What is there to say about slavery and the Bible? Especially the Old Testament? (MERGED)

[Achilles6129]

Would it be OK for a white slavemaster to enslave a black woman who shops at Target on a Sunday because she is disobeying the command of God to keep holy the Lord’s Day? Actually I see a whole lot of people shopping on Sunday and as well doing other types of work on Sundays. I personally would not be in favor of enslaving them because they have disobeyed one of the ten Commandments.

These laws are Torah laws and thus are only meant for and apply to ancient Israel.

 

[Tomdstone]

These laws are Torah laws and thus are only meant for and apply to ancient Israel.

Did God change His mind on what laws should and what laws should not be observed?

 

[francisca]

This does seem to be pretty strong. Can God change His mind about slavery, so that at one point in time it is OK, but at a future point in time it is immoral?

Moses Law deals with us lawfully.

If a person is sold as a slave, then he is a possession to whoever buy him. This is according to the law.

Among children of Israel there can be no slavery among themselves, because God has freed them from slavery (of Egypt), and besides there was a covenant between God and Israel’s Ancestors (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob). The other nations, there was no covenant with God, and God has not freed these nations yet.

This law also teach us that a master has power over his slaves. So we as slaves to sin, we serve sin, and sin lords over us. A slave has no equal standing with the master. This teaching is consistent throughout the bible (both old and new testaments).

God didn’t change His mind, He fulfills the law by sending a redeemer to us (Jesus), to free us from slavery of sin, so now we are not allowed to enslave each other, because we have covenant with God about this (consistent with the Torah regarding children of Israel should not enslave each other because they have been freed from slavery of Egypt): we are the owner of the land God give to us in His Promise. We are children no longer slaves. Moses freed Israel from slavery of Egypt, Moses law then teach animal sacrifice for payment of sins, Jesus free us from slavery of sin. Even so, we truly believe this teaching only the last few recent centuries, so then we decide to free all people from (physical) slavery.

 

[Tomdstone]

If a person is sold as a slave, then he is a possession to whoever buy him. This is according to the law.

I don’t agree with this. The buying and selling of slaves, especially female slaves, lends itself to sexual abuse by the slavemaster. This has been verified in many cases which occurred in the USA.

 

[francisca]

I don’t agree with this. The buying and selling of slaves, especially female slaves, lends itself to sexual abuse by the slavemaster. This has been verified in many cases which occurred in the USA.

I was explaining Moses Law then at the time. Not now. (I shouldn’t have used present tense in that sentence. Sometimes english grammar can be a problem for me ). Now we can’t enslave each other anymore beccause Jesus has redeemed us from sin. Slavery is one of our past sinful culture, which wasn’t seen as sinful if you view it from the “fair transacton” point of view according to Moses law at the time. It becomes unfair now because we were slave of sin before, and we have been redeemed, so we shouldn’t enslave one another anymore.

Please re-read those passages that has been quoted in this thread, how God keep repeating the reason why children of Israel shouldn’t enslave each other then at the time: because-- God keep repeating the reason-- is that God has freed them from slavery of Egypt. This is the core philosophy that God try to repeat over and over again in those passages.

 

[francisca]

Leviticus 25
38. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. 39. **If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave’s service.**
40. He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. 41. He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers.
42. `For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale.

Here The Lord “give Israel time” to set free their kinsmen after 7 year of service.

Deuteronomy 15
12. "If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free.
13. "When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed.
14. "You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.
15. "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

In this words to Prophet Jeremiah, God punished Israel for refusing to set free their kinsmen & continue to enslaving their own, and the reason is because God had made covenant with them (read above, but they and their forefathers didn’t fulfill this covenant to free their slaves), God has made this covenant with them since the day He freed them from slavery in Egypt, and keep renewing this covenant asking them to free their kinsmen from slavery:

Jeremiah 34
8. The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were in Jerusalem to proclaim release to them:
9. that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman; so that no one should keep them, a Jew his brother, in bondage.
10. And all the officials and all the people obeyed who had entered into the covenant that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant, so that no one should keep them any longer in bondage; they obeyed, and set them free.
11. But afterward they turned around and took back the male servants and the female servants whom they had set free, and brought them into subjection for male servants and for female servants.
12. Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
13. "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, **I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt**, from the house of bondage, saying, 14. "At the end of seven years each of you shall set free his Hebrew brother who has been sold to you and has served you six years, you shall send him out free from you; but your forefathers did not obey Me or incline their ear to Me. 15. "Although recently you had turned and done what is right in My sight, each man proclaiming release to his neighbor, and you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name. 16. "Yet you turned and profaned My name, and each man took back his male servant and each man his female servant whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your male servants and female servants."' 17. "Therefore thus says the LORD, You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming release each man to his brother and each man to his neighbor. Behold, I am proclaiming a release to you,’ declares the LORD, `to the sword, to the pestilence and to the famine; and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Read the whole chapter Jeremiah 34: the rest of the verses shows that God also made ‘renewed’ covenant with the officials at the time about the same matter.

