New Testament on slavery

[goout]

goout:

Julius_Caesar:

OddBird:

No, you don’t. You can’t achieve good by evil means.

How is obtaining freedom evil?

It’s not evil to be free.
Read what he said again.

And again I ask: How is obtaining freedom evil?

Else Gideon, Ehud, and the Maccabees are all murderers.

Murder is immoral.
Being free is not immoral. It’s a state.
Committing murder to obtain freedom is immoral.

Now you get into all kinds of hair splitting involving just war etc…Just war would hold that defending one’s self against violence and oppression is not murder. It’s a very messy scenario to deal with.
Response has to be measured in a commensurate way etc…
Very messy.

 

[OddBird]

How is obtaining freedom evil?

@goout said it all.

Freedom is not evil.
Murder, on the other hand, is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The times were not yet ready to accept our democratic standards.

No. And not many times have ever been. There is a lot of slave labor in the world, de facto if not always de jure. China, North Korea, much of the Middle East. It was widespread not so long ago in the Soviet Union. It still is in Cuba.

Ever wonder about the “faithful servants” in old novels and movies based on them; the guys who stood attention in white wigs handing their “employers” their plates at table? Those people lived there for a lifetime and waited on the same people for a lifetime. Sure, they could have walked away and starved. But being a servant or a crofter was the only thing available. They really couldn’t change it. They had no pensions to retire on. Their “retirement” was their master’s good will. And if a master took a shine to a tenant worker’s daughter? Was he arrested for it?

In Jesus’ time, were slaves in most Jewish or Roman households much different from that? I doubt it.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

In my personal opinion that was an unjust law. Today abortion is permitted by the American law. IOW, the American law permits a mother to murder her unborn child. Just because the law permits it, does not make it right, at least that would be my personal opinion.

Of course. However, just as one cannot kill an abortionist to save the unborn, one cannot kill a slave master. Christians should work for the recognition of rights of everyone, not create our ideal society in a pool of blood.

 

[ralfyman]

Does the Bible Support Slavery? | Catholic Answers Magazine

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Freedom is not evil.
Murder, on the other hand, is.

Self defense is more like it. Else Ehud and Matthias the Maccabee are murderers.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Murder is immoral.
Being free is not immoral. It’s a state.
Committing murder to obtain freedom is immoral.

I guess those who were judges were commisioned by God to sin

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Mike_from_NJ:

On the other hand, I can point to quite a few verse where God speaks in great detail about approving slavery.

God or Moses? Perhaps you could cite a few of those verses.

The bulk of God’s guidebook to enslaving occurs in Exodus 21. The Bible clearly shows in Exodus 19 that God is speaking to Moses at Mount Sanai. It goes through Exodus 24:3 with God continuing to speak to Moses. We see several times where My is capitalized to show it’s God saying these things. Exodus 24:4 even says that Moses wrote down these words of God’s.

In post 39 I listed several passages where God tells Moses that his people are not to follow the practices of neighboring nations (thus eliminating the common excuse that the Hebrews simply had to get involved in slavery because it was commonly accepted at the time). I cited Leviticus 18:3 and 24 as well as Leviticus 20:23. How does Leviticus 18 start? “Then the LORD said to Moses,” and the rest of the chapter is all God’s words. How does Leviticus 20 start? Again it’s “Then the LORD said to Moses,” with the entire rest of the chapter all God’s words.

If you want to debate the morality of slavery that’s one thing, but even believers can’t deny the Bible is saying all of these passages I cite are God’s very own words and not Moses’.

 

[Beryllos]

Thanks for those. I’ll read them well.

 

[BornInMarch]

It’s for the same reason Christ didn’t lead a rebellion against the Roman Empire; He was not a politician and neither were His apostles. Christ came to save souls.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

None of your factors is relevant. The point is that Jesus says clearly that the Old Testament contains imperfect moral laws because of the hardness of biblical people’s heart.

Imperfect is a great understatement. It feels a bit like doublethink to say an all-knowing God would encourage an act then later call it immoral – but then say God doesn’t change. The “hardness of the heart” argument has an interesting stumbling block. It makes it sound like the Hebrews were neck-deep in slavery and God came in to say, well since they’re engaged in the practice I’ll try to set up some rules. No, when God spoke to Moses in Exodus 21 about slavery they were in the desert and had no slaves. In fact, they had escaped their own slavery and as a people they had been enslaved for 430 years. Even if the Hebrews had practiced slavery before their own enslavement, that was many many generations earlier before any of those alive in the desert had been alive.

Jesus gave us the perfect moral rules “love your neighbour as yourself”, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”, “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you”.

