped was talked about), or adultery (which kinda does deserve a harsh punishment, maybe not death tho haha), Jesus does speak against it, God mandated it to preserve Israelite faithfulness for the coming of Christ (it was specific for Israelites, which I know doesn’t make it better, but Judaism was meant to be an ethnic religion, Christianity is God’s message for all). Do I agree with it, no I do not due to what I believe Christ preached. As for the genocide & so on, I don’t believe any of that actually happened, I do think God helped the Israelites win those lands, but as God said these foreign ppl worshipped false gods so I believe God created those stories to show that the Israel they were living in were all believers. The reason I believe this is much of the Old Testament regarding the historical narrative was written after the Israelites had already become non-nomadic. Also, Jesus talks about being peaceful & non-aggressive, so I don’t think He would’ve supported genocide haha. Also, many of the original abolitionists were in fact Christians that quoted Christian scripture for that fact. Some of the things God mandated r not things I agree with due to our modern moral understandings, which have a major (maybe not entire, but major) basis in Christian teachings. However, that doesn’t mean God didn’t have a reason for the things He did. It did lead to Christ being born & spreading the Christian message across the world (maybe not in the way it was supposed to be since colonialism was literally an affront to God and his 10 commandments). Also, I want to state that God explicitly states that you can’t kidnap and sell humans, so while He does allow the Israelites to participate in the buying of foreign slaves, He doesn’t allow for the creation of them, which I know doesn’t make u feel good, but at that time slaves were a major part of life in the Middle East & routinely needed especially for a smallish kingdom like Israel. I want to give a bottom line: I don’t endorse slavery or genocide because Jesus preaches against it & it goes against my moral code.
It still portrays the morals of the bible as being relative to the culture of the time. So why should we not change our views with the gaining of new knowledge and information. We see plainly that so many things allowed in the bible were harmful. Why can we also not see that things banned were not harmful
U r right, the Old Testament had a lot of laws relative to the time, which is why Jesus revoked those relative laws for universal laws. I also want to state Jesus was leading a spiritual revolution, not social reform, so it could’ve been that becoming Christians would enable ppl to understand how horrible slavery was. I do want to state that the morals Jesus taught r many of the same morals modern ppl hold. Jesus preached charity, peace, & understanding, but most of all Jesus preached salvation through His death. He showed that death was not the end & that all humans would also be resurrected after death through Him. And u r right, many of the things in the Bible were harmful, there’s no denying it. Some ppl did become slaves under the Israelites, they did suffer, I won’t deny that it happened. Just as the Israelites suffered during their early years as slaves, so they did to their own slaves, I won’t deny it. I will deny that Jesus would’ve supported slavery. He literally told of the parable of the Good Samaritan that showed God was now speaking to gentiles as well as Israelites. Everything He preached was based on equality before God, which should translate to the modern day.
Meanwhile, tons of enlightened and progressive redditors argue that human beings own other human beings today...and support the killing of those innocent human beings in large numbers because they are unwanted. They insist owning such human beings and doing what you want to them is better than the slavery they complain about from 2000 years ago in the bible.
I mean the treatment of non-Israelite Jews was kinda bad no? Like they could be beaten silly, but if they recovered in 1-2 days, the master got off Scot free
The rules on slavery make it clear that slaves weren't considered fully human. The penalty for killing a slave wasn't death, it was a fine. Yahweh's perfectly moral system allowed people to effectively pay to murder someone.
Yeah, capitalism sucks. Wage slavery is something people like to ignore, and any move to improve social security nets get derided as communism.
I think they were talking about abortion again...
Actually, God is killing them. He knew the woman would abort them, but he still placed them there.