Slavery in the bible.

[YouAreAwesome]

Are you advocating that it's ok to have slaves as long as it's in their benefit?

Yep.

Slavery benefits slave owners far more than the slaves.

The truth of this statement doesn't negate that slaves are also benefited though.

I guess you could say slavery is better than death and in that sense the slaves are getting a benefit.

For sure.

But at the same time they have no means by which to accumulate wealth in return for their labor in order to improved their life situation for themselves or their offspring. Entering into an agreement which is equally mutually beneficial to both parties is called paid labour.

It's clear they are not being given every opportunity in life, just a better life or life itself.

We find ownership of people morally objectionable in our society, whatever the reason. This wasn't always the case, and the Bible reflects that. It's essentially an argument of objective morality, we all agree that slavery it's morally abhorrent yet the Bible doesn't seem to think so.

Agree that we, in today's society, see slavery as morally objectionable and that they didn't see it that way back then. Is it not an available option that it was good then and bad now?

So then how can one claim the Bible to be a source of objective morality?

I guess it's a difficulty for those that do see the Bible as the source of objective morality. I don't make this claim so I don't have to worry about it As you know, I think we should figure out what is best for all through the standard of love.

 

[Everybodyknows]

That is not what I meant. I apologize if I was not clear. God does not lower His standard. But God does use means to glorify Himself. God uses evil by His sovereign decree, but that does not make Him less than perfect or the author of evil. God allowed Pharoah to enslave Israel for a time, so that God could set the Israelites free to show His mercy and grace on the people of Israel, and to show His judgment on the false gods of Egypt and the Egyptians for following after false gods. God decree that Joseph was to be sold into slavery so that God would later use Joseph to preserve His people, even though Joseph's brothers intended it for evil.

So what if God was using the general practice of slavery in some manner to demonstrate His glory? Apart from the grace of God, we are all enslaved. We are slaves to sin. But by the work of grace by God, we become slaves to righteousness.

I'll contend with the point that God doesn't lower his standards. It seems to be exactly what he does. I assume we agree that God finds slavery immoral/evil. When God in his law given to Israel explicitly condones the practice of slavery it necessarily follows that God has lowered the standard. It's not merely God using evil events or behaviour for his purpose, he is making statements about what is permissible and what is not permissible. If he really thinks slavery is bad, he doesn't say it.

My primary point I was attempting to make, although I know I was not completely clear, is that when we look at the practice of slavery and the laws that God gave to the ancient Israelites concerning slavery, we far too often look at it from the modern lens and completely ignore what is going on at that time, in that place, with those particular people. We think we have the right to judge God's actions and laws, when we don't have that right at all.

If God's laws need to be understood within a specific cultural context to make sense then can we say it is morally objective? More like culturally subjective in my opinion. I don't judge the Israelites for keeping slaves any more than I judge the ancient Egyptians for the same practice. I agree that it is not helpful to look at ancient cultures through the lens of modern morality. They were different times and had different values to what we have now.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Yep.

The truth of this statement doesn't negate that slaves are also benefited though.

For sure.

It's clear they are not being given every opportunity in life, just a better life or life itself.

Ok. Where can I get me some of them slaves then?

Agree that we, in today's society, see slavery as morally objectionable and that they didn't see it that way back then. Is it not an available option that it was good then and bad now?

In all seriousness though, above you say it's ok to have slaves (as long as it is in some way in their benefit) and here you say slavery is morally objectionable. Which is it?

I guess it's a difficulty for those that do see the Bible as the source of objective morality. I don't make this claim so I don't have to worry about it As you know, I think we should figure out what is best for all through the standard of love.

I don't view the Bible as a statement of objective morality either, but since 95% of Christians seem to make that claim, I was merely highlighting what the usual argument is.

I believe morality is continually evolving, it doesn't stop with scripture. I believe morality is more meaningful when we discover it for ourselves rather than having it dictated to us.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

above you say it's ok to have slaves (as long as it is in some way in their benefit) and here you say slavery is morally objectionable. Which is it?

I guess at this point in my mind it seems okay to have slaves if it's to their benefit. What I was trying to say was, in today's society people view slavery as wrong, and in today's society I can't think of how it would help the slave--so I agree that today it is wrong--though maybe there are some circumstances where it might save some lives? And if so, in this sense, maybe there is still some place for it. Seems weird to say though... maybe I'm missing something... And I do like the six year thing with the option of leaving, seems like a pretty generous deal for saving the family's lives.

I don't view the Bible as a statement of objective morality either, but since 95% of Christians seem to make that claim, I was merely highlighting what the usual argument is.

Good luck to them defending that view...

