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Spirithound
Guest
Why does it have to be in Scripture? Thanks.
No, they would just starve.
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kentuckyliz
Guest
Is allowing conquered peoples to live, as indentured servants, more compassionate than herem warfare?
I have more of a problem with God commanding herem warfare. Israel didn’t fully comply (perhaps out of compassion) and allowed conquered people to live, and were punished for it.
The new (N.O.) lectionary is great, but I remember as a child, hearing the God of the Old Testament readings being like this, and thinking, God commands murder and war and I don’t like that and can’t understand that (this was during Vietnam War and all the adults in my life were WWII veterans who had seen awful atrocities). But I love Jesus.
I still struggle with that issue, because I cannot engage in Marcionism, and there’s lovable things about God the Father, and Jesus taught us to call him Abba. So I can think, perhaps that’s a phenomenological description, those people imagined the command and the punishment was from God, but it wasn’t a divine revelation.
Then, once the law was operational, people ended up in slavery because of too much debt, but all debts were supposed to be cancelled and ancestral lands restored in the Jubilees. Never happened! The prophets thunder about that, and that’s why God allowed the Assyrian deportation and destruction of Israel and the Babylonian Exile and destruction of the Temple in Judah.
People could pledge their child as surety for a debt! If they couldn’t pay, they’d lose their child! The wisdom writers preach strongly against debt and surety, but there was no law against it, so foolish people ended up in slavery. If they took on debt to meet their basic survival needs, that was a failure of the charity of the community that was supposed to aid them. So, greed leads to slavery.
Still, slavery in the Bible was nothing like the slavery practiced in recent centuries by European and American traders and capitalists. The church thundered against the practice from its inception.
The Bible says to obey the authorities, because God puts people into leadership. Well, that means the state is always right, right? The Germans should obey their Nazi overlords? We should just accept abortion? You can’t look to the Bible alone for your social ethics, because it doesn’t stand alone for that purpose. Look at how faith was lived and understood in the church throughout the two millennia that followed.
One of the worst features of American slavery was the intentional destruction and separation of families. Unique feature–other places in the world, and in the Bible, family integrity was preserved.
Philemon is enlightening. Have you read it?
I have more of a problem with God commanding herem warfare. Israel didn’t fully comply (perhaps out of compassion) and allowed conquered people to live, and were punished for it.
The new (N.O.) lectionary is great, but I remember as a child, hearing the God of the Old Testament readings being like this, and thinking, God commands murder and war and I don’t like that and can’t understand that (this was during Vietnam War and all the adults in my life were WWII veterans who had seen awful atrocities). But I love Jesus.
I still struggle with that issue, because I cannot engage in Marcionism, and there’s lovable things about God the Father, and Jesus taught us to call him Abba. So I can think, perhaps that’s a phenomenological description, those people imagined the command and the punishment was from God, but it wasn’t a divine revelation.
Then, once the law was operational, people ended up in slavery because of too much debt, but all debts were supposed to be cancelled and ancestral lands restored in the Jubilees. Never happened! The prophets thunder about that, and that’s why God allowed the Assyrian deportation and destruction of Israel and the Babylonian Exile and destruction of the Temple in Judah.
People could pledge their child as surety for a debt! If they couldn’t pay, they’d lose their child! The wisdom writers preach strongly against debt and surety, but there was no law against it, so foolish people ended up in slavery. If they took on debt to meet their basic survival needs, that was a failure of the charity of the community that was supposed to aid them. So, greed leads to slavery.
Still, slavery in the Bible was nothing like the slavery practiced in recent centuries by European and American traders and capitalists. The church thundered against the practice from its inception.
The Bible says to obey the authorities, because God puts people into leadership. Well, that means the state is always right, right? The Germans should obey their Nazi overlords? We should just accept abortion? You can’t look to the Bible alone for your social ethics, because it doesn’t stand alone for that purpose. Look at how faith was lived and understood in the church throughout the two millennia that followed.
One of the worst features of American slavery was the intentional destruction and separation of families. Unique feature–other places in the world, and in the Bible, family integrity was preserved.
Philemon is enlightening. Have you read it?
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Vince1022
Guest
It doesn’t have to be. The OP asked about Scripture, though, so Scripture is an essential part of this thread.
For a discussion of slavery apart from Scripture, probably best to start a new Thread.
Thanks.
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FaithBuild18
Guest
Just because you see slavery as evil doesn’t mean it actually is evil. If God “allowed” it (not saying he did), then perhaps it isn’t evil.
The events leading up to and including the civil rights movement shouldn’t be the moral dictator of your virtues. There are many immoral consequences of said movement by the way, but because of the relative times in which we live everybody believes that “entitlements” are the same thing as “rights,” and thus all entitlements are “good.”
I’m not saying slavery was good by the way, I’m simply saying it is not intrinsically evil and the only reason you THINK it is is because of the times in which we live.God doesn’t have it wrong, we do.
The way 1600-1900 society TREATED slaves however, certainly was immoral.
