When atheists say the Bible supports slavery

[wondrousgnat]

It was the Supreme Court that said a. slave was 3/5 of a human. It also said a fetis is not person.
Seems the agrument should be with the. jurists

Actually that 3/5 was in the constitution. It was a compromise between slave owners who wanted more political clout and the slave opponents who knew they would never vote. It was removed from the Constitution in 1867.
And Roe v Wade proved that the Supreme Court is far from infallible, as well as its continuence to not overrule it.

 

[exnihilo]

Don’t confus increasing slave rights at the end of the Roman empire as representing their treatment over several thousand years.

Net, I argue colonial slavery was not much different from biblical slavery.

I think you are probably right. I dont claim to be an expert on the subject, but in my experience many people who express the idea that ancient slavery was better than US slavery know even less than I do. There seems to be an effort to paint ancient slavery as something entirely different than the recent form in order to avoid the issue of slavery as treated in the Bible.

During the Civil War there were secret organizations, such as the Knights of the Golden Circle,who planned to expand slavery to Central America and Cuba after the South won the war.

So far as I know slavery existed in every country in the New World. It was ended in Cuba in and Brazil in the 1880s, a good bit after the war. So I do not think the goal would have been to expand slavery.

Toward the end of the war several generals, including Robert E Lee, argued for the enlistment of Blacks. But the president of the Confederate Congress opposed the idea stating thatthere was no purpose then for the war. Enlistment did occur but it was too late for them to see combat.

As I understand it Black Confederates, slave and free, did actually serve the Confederate army. Specific campaigns to enlist were planned towards the end of the war. Interestingly the last Confederate general to surrender was Stand Waite a Cherokee. The fact that the Cherokee nation fought with the Confederacy is completely ignored.

After the war Nathan Bedford Forrest and the man who wrote the rule book for the Masons created the KKK (Forrest later left in what may have been a religious conversion). The KKK, as we all know, grew quite powerful throughout the South and the North. Segregation and Jim Crowe laws also existed.

Of course the Klan is a complicated issue. Some of what it did was to protect the good people of the South against atrocities from the occupying army and government. There is a good reason why the South had a very negative view of Reconstruction until public education was able to erase if from the collective memory.

A form of slavery existed well into the 1950s in the presence of chain gangs. Blacks were often convicted of crimes they did not commit and even of “crimes” that never even happened.

The 13th Amendment is careful to exclude public slavery. It is very clear in allowing slavery so long as you’ve been convicted of a crime. Of course a strict interpretation of the language would also make conscription for the army unconstitutional since you are being forced to involuntarily serve without having been convicted of a crime.

 

[NonServiam]

The arguments that “Biblical slavery was a different kind of slavery!” or “The early Christians thought the world was going to end soon, so of course they didn’t advocate radical political change!” both miss the entire point of the objection.

The objection is that the Bible was supposedly inspired by (what Christians claim is) the all-good source of morality. If that is the case, then why did God not explicitly say that it’s wrong for one human being to own another? Why is it not, for example, one of the ten commandments? Why, instead, does it look as if the Bible is simply the product of its time, a time in which the owning of one human being by another was acceptable?

 

[Farsight001]

The arguments that “Biblical slavery was a different kind of slavery!” or “The early Christians thought the world was going to end soon, so of course they didn’t advocate radical political change!” both miss the entire point of the objection.

The objection is that the Bible was supposedly inspired by (what Christians claim is) the all-good source of morality. If that is the case, then why did God not explicitly say that it’s wrong for one human being to own another? Why is it not, for example, one of the ten commandments? Why, instead, does it look as if the Bible is simply the product of its time, a time in which the owning of one human being by another was acceptable?

Why would he have to say it in the bible? Where is it written that all of God’s truth must be contained within the bible?

 

[RebeccaJ]

I can’t say I’m much of a bible scholar so that’s why I am asking this question… When atheist throw the old “the Bible supports slavery” line, what should one say?

A common (and erroneous) approach to the Bible, by a lot of atheists and others, is faulty in a couple of ways. First, applying modern cultural ideas to the past. Anyone who has taken a basic anthropology course in college will be taught this road leads to conclusions that don’t reflect the culture/people of the time, but one’s own perspective.

Second is, the approach to Scripture that denies the humanness of it. Scripture is the inspired word of God, given to us through humans. Humans exist in a context of culture, culture being, societal norms/beliefs, religious beliefs, symbols, creativity, etc.

“The Bible supports slavery”, is a statement that comes from prooftexting, which of course, requires a removal of context. It is a cleverly worded phrase as well, as the Bible doesn’t support slavery, as in, political support, or divine command, it describes cultural practices and religious norms associated to the practice, within a culture.

Which, is why pointing out difference in forms of slavery is relevant. The culture of slavery in Biblical times, as already pointed out, was not the same as slavery in the Americas.

In Biblical times, slavery was fluid, one could be born free, and circumstances could cause one to become a slave. Victories of war being the most common, misfortunes such as Joseph in Egypt, another. But like Joseph, a person could be freed from slavery through fortunate events.

Biblical slavery was by and large not generational, except in the case of Egypt and the Hebrews held as slaves. A person who was born to a slave was not automatically a slave themselves.

Also, American slavery was brutal, in reducing the dignity and worth of a slave to that of an animal (or less). This view of slaves was never held in Biblical times, as evident by the religious laws being proscribed to treat slaves with dignity, as humans, in the Bible, and contemporary writings.

 

[aicirt]

Googled “Last nation to prohibit slavery”. Came up with some interesting info. Niger was one of the last along with a bunch of Arab countries including Saudi Arabria. Many allowed it into the 21 century.

Also it is noted that Babylon stopped it about 600 BC. It allowed the Jews to leave about 500 BC.

PBS has a show on tracing one’s ancestry. There were 60,000 free blacks in the US at the time of the Civil War. Some owned slaves. Many owned members of their own families to keep them safe. A slave was a slave if the mother was a slave. A white woman had a child by a slave in 1635 in Virginia. The child was free. The mother received lashings for fornication and creating a bastard. The child’s line continued to be free down through the Civil War. A slave could bring suit against a master for keeping him/her a slave. One slave woman did just that and was freed. Did it happen often? Don’t know and if I were a slave, I’d be afraid to try.