I believe morality is continually evolving, it doesn't stop with scripture. I believe morality is more meaningful when we discover it for ourselves rather than having it dictated to us.

For sure.

 

[Everybodyknows]

I guess at this point in my mind it seems okay to have slaves if it's to their benefit. What I was trying to say was, in today's society people view slavery as wrong, and in today's society I can't think of how it would help the slave--so I agree that today it is wrong--though maybe there are some circumstances where it might save some lives? And if so, in this sense, maybe there is still some place for it. Seems weird to say though... maybe I'm missing something...

Ok let's play the game of hypotheticals. Imagine I own a factory here in Australia. So I go somewhere like Bangladesh, find orphans on the street and offer them a deal. You come and work for me and I will ensure your basic needs are met (plenty of food, quality accommodation, I'll even throw in some entertainment and one day off a week).

Fine print: I will be your owner for life. You will be my property. Any children born to you will also be my property. You will live in the compound I have built which you will never leave. You will do as I say and work for me until your death. In return you will never go hungry or homeless, and will probably live a far better life than you ever could have had here.

If I actually tried this I would be shut down faster than you could say 'objective morality'. But if I could get away with it would you consider it immoral? I've given some pretty good benefits.

And I do like the six year thing with the option of leaving, seems like a pretty generous deal for saving the family's lives.

The term for this is indentured servitude, technically not slavery.

An indentured servant or indentured laborer is an employee within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a signed or forced contract to work for a particular employer for a fixed time.
​

This is what God allowed for the Hebrews to do to each other. They were not to enslave one another. But from other nations they were permitted to take slaves in the true sense.

 

[elliott95]

Yes, people eventually came to recognize slavery as being immoral, but it still hasn't stopped it happening today.
What is not a pointless question is, how is it that a supposedly all-powerful omniscient being didn't appear to recognize the immorality of slavery? The bible records this being punishing people, often by having them killed, if they committed acts it considered offensive to its being, but not for being involved in slavery. Instead, this being produces the slave owners guide to good slave keeping, which can only be interpreted as condoning the practice. What do you think?

The slavery that happens today is the province of pimps and criminals, and otherwise very creepy people. It is the dregs of society, the ISIS, and the ruthless who for the most part operate in the dark. Slavery is against the law everywhere, with Saudi Arabia, from what I recall, being the last to make it illegal somewhere around 1960.
This is something that is unprecedented in human history, and likely even in human prehistory. Slave owners even up to one hundred and fifty years ago were esteemed and privileged members of their perspective societies throughout all of human history until that time.


Now I don't presume to understand the ways of God, and I don't second guess him as you do. But, we can have some inkling about is human nature. Human nature is such that Japanese military leaders in the second world war used their POWS to test the effects of frostbite by freezing their arms in place and then pouring boiling water over their frozen limbs until the flesh flayed off. Human history is filled with such examples of incredible cruelty, and I think if we are all honest with ourselves, we might know that our own imaginations are not also sometimes given over to acts of cruelty to those who we are fighting with.
This is the kind of human nature that we are dealing with. The earth from the very beginning, from the time of Cain and Abel, was polluted with the blood of the murdered and the oppressed, and this is the humanity that God chose not to wipe out in the Flood.

Now that we are in a positon to self-destruct, through birth control and abortion, and weapons of mass destruction, it is hard to say if we will make the same choice as God did, and keep the human race going.
But in the meantime, it is all about how to get from there to here, from the there of dominance and enslavement no doubt inherited from the gene pool we share with the dominace hierarchies of chimpanzees and the animal kingdom, to the here of slavery being outlawed.
Now you don't have to believe in that supposed omniscient King Monkey in the Sky if you don't wish. You can play the aha gotcha game with the Bible all you want.
It doesn't change the fact that the way we got from there to here on the issue of slavery in the nineteenth century is with people reading their Bibles, and figuring out a way.
Now the way that I see it, the Bible is not a simplistic sort of text. It is honest and it is deep, and it contains the struggles and the missteps of people from the bronze age, or earlier, and moreover preserving even earlier oral traditions into their efforts to find out where the good lies The lessons of the Bible have to give are therefore both ageless and progressive. We still struggle to find out where the good lies. Our story of our struggle with God has not been written yet.
But here is the amazing thing. People connecting with the ageless stories of the Bible were able to achieve something that is completely new in human history, and even human prehistory. They were able to create a sustainable world without slavery.
You can dismiss the supposedly omniscient God all you want, but the fact remains that you didn't end slavery. Those in Britain a scant few hundred years back did that for you, and they did it through being inspired by the hopes and dreams of Bronze Age people, and the people that even proceeded them.
Dismiss it all you want. In my books that is pretty remarkable, something to remember about the British.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Of course I'm not saying that having to work is slavery. I was merely saying that whether the economy is based on slavery or not, it functions (until something stops it functioning at all). And I would suggest that not one economy functions perfectly.