The central message is the same over and over again through out the whole bible: because God set us free from bondage, then we gotta set free our own fellowmen/ women from bondage. The main content of God’s covenant with us is to set us free and for us to set free our own fellowmen. “Forgive our debt as we forgive our debtors”-- The Lord’s prayer

 

[francisca]

My point above is to show that such covenant was not present with other nations at the time.

However, when Jesus came, he freed not only hebrew men, he also freed gentiles. The rest of the stories are in the book of Acts: that God’s word was also true for the gentiles.

Therefore now we are not supposed to enslave our fellow humans anymore. We ought to free women, child labors, sex slaves, human trafficked victims, and so on.

 

[Tomdstone]

Therefore now we are not supposed to enslave our fellow humans anymore.

But slavery was allowed in the Old Testament. And I read that Catholic priests owned slaves in the USA.
According to Richard Miller, Catholic countries were “the prime movers in the revival of slavery in the Old World and the introduction of it into the New World.” The five major countries that dominated slavery and the slave trade in the New World were either Catholic, or still retained strong Catholic influences including: Spain, Portugal, France, and England, as well as the Dutch.
Christopher Columbus himself thought first of enslaving the Natives that he encountered upon the discovery of the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Within the first month of his arrival Columbus seized six young men that had canoed up alongside his ship as prisoners to be sent back to the Catholic King and Queen of Spain as slaves. He also had seven women and three children captured because he believed that the men would work better as slaves if they had women around.
Richard Roscoe Miller, Slavery and Catholicism, (Durham, 1957) p.18 and p. 44

 

[francisca]

But slavery was allowed in the Old Testament.

God only allowed Israel to own foreign slaves.
As I have explained, the reason for it was because-- until Jesus coming-- there were no covenants between God and those foreigners. (Later, Jesus redeem the whole world, this include all humanity)

On the contrary to the above, God did NOT ALLOW slavery among the children of Israel, because:

Leviticus25:42. `For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale.

Not allowing slavery among own fellowmen is the stress of the teaching. This rule of forbidden slavery among our own fellowmen is bound by a covenant that binds tightly so that God has the right to punish according to the law whoever breach of the covenants.

I suppose God was also trying to teach the difference between “servants” and “slaves” too, but it didn’t work. Israel enslaved their “hebrew servants” too and obstinately refused to let them go as they promised God. Until now there are many employers in developing countries who treat their employee in a slave-like manners. Just because slavery continue to happened–even in the Old Testament time, God didn’t allowed hebrew slaves-- yet there were many hebrew slaves at the time, and until nowadays there are modern day slavery.

And I read that Catholic priests owned slaves in the USA.
According to Richard Miller, Catholic countries were “the prime movers in the revival of slavery in the Old World and the introduction of it into the New World.” The five major countries that dominated slavery and the slave trade in the New World were either Catholic, or still retained strong Catholic influences including: Spain, Portugal, France, and England, as well as the Dutch.
Christopher Columbus himself thought first of enslaving the Natives that he encountered upon the discovery of the island of Hispaniola in 1492. Within the first month of his arrival Columbus seized six young men that had canoed up alongside his ship as prisoners to be sent back to the Catholic King and Queen of Spain as slaves. He also had seven women and three children captured because he believed that the men would work better as slaves if they had women around.
Richard Roscoe Miller, Slavery and Catholicism, (Durham, 1957) p.18 and p. 44

Just because there are slavery until today, doesn’t mean God allow it.

In the passage in my previous post above I showed you that in the book of leviticus, deuteronomy, and Jeremiah, God consistently was trying (and is still trying) to teach Israel/ us to free their/ our fellowmen from slavery, because God first of all have freed Israel/ us from Egypt/ sin.

Your post above shows that “freedom” is actually “a revelation” to our humanity/ culture.

Freedom is too good for our understanding, we do not know what “freedom from slavery” means until it is revealed layer by layer to us/ to our culture in God’s time. Slavery by sin comes in many layers and many different forms both in our natural/ spiritual life as individual/ as a people.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Mike, I understand that we are both in argument mode (the whole atheist vs believer thing), but I really want to have a productive discussion.

