| The_vagabond7 said: No actually, I spent the first twenty two years of my life studying all religions in depth before I decided they were all bunk. I've read the bible cover to cover multiple times in multiple translation, and it was definitely slavery. As for your point here.... Yes it says not to permanently injure them. You can beat them, just don't permanently injure them. That's not really something to be proud of. I mean did you read that chapter or any of the other sections on slavery? It only partially deals with slavery (will get to the slavery aspect in a second), but it's not flattering. If you give your slave a wife, and they have kids, they are born into slavery and you retain possession of the wife and children. You can hold his wife and children hostage as your property and he has to choose between being your servant forever with his family, or being free. You can sugar coat this, but any way you look at it, humans beings are being passed around bought and sold and treated as another human beings property. For the first section that you mention, I'd argue that the Bible is talking about disciplinary action against slaves...As opposed to beating them half to death. The Bible uses similar language when it talks about punishing your own children too, but I don't think you'd argue the Bible endorses child beating. you can even sell your own daughter into slavery with the expectation that either the slave owner or one of his sons will marry her one day. But oh, don't worry, the daughter you just sold into slavery must continue to receive food and water if her male master decides to add more women to his harem, he can't just forget about you, and if he decides to give her to his son it's like she's family now! So I guess it's not so bad after all selling your daughter to another man. You are wrong about this part. Its in the same section of Exodus 21 that mentioned the punishment of slaves. Please read it again. It states that if the woman is taken in by a man, and he does not marry her, she has her rights to marry anyone intact (Exodus 21:10). If he does try to add her to a harem, she is free to go (Exodus 21:11). Also being a woman, she never gets to go free unless her master decides to free her, women don't get the six years and freed on the seventh or work til the next jubilee year that jewish men do (note there are some scholars that disagree with this point). You buy her for keeps. Also, if you are a foreign slave you do not get to go free on the seventh year, they own you until they decide they are done with you. The whole manservant thing really only applied to jewish men. There was a distinct line between debt slaves and foreign slaves. If you were a woman or a foreigner you were being sold into slavery, and you only hope was that they either do irreperable harm to you, or decide to let you go, or somebody else bought you and gave you freedom. from leviticus 25 39“‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. 40He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. 41Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. 42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. 43Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. note if one of your "countrymen". Gods people are not to be slaves, merely hired workers for a time. It goes on. 44“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
Notice to distinction between the two groups. Jewish men had it cushy (just like in everything else in their culture), it was women and foreigners that were actually slaves. The israelites got special care as "slaves" , they were even allowed to buy themselves if they happen to have sold themself into slavery to a non jew, they could also be bought by their family, or they had to be released on the jubilee year as the passage goes on. God gave special favor to jewish men, but everybody else was a slave. And the foreigners either got sold into slavery or taken forcibly into slavery during one of their brutal conquests. But don't worry, they got to take the sabbath off too, because god is kindly and just. And this goes along way towards how the non abolitionist christians felt justified in slavery. The bible never condemns it, merely instructs one how to do it properly (make sure god's men get the sweet end of the deal). You like to point out that abolitionists were christians, but like I said, so was everybody else in america all the slave owners included. Both of whom were pointing to the bible and drawing the exact opposite conclusions from it. Which sounds more like they had their own sense of morality and were making an appeal to the authority of the day to justify their cause. |
As for the last two paragraphs, I would argue that the reason slavery was abolished was due to Christians. Christians were not the reason they were forced into slavery, however. Yes, there were some Christians that were pro-slavery, and I will not argue that, but again, I will point to the issue that the major forces in slavery were not pastors, or clergymen...But in the abolitionist movement, they were.
Do not forget that when the Puritans came to America, they had no slaves - only servants. The idea of race-based slavery became an issue almost 100 years after the Puritans landed in the US.
I digress though, the OT laws concerning slavery are a.....Questionable. I guess it's a good thing that most Christians accept the NT as the guide for faith and practice, as opposed to the OT which is still the rule of thumb for Judiaisim.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