Fair point, but the discussion is about the morality of slavery not perfect economies.

Well, who's 'we'? For all I know there have always been people who have believed slavery is wrong...but that doesn't mean that they were necessarily in a position to do anything about it. I would guess that many people simply accepted the status quo.
When people are brought up in a particular culture and mind-set and are taught a certain way, then I think it can perhaps be very difficult for things to change. For example, take apartheid in S Africa. I watched a documentary years ago, where young children, maybe 5 or 6year old, took it for granted that their black servants could perhaps be more or less treated like dirt. This is what they were brought up with.
Also, look at segregation in the USA. There were people who disagreed with it, but they could get into trouble with the law if they for example had black people coming into white churches etc. Fortunately, it took Rosa (can't remember her surname) and that amazing figure Martin Luther-King, to bring an end to it (even though there would still appear to be plenty of prejudice, not only in America but other countries).

We as in society as a whole. Slavery is illegal in most countries. Why did people's values and moral ideals change enough that laws against slavery were brought in?

 

[Everybodyknows]

Your focus on the specifics of this or that passage to the exclusion of the hugeness of the overlying themes

Why are the specifics at odds with the overlying themes?

I see the trees too, and have even given an explanation on how Jewish rabbis have explained certain of these rules on "slavery" have worked in establishing a means of upward social mobility. That post has been so far ignored completely.

That's because I find it a poor reason for the justification of slavery. So it's ok to enslave tens of thousands because occasionally some pretty little slave might get taken as a wife by her master? Slaves marrying non-slaves has always been a huge social taboo wherever slavery was practiced, so I would imagine the occurrence was so exceptionally rare that it doesn't warrant any merit as a justification for slavery.

 

[Allandavid]

I don't follow sorry.

You spoke about your position as being a “logical” one.

I think that, when we examine the manner in which the bible stories are written and who they seem to benefit, it is a very compelling conclusion that these stories were quite clearly written to present the Jews in a favourable light.

Their god favours them over all other races.
They have been “promised” a homeland by that god.
Their god approves of their practice of keeping slaves and of a variety of other cruel behaviours.

It’s a very early example of “the winners get to write the history”...

 

[YouAreAwesome]

You spoke about your position as being a “logical” one.

I think that, when we examine the manner in which the bible stories are written and who they seem to benefit, it is a very compelling conclusion that these stories were quite clearly written to present the Jews in a favourable light.

Their god favours them over all other races.
They have been “promised” a homeland by that god.
Their god approves of their practice of keeping slaves and of a variety of other cruel behaviours.

It’s a very early example of “the winners get to write the history”...

Ah ok, fair point, I can see why one might see it that way.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

Ok let's play the game of hypotheticals. Imagine I own a factory here in Australia. So I go somewhere like Bangladesh, find orphans on the street and offer them a deal. You come and work for me and I will ensure your basic needs are met (plenty of food, quality accommodation, I'll even throw in some entertainment and one day off a week).

Fine print: I will be your owner for life. You will be my property. Any children born to you will also be my property. You will live in the compound I have built which you will never leave. You will do as I say and work for me until your death. In return you will never go hungry or homeless, and will probably live a far better life than you ever could have had here.

If I actually tried this I would be shut down faster than you could say 'objective morality'. But if I could get away with it would you consider it immoral? I've given some pretty good benefits.

I actually think this is not as clear cut as it would appear at first glance. Are the children going to starve to death? Are you asking the parents if you can take the children? Are you asking both the parents and the children to come? It's actually a tricky one because if those children are going to die soon after then it seems to be saving their lives... not sure. How do you think about it?

 

[Everybodyknows]

I actually think this is not as clear cut as it would appear at first glance. Are the children going to starve to death?

Maybe. Life is pretty rough on the streets of Dhaka. They could be abducted by sex traffickers, die of disease or worse.

Are you asking the parents if you can take the children? Are you asking both the parents and the children to come?

They're orphans

It's actually a tricky one because if those children are going to die soon after then it seems to be saving their lives... not sure. How do you think about it?

I think it's a pretty sweet deal for me, I get practically free labor, they get a better life than they probably would have had. If they breed and I end up with more than I need I can even sell some to other factories.

 

[Another Lazarus]

Is paid labour immoral?

It isnt, slavery was also common in all part of the world in ancient times, God didnt create it, man did. As God didnt create the poverty.

God created this world full of abundancy for everyone, its just mankind doesnt share with the poor that they have been forced by this situation to become slaves.

 

[Allandavid]

It isnt, slavery was also common in all part of the world in ancient times, God didnt create it, man did. As God didnt create the poverty.