The events leading up to and including the civil rights movement shouldn’t be the moral dictator of your virtues. There are many immoral consequences of said movement by the way, but because of the relative times in which we live everybody believes that “entitlements” are the same thing as “rights,” and thus all entitlements are “good.”
I’m not saying slavery was good by the way, I’m simply saying it is not intrinsically evil and the only reason you THINK it is is because of the times in which we live.God doesn’t have it wrong, we do.
The way 1600-1900 society TREATED slaves however, certainly was immoral.
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Vince1022
Guest
It doesn’t have to be. However, the OP referred to Scripture in starting this thread, and you referred to Scripture in your first post on this thread. So, I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that you were relying on or referring to Scripture in your posts.
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Roy5
Guest
A Few Thoughts
1, Slavery, the system that permits one person to actually own another, is intrinically evil.
1, Slavery, the system that permits one person to actually own another, is intrinically evil.
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2. The fact that the Bible seems to allow it has led me over the years to view scripture as fallible, not to be regarded as the literal 'word of the Lord'. As I recall, a father was even permitted to sell his daughter into slavery in the OT. Sometimes children became slaves when their fathers could not pay their debts. In the New Testament, slaves are told to obey their masters. Etc.
3. Often slavery has been justified by quoting the Bible. For years Blacks were said to be descendants of the accursed Ham, and meant to be subject to others. How many slavemasters here in the New World thought and taught that!
4. On the other hand, sbolitionists in this country and elsewhere were usually people of faith, men like Wilberforce in England and many New England Puritans in the USA. And the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement was Dr. King, a Baptist minister, and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference was led by fellow preachers. They also quoted the Bible, especially the story of the Exodus, passages from the prophets, and the teaching of Christ that we love one another.
5. God allowed slavery for the same reason he allows war and other crimes against humanity. We have free will, are flawed human beings, and personal sin and social sin are consequences of our imperfection.
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TimothyH
Guest
This is exactly correct. Don’t forget that a slave could be purchased out of debtor’s prison.
If I owed money to someone and was in a debtor’s prison for inability to pay, someone could approach my wife and offer to “Redeem” me out of prison for the price of the debt in return for my servitude for an agreed upon period of time. He would pay, I would get out of prison and be his slave for the agreed upon period of time. Doing so was not only a business transaction but in so far as I was let out of prison, an act of mercy.
You can’t judge everything in the Bible based on modern life. The entire fabric of life, economically, socially, politically was completely different,
-Tim-
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Crumpy
Guest
The discussion of slavery in the Bible is not complete without the spiritual slavery that is discussed there.
Doesn’t Paul describe himself as a slave to Jesus Christ? and does not the NT also speak of slavery to sin?
These spiritual kinds of slavery stand on the vivid imagery of human slavery.
Slavery to Jesus Christ illustrates (maybe) what some have said previously about slavery not being intrinsically evil, while slavery to sin would be the essence of evil living.
Marriage and parenthood can be lacking in a positive, spiritual dimension, just like slavery.
Doesn’t Paul describe himself as a slave to Jesus Christ? and does not the NT also speak of slavery to sin?
These spiritual kinds of slavery stand on the vivid imagery of human slavery.
Slavery to Jesus Christ illustrates (maybe) what some have said previously about slavery not being intrinsically evil, while slavery to sin would be the essence of evil living.
Marriage and parenthood can be lacking in a positive, spiritual dimension, just like slavery.
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Crumpy
Guest
I sometimes wonder if questions like this are thrown in here, to bait Catholics, to see if they understand the Bible, or even if they have read the Bible. Giving the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the title question is sincere, so here it is:
This is post 26 or thereabouts, and nobody has mentioned the very USE of slavery that God makes in the Bible.
When He makes the covenant with Abraham, He tells Abraham that as a condition of this covenant, that Abraham’s descendents would be PUT into slavery.
So, to ask the question “How could God allow slavery in the Old Testament” is blasphemous, strictly, in questioning why God can do ANYTHING. We accept God as revealed to be an infinite and sovereign God, etc. in the first place.
(as a related aside: I was reading about Judaism and how they plainly recognize that God is the source of good and evil. Job says so, for example. “If we accept the good from God, shall we not accept the bad as well?” Although we do not understand it, God sends bad things into our lives. Anyway, there is a story about a rabbi, old and worn out, sweeping the floor. A man rushes in to ask the aged sage how he is to deal with some bad things that have come into his life. The rabbi replies, “I don’t know. Nothing bad has ever happened to me.” )
Second, we see that God put Abraham’s descendents INTO slavery for hundreds of years just to show His love and power and desire to redeem them from slavery. And, it was well-suited as an experience to crystalize their hope and trust in God.
That was real, physical, back-breaking, brick-making slavery.
And, THAT redemption was not only a real liberation, but it was a escatological redemption, prophetic redemption of the spiritual redemption that would come through Jesus Christ.
If God had any other purpose in “allowing” slavery in the Old Testament, it would seem logical that it had to be connected to this primary purpose.
So, the answer to the title question of this thread is, “easy.”