It’s notable that God the first person of the Trinity twice calls slaves property – a commodity that can be passed down like a donkey or sandals. If you look at Exodus 29-31 we see the difference in God’s eyes between carelessness in killing a free person as opposed to a slave. If an owner of an ox is careless and that ox kills a free man, woman, or child then the potential punishment is death. If that same owner and the same ox kills a slave, no payment in death is required and it’s just a financial fine. no different than if damaging another’s sandals.

It’s true that just because we don’t have Jesus specifically saying slavery was bad doesn’t mean he didn’t say it (pardon the number of negatives in that sentence). The issue though is that via the same reasoning just because Jesus didn’t say anything allowing for homosexual relationships doesn’t mean he didn’t say it. Ah, but you likely are thinking that we have the Church to state clearly that homosexual relationships are wrong. The problem is it also spent many centuries not really having a problem with slavery. If we break the timeline down into three sections (OT, NT. Church age) we see the OT is in favor of slavery and the Chruch age was for slavery for quite a while but now thankfully is not. The NT is bookended by those unopposed to slavery, so it’s hard to accept that in the NT there was an unspoken rebuke of slavery.

Heck, the one time we really get Jesus speaking on slavery is in an analogy where he talks about how a slave who didn’t know what he was doing was wrong still deserving lashes, just less lashes than a knowingly wrong slave. I’ve mentioned this in other threads, back when I was working at an amusement area one of the repair guys would say that sometimes you had to hit equipment “like a mouthy woman”. One tries not to use analogies or wordings that run counter to their ideas.

 

[BartholomewB]

Christians should work for the recognition of rights of everyone, not create our ideal society in a pool of blood.

The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century – first of the slave trade, later of slavery itself – was the fruit of long years of persistent work by Christian campaigners.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

The abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century – first of the slave trade, later of slavery itself – was the fruit of long years of persistent work by Christian campaigners.

An industry run by devout Christians. We shouldn’t whitewash the history.

 

[AlNg]

However, just as one cannot kill an abortionist to save the unborn, one cannot kill a slave master.

This does not make sense to me. In the case of abortion, the mother freely contracts out the abortionist to murder her unborn child. It is her contract and it is her free decision to murder. In the case of slavery, there is no consent on the part of the young child to be enslaved, tortured, and sexually abused by the slave master. In my personal opinion, it is wrong to enslave children against their will and use them for your own selfish purposes.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

In the case of abortion, the mother freely contracts out the abortionist to murder her unborn child.

In the case of slavery, the slaveowner freely contracts the slaver to sell them slaves.

In the case of slavery, there is no consent on the part of the young child to be enslaved, tortured, and sexually abused by the slave master.

In the case of abortion, there is no consent on the part of the child to be ripped apart and slaughtered by the abortionist.

The comparison stands. The abortionist=/=slave. Child=slave.

 

[AlNg]

The comparison stands.

That is why, if the laws were just, the mother who murders her child should be punished. Unfortunately, we have Roman Catholic politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden who believe that abortion should be legal. And there has even been a Roman Catholic priest who supported laws making abortion legal.

 

[Mmarco]

Mmarco:

None of your factors is relevant. The point is that Jesus says clearly that the Old Testament contains imperfect moral laws because of the hardness of biblical people’s heart.

Imperfect is a great understatement. It feels a bit like doublethink to say an all-knowing God would encourage an act then later call it immoral – but then say God doesn’t change.

II disagree; I think that God simply allowed (and NOT encouraged) an act and later He taught the perfect moral law, from which we can understand that such act is immoral. This is exactly the same case for divorce. You have no valid arguments against this explanation

The “hardness of the heart” argument has an interesting stumbling block. It makes it sound like the Hebrews were neck-deep in slavery and God came in to say, well since they’re engaged in the practice I’ll try to set up some rules.

Simply false; it does not sound like that. Slavery was a common practice in pratically all ancient peoples, and Hebrews were not different in this respect.
There is no stumbling blocks to the “hardness of heart” argument.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

II disagree; I think that God simply allowed (and NOT encouraged) an act and later He teaches the perfect moral law, from which we can understand that such act is immoral. This is exactly the same case for divorce. You have no valid arguments against this explanation

An analogy I’ve used in the past is imagine a town that spelled out specific rules on how to kidnap a whom, when she could be assaulted, the punishments (or lack thereof) for harming or killing a captive woman. Now imagine the mayor of said town trying to play off that the town is not for such actions.

Simply false; it does not sound like that. Slavery was a common practice in pratically all ancient peoples, and Hebrews were not different in this respect.
There is no stumbling blocks to the “hardness of heart” argument.