Yes, but according to your religion, your god regularly intervened when he felt that mankind weren’t behaving satisfactorily. He threw Adam and Eve out of the garden for their behaviour. He scrambled man’s languages because of their behaviour at Babel. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for bad behaviour. For Pete’s sake....he flooded the entire planet to punish bad behaviour...!

So, if slavery were truly a problem for him, if it really offended his ‘moral law’, he surely would have done something to stop it...!

It’s almost like humans invented the slavery and then invented a god to conveniently condone it....

 

[YouAreAwesome]

I think it's a pretty sweet deal for me, I get practically free labor, they get a better life than they probably would have had. If they breed and I end up with more than I need I can even sell some to other factories.

Like I said, I haven't looked into this issue at all, except for this thread.

So first up, the slave trade of the ancient world, it was "once a slave always a slave including all offspring"? And this is how the Hebrews also dealt with slaves, not a six year thing, but life? And all offspring for life? I should probably just look this up myself but I'm too tired... gonna go ring the bedtime bell...

 

[Allandavid]

Like I said, I haven't looked into this issue at all, except for this thread.

So first up, the slave trade of the ancient world, it was "once a slave always a slave including all offspring"? And this is how the Hebrews also dealt with slaves, not a six year thing, but life? And all offspring for life? I should probably just look this up myself but I'm too tired... gonna go ring the bedtime bell...

Yep, that’s how it worked....

 

[joshua 1 9]

Like I said, I haven't looked into this issue at all, except for this thread.

So first up, the slave trade of the ancient world, it was "once a slave always a slave including all offspring"? And this is how the Hebrews also dealt with slaves, not a six year thing, but life? And all offspring for life? I should probably just look this up myself but I'm too tired... gonna go ring the bedtime bell...

Slavery is not the same as a indentured servant. In Israel every 7 years there was a jubilee and all servants were set free. If they wanted they could sign up for another 7 years. In China today on New Years everyone gets a weeks vacation to go home to be with their family. After the New Year around 20% of the people do not return to their job. They look for a different job, because they have the freedom to do that.

A prisoner of war could be kept until the golden jubilee that took place every 49 or 50 years, whatever the math was on that. In the south when they should have let their slaves go free after no more then 50 years of service they did not do that. They passed laws that were a violation of the Bible.

 

[mark kennedy]

Even in the 21st century, it is a sad fact the slavery is still happening in the world. Most people find this disgusting practice to be totally repugnant and immoral. Slavery was very common in biblical times and it seems strange that the biblical god did not condemn the practice of having slaves, but instead gave instructions on the keeping of slaves. The same god that condemned a man to death for simply gathering sticks on the Sabbath, a "crime" hardly in the same league as slavery.
So the question is quite simply this. Do you consider it morally acceptable to consider another human being to be your property?

Philemon is a book with some insights. Onsemus was a slave who escaped his master, both were Christians. Paul has him return to his master with that letter. In another letter Onesumus was the name of the pastor in Ephesus leading scholrs to wonder if this is the same guy.

Dr Stanley Livingston was a missionary who wanted to stop slavery by exposing it. His idea was to establish trade routes across Africa and when people find out about what slavery is it will be abolished. Wilberforce was a devout Christian who successfully led the movement to end slavery in England.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The new Museum of the Bible confronts the challenge of presenting slavery and the Confederacy

The leaders of the Museum of the Bible asked many scholars for input about how to depict the Bible’s role in slavery and the Civil War, and ultimately chose to include the Confederate imagery. “We have to acknowledge the proslavery argument was often drawn from the Bible,” said Seth Pollinger, the museum’s director of content.

It was a fraught choice. Jonathan Alger stood last week in the nearly completed exhibit on the impact of the Bible in the world that his firm, C&G Partners, designed for the museum. He looked at the case showing proslavery arguments based on the Bible, including a 19th-century book titled, “A Brief Examination of Scriptural Testimony on the Institution of Slavery.”

The case is beside a companion display of abolitionist arguments based in Scripture. Next to that, a display heralds the formation of the black church in United States. But Alger’s gaze lingered on the historic texts arguing that human bondage was sanctioned by the Bible.

“There are people who don’t even want to see that. And there are people who still agree with that,” he said darkly. “I just hope no one ever puts a brick through it.”

...

If visitors step forward, they’ll see the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address inscribed just behind the Civil War tapestry: “Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No.
That was a nineteenth century problem solved by Christians, for the most part.

Don't forget to mention that those who wanted to keep slavery legal, were also waving with a bible as a basis for their opinion.


Also, this doesn't change the fact that the bible regulates slavery and doesn't condemn it anywhere.