Thats very interesting could you please share your source so I can read more i never knew slaves were given any ownership of their masters property unless there was no child (either natural or begotten by choice) to inherit? I also understood the entire estate was passed on including the responsibility for the house, other slaves included.
In order to answer your question I will use the story of Yonah (Jonah). This short book of only 4 chapters is not a story about a whale. If we examine this story in the Jewish scriptures, we see that it is the story of a Jewish prophet being sent by God to a relatively distant place in connection to the redemption of a non Jewish city. Encapsulated here is the Jewish concept of the one universal God. We are shown that God is the God of all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, that God isn’t limited to the confines of the geographical area of the land of Israel, that redemption is open to all whether Jew or Gentile.
Yes, this is an excellent example of what the Catholic Church means when it says that Scripture inerrantly teaches what was meant to be taught. The story of Jonah is not meant to be a history lesson, or a lesson on the nature of whales–it is meant to be a lesson on the nature of God and His relationship with mankind. The lesson on the nature of God is to be relied on as correct, but the text is not about history or whales and the Church does not teach that a Catholic must (or even necessarily should) take Jonah as accurate history or biology.
Actually from what I have read it appears that “slavery” was a type of oath that was taken that was almost like a contract. A person was basically pledging their service to their master before God for so many years. I believe it was somewhat similar to indentured servitude.
This is my sentiment on the matter. As a collection of works, the OT is not simply a history text or monolithic in genre but a diverse collective work of revelation.
My Lady, sorry, but you seem to sit in a couch and expect someone to bring you the dishes. You did not even had the cordiality of seeing what I painstakingly gathered for you. You just threw out with your “Magisterial Teaching of the Church” as if this means something (the Pope? ex cathedra? just a bishop remark? a Pope remark? an encyclica?). It is not nice, I tell you.
Jewish slaves and foreign slaves were treated differently. Jewish slavery was conditional (6 years).
Peace and blessings Sister,
Yes, far too many people, believers and non-believers alike tend to see a false dichtomy where either everything in the Bible is literally true or it’s not and hence worthless.
Like others have said, for the most part we are not bound by the Church to believe that everything in the OT represents historical fact. However, I’m pretty certain that we are bound to believe that Adam and Eve actually existed and that all humans today are their descendants. This does not mean that the Church teaches that all of Genesis represent literal historical fact - She doesn’t teach this.
There is a lot of evidence out there that we evolved from primates - there are skeletons of creatures that are somewhere between a human and a monkey, and those skeletons progress to looking more and more human like the younger they are.
Indeed they do like to whitewash. A bigger problem is that the New Testament does not condemn slavery. In fact Paul sends a slave back to his master. Roman slavery was a very powerful form of slavery. Under it the master actually owned the life of the slave and could kill him. Other forms of slavery would demand work from the slave but the master did not own the slaves life and therefore could not, at his sole discretion, take it.
Actually, this is not true. A 2% annual growth rate in population results in a population doubling period of roughly 35 years. This would mean there would be over 1 billion people in just over 1,000 years. At almost 1,200 years there would be over 16 billion human beings.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church which Blessed Pope John Paul II said 'It is a sure norm for teaching the Catholic faith."
250 - Council of Trent [1546]: DS 1511
9 - Genesis 10:5, cf 9:9-10, 16; 10:20-31
My sentiments exactly.
I would agree and I do not believe the stance of the Church supports a 6,000 year old world.
Yes, that many educated Catholics simply cannot seem to grasp this simple point is perplexing - what is important is the meaning and message of the story not its historicity.With that being said, I DO believe the message that the story is getting across - that God is the creator of all things, that God singled us out as the “masters” amongst all other creatures on Earth and gave us souls, and that humanity was given the choice to disobey God by sinning, which we did/do.
…I think that’s what Genesis is trying to get across. Not some story of a first man and a first women who saw a snake and ate an apple.
I have a degree in Biology from Texas A&M (which has a very well respected College of Science) and am currently studying at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio for a professional degree, so please do not mistake me for someone who has no idea what they’re talking about. With that said, I’m certainly no expert either, but I do have a solid basic understanding of science.