This is post 26 or thereabouts, and nobody has mentioned the very USE of slavery that God makes in the Bible.
When He makes the covenant with Abraham, He tells Abraham that as a condition of this covenant, that Abraham’s descendents would be PUT into slavery.
So, to ask the question “How could God allow slavery in the Old Testament” is blasphemous, strictly, in questioning why God can do ANYTHING. We accept God as revealed to be an infinite and sovereign God, etc. in the first place.
(as a related aside: I was reading about Judaism and how they plainly recognize that God is the source of good and evil. Job says so, for example. “If we accept the good from God, shall we not accept the bad as well?” Although we do not understand it, God sends bad things into our lives. Anyway, there is a story about a rabbi, old and worn out, sweeping the floor. A man rushes in to ask the aged sage how he is to deal with some bad things that have come into his life. The rabbi replies, “I don’t know. Nothing bad has ever happened to me.” )
Second, we see that God put Abraham’s descendents INTO slavery for hundreds of years just to show His love and power and desire to redeem them from slavery. And, it was well-suited as an experience to crystalize their hope and trust in God.
That was real, physical, back-breaking, brick-making slavery.
And, THAT redemption was not only a real liberation, but it was a escatological redemption, prophetic redemption of the spiritual redemption that would come through Jesus Christ.
If God had any other purpose in “allowing” slavery in the Old Testament, it would seem logical that it had to be connected to this primary purpose.
So, the answer to the title question of this thread is, “easy.”
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Crumpy
Guest
The will of God is perfect, even if we don’t understand the reason for everything that happens, like slavery.
This is a religion that, perhaps, many people don’t want to believe in, but there we have it in the Bible.
We also have suffering foretold in scripture, too. Why would God want to allow suffering, too?
This is my personal opinion only, and may or may not reflect Catholic teaching. The Bible does something called “anthropomorphizing” about God, in many places. Although we know that God does not have a body like we do, the Bible depicts God doing many things that a human being can do, like talk, walk, getting angry, and many other things.
Well, I think one of those things that communicates something to us about God is suffering. We certainly see suffering prominently in the life of Jesus Christ. I think that something happens to God, in God, that is described, as best we can, as suffering.
I think our sin causes God to suffer, as best as we can tell. And, when we suffer, we are or can be as close to God as maybe it gets on earth, at least in that way (perhaps in other ways that do not involve suffering).
I don’t have any scriptural validation for that idea, but I am on the outlook for it.
I’m not saying that anybody “deserves” to suffer, or anything like that. Slavery can involve a lot of suffering, and that’s why I bring it up in this thread on slavery.
In the U.S., slavery is a very sensitive subject, since so many Africans were sold into slavery for work here. None of my remarks are intended to be insensitive to the inhumane treatment or suffering of African American slaves, or to suggest any defense of slavery in this country.
This is a religion that, perhaps, many people don’t want to believe in, but there we have it in the Bible.
We also have suffering foretold in scripture, too. Why would God want to allow suffering, too?
This is my personal opinion only, and may or may not reflect Catholic teaching. The Bible does something called “anthropomorphizing” about God, in many places. Although we know that God does not have a body like we do, the Bible depicts God doing many things that a human being can do, like talk, walk, getting angry, and many other things.
Well, I think one of those things that communicates something to us about God is suffering. We certainly see suffering prominently in the life of Jesus Christ. I think that something happens to God, in God, that is described, as best we can, as suffering.
I think our sin causes God to suffer, as best as we can tell. And, when we suffer, we are or can be as close to God as maybe it gets on earth, at least in that way (perhaps in other ways that do not involve suffering).
I don’t have any scriptural validation for that idea, but I am on the outlook for it.
I’m not saying that anybody “deserves” to suffer, or anything like that. Slavery can involve a lot of suffering, and that’s why I bring it up in this thread on slavery.
In the U.S., slavery is a very sensitive subject, since so many Africans were sold into slavery for work here. None of my remarks are intended to be insensitive to the inhumane treatment or suffering of African American slaves, or to suggest any defense of slavery in this country.
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PJM
Guest
GREAT QUESTION
THANK YOU!“Alow” is the correct word to use.
God can be described as “Every Good, and every God thing Perfected.” So God is incapable of any injustice. PERIOD.
Consier he source od slavery in the OT. Most often they were captives who were PERMITTED to live as an option to sure and certain death.
While God does not condone slavery; not being the DIRECT cause of it; like other “evils,”
God permits it IN ORDER FOR AT LEAST THE POSSIBILITY OF SOME SPIRITUAL GOOD COMMING FROM IT.
**Col.4: 1 **“Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” JESUS who is unchangeable taught justice for even one’s slaves.
FROM THE FIRST BOOK IN THE BIBLE: **Gen.17: 23 **“Then Abraham took Ish’mael his son and all the slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him”.
**2Chr.28: 10 **"And now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. Have you not sins of your own against the LORD your God? "
**Jer.25: 14 **“For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them; and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”
Now one can see that “ALLOW / PERMIT” are very far from causing this evil.
Isaiah 55: 8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
God Bless, Pat
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