1. I don’t think you’re appreciating what a length of time 430 years is. Imagine that you and your people were enslaved back in 1590. We’re talking before Isaac Newton was born, before the King James Bible, before the invention of the barometer. In all that time your people experience nothing but the brunt of slavery. Then your people are set free and are in the desert. Why would the fact that other nations practiced slavery have any bearing on the people?
2. God is said to be all-knowing. He can not only see what will be but all possible futures real and imagined. He would have known many worlds that exist without slavery, yet apologists ask us to accept a God of impotence that not only can’t impose instructions on his people (some of the time) but can’t be even tell his people right from wrong?
3. I listed three specific instances where God in no uncertain terms says not to follow the practices of other nations, yet time and time again people continually ignore them and won’t even give a reason why they were to be ignored. Please tell me specifically why those verses don’t count.

 

[Mmarco]

Mmarco:

II disagree; I think that God simply allowed (and NOT encouraged) an act and later He teaches the perfect moral law, from which we can understand that such act is immoral. This is exactly the same case for divorce. You have no valid arguments against this explanation

An analogy I’ve used in the past is imagine a town that spelled out specific rules on how to kidnap a whom, when she could be assaulted, the punishments (or lack thereof) for harming or killing a captive woman. Now imagine the mayor of said town trying to play off that the town is not for such actions.

I see no relevance in your analogy. My point stands.

Simply false; it does not sound like that. Slavery was a common practice in pratically all ancient peoples, and Hebrews were not different in this respect.
There is no stumbling blocks to the “hardness of heart” argument.

1. I don’t think you’re appreciating what a length of time 430 years is. Imagine that you and your people were enslaved back in 1590. We’re talking before Isaac Newton was born, before the King James Bible, before the invention of the barometer. In all that time your people experience nothing but the brunt of slavery. Then your people are set free and are in the desert. Why would the fact that other nations practiced slavery have any bearing on the people?

The point is that Hebrews, like all other ancient peoples, considered slavery as a common and logical practice, even if they had not slaves in that precise moment.
They would have practice slavery in successive years.
The point is that the Hebrews were not ready to understand the perfect moral rules because of the hardness of their heart.

1. God is said to be all-knowing. He can not only see what will be but all possible futures real and imagined. He would have known many worlds that exist without slavery, yet apologists ask us to accept a God of impotence that not only can’t impose instructions on his people (some of the time) but can’t be even tell his people right from wrong?

God has created man with a free will and He respects our free will; therefore He does not “impose instructions” on us. God did not taught the perfect moral rules through Moses because the Hebrews would have not accepted them and they would have rebelled against Moses, and probably, they would have killed him.

1. I listed three specific instances where God in no uncertain terms says not to follow the practices of other nations, yet time and time again people continually ignore them and won’t even give a reason why they were to be ignored. Please tell me specifically why those verses don’t count.

I am sorry, but I must have missed that part. Please give me just one example of these verses (just one at a time), and I will consider it.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I see no relevance in your analogy. My point stands.

I’ll simplify it. A does not give details instructions to B on how to do something that A doesn’t want B to do.The pope doesn’t tell Catholics how to break the commandments. The police don’t instruct people how to harm their kids without getting caught. The IRS doesn’t give a series of steps on how US taxpayers are to cheat on their taxes. God saying slavery is immoral and God telling people how to buy, breed, blackmail, harm, and kill slaves are two mutually exclusive concepts.

There is no stumbling blocks to the “hardness of heart” argument.

The point is that Hebrews, like all other ancient peoples, considered slavery as a common and logical practice, even if they had not slaves in that precise moment.
They would have practice slavery in successive years.

They were under the thumb of the Egyptians for over four centuries. How would they know if it was still common with other non-Egyptian nations? More importantly, why did God put his foot down on some things (like working the Sabbath. murder, rape. and celebrating the three yearly festivals) and not slavery?

You are wrong to suggest that they were bound to own slaves in the future. If God had added an eleventh command to not own slaves then the Hebrews as a whole would not do so.

They point is that the Hebrews were not ready to understand the perfect moral rules because of the hardness of their heart.

We don’t teach our children that it’s okay to hit others then expect them not to hit others as an adult. If you’re saying the Hebrew were not ready then they needed the law made clear that it’s wrong from the very start.

God has created man with a free will and He respects our free will; therefore He does not “impose instructions” on us.

Are you serious? Are you saying God did not tell people what is right and wrong? Check Exodus 20 and 90% of what Jesus said again.

God did not taught the perfect moral rules through Moses because the Hebrews would have not accepted them and they would have rebelled against Moses, and probably, they would have killed him.

They did rebel when they were told not to store excess mana.They rebelled when they were told not to make false idols, and many were killed as a result. God imposed multiple rules on his people, and those who didn’t follow were severely punished. There’s no reason whatsoever not to add slavery to that list.

I am sorry, but I must have missed that part.

I’ve listed them already upthread, but here they are again:

Leviticus 18:3
You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs.

Leviticus 18:24
Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves.

Leviticus 20:23
You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.