Comment by foxygen
16 hours ago
Since you said in another comment that the ten commandments would be a good starting point for moral absolutes, and that lying is sinful, I'm assuming you take your morals from God. I'd like to add that slavery seemed to be okay on Leviticus 25:44-46. Is the bible atrocious too, according to your own view?
Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt.
Just because something was reported to have happened in the Bible, doesn't always mean it condones it. I see you left off many of the newer passages about slavery that would refute your suggestion that the Bible condones it.
> Slavery in the time of Leviticus was not always the chattel slavery most people think of from the 18th century. For fellow Israelites, it was typically a form of indentured servitude, often willingly entered into to pay off a debt.
If you were an indentured slave and gave birth to children, those children were not indentured slaves, they were chattel slaves. Exodus 21:4:
> If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.
The children remained the master's permanent property, and they could not participate in Jubilee. Also, three verses later:
> When a man sells his daughter as a slave...
The daughter had no say in this. By "fellow Israelites," you actually mean adult male Israelites in clean legal standing. If you were a woman, or accused of a crime, or the subject of Israelite war conquests, you're out of luck. Let me know if you would like to debate this in greater academic depth.
It's also debatable then as now whether anyone ever "willingly" became a slave to pay off their debts. Debtors' prisons don't have a great ethical record, historically speaking.
Cherry picking the bible isn't going to get you any closer to understanding. There are a lot of reasons God ordained society in a certain way. Keep reading and you'll discover that is a much more complex situation than you let on. Also don't let your modern ideals get in the way of understanding an ancient culture and a loving God.
At least nowadays we have the upper moral hand because the debtors prison has become so large and comprehensive you think you’re not in it.
So it was a different kind of slavery. Still, God seemed okay with the idea that humans could be bought and sold, and said the fellow humans would then become your property. I can't see how that isn't the bible allowing slavery. And if the newer passages disallows it, does that mean God's moral changed over time?
You mean well in ignoring their argument, but please don't let people get away with whitewashing history! It was not a "different kind of slavery." See my comment. The chattel slavery incurred by the Israelites on foreign peoples was significant. Pointing out that standards of slavery toward other (male, noncriminal) Israelites were different than toward foreigners is the same rhetoric as pointing out that from 1600-1800, Britain may have engaged in chattel slavery across the African continent, but at least they only threw their fellow British citizens in debtors' prisons.
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God has changed since Genesis.
Why haven’t we all?
Have you ever read any treatment of a subject, or any somewhat comprehensive text, or anything that at least tries to be, and not found anything you disagreed with, anything that was at least questionable.
Are you proposing we cancel the entire scientific endeavour because its practitioners are often wrong and not infrequently, and increasingly so, intentionally deceptive.
Should we burn libraries because they contain books you don’t like.
What I agree or disagree with the bible is irrelevant. He is claiming moral is objective, unchanging and comes from God. God allowed slavery at some point, as that bible passage shows. So his options are to admit that either slavery is moral, or morality is not objective/unchanging. That's the point I was trying to make.