In my last post, I was merely presenting an interpretation or analysis of the verse from which we could both agree on and move from there. I even used the sources you gave to me and thought I had done a pretty fair job of it, but I really don’t see any reason to continue unless we can at least start with the same understanding of what this verse is (as objectively as possible) saying.

I have admitted that I was unaware of various translation possibilities, which you pointed out to me and I have conceded, and even pointed out the error of my haste in putting the verse in Exodus 20 rather than Exodus 21. I am honestly trying to be fair and open in this discussion. It honestly interests me and I want to hear what you have to bring to it.

If the interpretation I gave to it - regarding the death of the slave and the intent of the owner - is somehow missing something or misunderstanding something, please let me know where you think I am off.

Maybe then, one we are at a clear standing of what the verse is trying to say, we can move forward?

I appreciate wanting to hash out this discussion piece by piece. I admit sometimes getting a bit salty on this topic, but it’s because I feel too often others will try to sweep these atrocities under the rug – similar to what some people do today in trying to soften the narrative of American slavery trying to make it seem it wasn’t nearly as bad as it actually was.

I agree with you where the verse tries to say that if the owner intends to kill his slave to where he beats him or her to death then and there that the owner is punished.

Where we disagree seems to come from two things: manslaughter and the use of deadly force. Let’s say I go to a guy I know who owes me money and I’m carrying the modern day equivalant of an Israelite rod, a baseball bat. I want to hurt him to encourage him to pay me what he owes. I do not wish to kill him since doing so means I don’t get my money back. I hit him hard – so hard that he collapses. His wife finds him the next morning in utter agony, unable to move. She rushes him to a hospital but the damage is too severe and he dies.

In my scenario I have committed manslaughter. I did not intend to kill this person but by my actions I did just that. I was wreckless and used deadly force with a deadly weapon. I am culpable, although maybe not as culpable as if I were intending to kill this person. In a moral society I should be punished. Yet, when we look at the passage in question there is to be no punishment. What factors does it take into account? Does it concern itself with the intention of the owner to do harm? No. It sees no problem with that, as it explains how the slave is property. Does it concern itself with the wrecklessness of the owner? No, the use of a deadly weapon where one could certainly die isn’t considered. The one dividing line given is the result (i.e. on what day the slave died).

That’s where I have my problem (or more accurately one of my problems) with slavery in the Bible. When pro-slavery Christians defend it they often try to twist a passage which shows very little regard for slaves into a sign that this was protection for slaves. Sure it meant same-day death was prohibited, but the beating, crippling, and disfiguring of slaves was outright allowed by God. A cruel, non-instantaneous, agonizing death of a slave was not to be punished. Following the passage would lead one away from morality and not toward it.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

No, I say the word “implied” because your interpretation of the passage is negated by the rest of the Torah.

A few times in your response you mentioned how my reading of the passages as-written was undercut by other parts of the Torah. First, I’d like to see which passages you are referring to. Second, as I demonstrated with Exodus 21:28-32 that when the Old Testament (if not the whole Bible) refers to “man or woman” it is not referring to slaves. To repeat that, Exodus 21:29 says “…and it kills a man or woman…” then immediately after in Exodus 21:32 says “…gores a male or female slave…” showing that male and female slaves are not men and women when it comes to the law. So any passage you quote from the Torah had best specifically refer to slaves.

Certainly, there’s a disparity between slaves and Israelites. That’s because slaves are from the Gentile nations round about. Slaves are not treated equally with Israelites because they’re deemed the moral inferiors of the Israelites.

If only there was a point in history we could look back to where a certain group of people (maybe we can go so far as to call them a “race”) had foreigners of another group living in their nation (Remember, slaves in the Bible could be bought not only from other nations but of foreigners living in their land.) Then the main race of people felt that this other race was lacking in morals (i.e. they were inferior to the main race or “master race”). And the main group felt it would be best to round up those people and deny their freedom. Too bad I can’t think of any historical examples. (Yes, I broke Godwin’s law but it was warranted.)

They’re not viewed as being on equal footing with the Israelites any more than a prisoner is viewed as being on equal footing with you.

Again what did they do wrong to be treated like prisoners?

Well, I can’t show you a place where it says a female slave can do whatever she wants, but I can certainly show you places in the Torah where rape is proscribed. That means that the female slave couldn’t be raped.

As I noted above, if something in the Torah says it can’t be done to a woman, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done to a female slave.

No, the passage covers only consensual intercourse. That’s why it says that they’re discovered and then the woman’s father gives her in marriage, when he has the right to refuse her under Torah law.

Do you understand how slavery works? A slave doesn’t get to vote. The slave doesn’t have a suggestion box where she can fill out a little card that says, “Stop raping me”. With no laws preventing such acts the only thing left was the consciences of the slaveowners themselves.

That is precisely correct. Anyone who disobeys God’s commands is a criminal in God’s sight. As a matter of fact, they are to God what the worst criminal in prison is to you. That’s why God said it was OK to enslave them.

Then maybe God should do the punishing. I don’t trust anyone who does harm to another under the auspices of God wanting to punish the victim.

By the way, I’m baptised and confirmed. I was in Atlantic City a few days ago and did my fair share of coveting. The last time I was in church was last year to see my Dad sing in the choir, so I don’t honor the Sabbath. By the standard you gave I’m worse than a terrorist in Gitmo. Should I be enslaved? Why is the answer “no” now but “yes” then?

One final thing, I want to ask again something I brought up earlier and haven’t gotten much of an answer: Was God unable to conceive of a set of morals to give to his people in the desert (who at the time hadn’t owned slaves for four centuries) that didn’t include slavery?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Does anyone ever deserve to be beaten or whipped?

To be fair Thorolfr, I did find one source that strongly approved of whipping:

When a problem comes along you must whip it
Before the cream sets out too long you must whip it
When something’s goin’ wrong you must whip it

Also this source explains how one can’t just willy-nilly things. There are certain instructions on how to so-called “whip it good”:

Now whip it
Into shape
Shape it up
Get straight
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to detect it
It’s not too late
To whip it
Whip it good

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

God only allowed Israel to own foreign slaves.
As I have explained, the reason for it was because-- until Jesus coming-- there were no covenants between God and those foreigners. (Later, Jesus redeem the whole world, this include all humanity)

On the contrary to the above, God did NOT ALLOW slavery among the children of Israel, because:

Leviticus25:42. `For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale.

Not allowing slavery among own fellowmen is the stress of the teaching. This rule of forbidden slavery among our own fellowmen is bound by a covenant that binds tightly so that God has the right to punish according to the law whoever breach of the covenants.

I doubt many can take confort in the idea that one group of people weren’t allowed to be enslaved. How does this teach people not to sin, to live peacably, to love one another? One thing that non-Christians tell Christians is that the God the Father seems completely different than God the Son. Statements like yours that suggest that God the Father was only concerned with the Israelites, as opposed to Jesus, reinforce such statements.

Something that I quote (maybe too often) on CAF is a television movie called “God On Trial”, a story where a group of Jewish men in a concentration camp question whether God has broken his covenant with them. There is a scene where a Rabbi is relaying some of the cruely God in the Bible had enacted on non-Israelites.

Rabbi: Did the Amalekites think that Adonai was just?

Did the mothers of Egypt – the mothers – did they think that Adonai was just?

Scholar: But Adonai is our God, surely…

Rabbi: Oh, what? Did God not make the Egyptians? Did he not make their rivers and make their crops grow? If not him, then who? What? Some other God? But what did he make them for? To punish them? To starve, to frighten, to slaughter them? The people of Amalek, the people of Egypt, what was it like for them when Adonai turned against them? It was like this.

Surely God should be wise enough and loving enough to tell his people not to engage in cruelty with anyone – whether he or she be Israelite or not. What you describe of love only towards his select and horror towards the rest paints a very ugly picture.

I suppose God was also trying to teach the difference between “servants” and “slaves” too, but it didn’t work. Israel enslaved their “hebrew servants” too and obstinately refused to let them go as they promised God. Until now there are many employers in developing countries who treat their employee in a slave-like manners. Just because slavery continue to happened–even in the Old Testament time, God didn’t allowed hebrew slaves-- yet there were many hebrew slaves at the time, and until nowadays there are modern day slavery.

Maybe he should have just told his people not to enslave anybody just as he said not to kill.

Just because there are slavery until today, doesn’t mean God allow it.

A superior can’t tell another below them how specifically to perform an act and how not to perform an act, and state how doing it the right way will bring no punishment, and then claim the superior isn’t allowing said act.

In the passage in my previous post above I showed you that in the book of leviticus, deuteronomy, and Jeremiah, God consistently was trying (and is still trying) to teach Israel/ us to free their/ our fellowmen from slavery, because God first of all have freed Israel/ us from Egypt/ sin.

If one were looking to have the Israelites free their people from slavery he wouldn’t allow slaveowners to blackmail their slaves into staying indefinitiely because they love the families they gained while enslaved.

And even if you were correct, God is calling on his people to expand the number of slaves by telling his people to purchase them and that the children they make are also slaves.

Understand that this call to eliminate Israelite-on-Israelite slavery won’t convince people that this was all a plan to eliminate slavery in total.

Your post above shows that “freedom” is actually “a revelation” to our humanity/ culture.

Freedom is too good for our understanding, we do not know what “freedom from slavery” means until it is revealed layer by layer to us/ to our culture in God’s time. Slavery by sin comes in many layers and many different forms both in our natural/ spiritual life as individual/ as a people.

How do you believe “freedom” and/or “freedom from slavery” was revealed to us?

 

[ALoveDivine]

Maybe, just maybe…not everything the Jews wrote down as the words of God were in fact the words of God. Perhaps these passages reflect the Jews fallible and incomplete understanding of God at that time. Compare what you see as God’s words in those “law” books to God’s words in the books of the prophets.

I have a litmus test. If words attributed to God agree with the words of Christ (who is the fullness of the revelation of God), then we can take them as verbatim words of God. If they contradict Christ in any way, we can attribute them to the ancient Hebrew understanding of God.

I could be wrong of course, but this is how I kind of see it. We Catholics are not fundamentalist protestants, and we are not bound by a literalist hermeneutic.

 

[juliamajor]

why did God allow slavery in the bible? why is it permitted now? what’s your excuse? Most moderns just pretend it doesn’t exist. they’d rather talk about Biblical “shortcomings” than the do something about it. they turn a blind eye to the `horrible deaths being perpetrated against Christians ( it’s probably because they are christians that they are left to the wolves, because, you know they probably deserved it!) . So instead of getting your panties in a twist over something that may or may not have instituted whynot concern yourselves with the here and now or the multitude of blood during the 20th and 21st centuries . the body count for both these centuries far outnumber anything in the biblical past. So why the superior attitude? Rapes and murders still occur and injustices happen in abundance.

 

[Achilles6129]

Maybe, just maybe…not everything the Jews wrote down as the words of God were in fact the words of God. Perhaps these passages reflect the Jews fallible and incomplete understanding of God at that time. Compare what you see as God’s words in those “law” books to God’s words in the books of the prophets.

I have a litmus test. If words attributed to God agree with the words of Christ (who is the fullness of the revelation of God), then we can take them as verbatim words of God. If they contradict Christ in any way, we can attribute them to the ancient Hebrew understanding of God.

I could be wrong of course, but this is how I kind of see it. We Catholics are not fundamentalist protestants, and we are not bound by a literalist hermeneutic.

Christ himself has slaves in the NT. And Paul himself talks about slavery in the NT, and exhorts slaves to be obedient to their masters.

 

[Tomdstone]

And Paul himself talks about slavery in the NT, and exhorts slaves to be obedient to their masters.

IMHO, a black female slave should not have to obey her white European slavemaster, especially when it involves something immoral.

 

[Achilles6129]

Mike, your ideas of slavery simply aren’t Biblical. While the Israelites did unquestionably have slaves, they did not treat them unjustly or cruelly. That’s something that you’re adding into Scripture. The idea, over and over again in Scripture, is that people outside of God are evil. That’s the reason why God tells the Israelites to take them as slaves and, in some cases, to exterminate them.

I’d like to hear you address this instead of running around in circles making claims that aren’t in the Torah and that are in fact contradicted by the Torah.

 

[Achilles6129]

IMHO, a black female slave should not have to obey her white European slavemaster, especially when it involves something immoral.

Paul never said obey them when it’s immoral. And why the racism?

 

[Achilles6129]

why did God allow slavery in the bible? why is it permitted now? what’s your excuse? Most moderns just pretend it doesn’t exist. they’d rather talk about Biblical “shortcomings” than the do something about it. they turn a blind eye to the `horrible deaths being perpetrated against Christians ( it’s probably because they are christians that they are left to the wolves, because, you know they probably deserved it!) . So instead of getting your panties in a twist over something that may or may not have instituted whynot concern yourselves with the here and now or the multitude of blood during the 20th and 21st centuries . the body count for both these centuries far outnumber anything in the biblical past. So why the superior attitude? Rapes and murders still occur and injustices happen in abundance.

Let me ask you: why would you say that God allows these things to happen today? And when is he going to intervene to stop them?