Is Slavery Moral?

[Moral Orel]

Never? I keep a list of everyone who's reported me...that I can be certain of...just so I know what rules they play by. This being a christian community and all...I've got no issue with doing unto others as they've done unto me. I've got no qualms about insulting someone's argument though.

Other than that...it would have to be pretty flagrant and egregious. I can only think of one poster I reported first...and they had basically stopped responding to my arguments almost altogether and instead spent their time insulting me, my intelligence, making false claims about me, etc. I'm not talking about one thread either...but thread after thread after thread. It got to the point I couldn't have a rational discussion anymore (which I think was this poster's goal all along). So I waited till they threw another insult and reported them...it took one post lol.

They don't reply to me anymore (they may have me on ignore, I'm not sure) but on the upside....they now formulate insults very carefully, trying to mask them as if they're talking about an unnamed 3rd party even if it's clear who they are talking about.

I won't put anyone on ignore though....that seems childish.

Yep, never. I had a guy call me a "cuck" once because he was drunk and wanted to pick a fight. I bantered for a bit, but it's still here for people to see him make a fool of himself. It's buried a quite a few pages back by now, but even though he sobered up and edited his posts in shame, all of my quoting of him is still there lol.

No ignore list either. I don't want people to be able to refute something I've said without being able to correct them.

 

[Moral Orel]

I'm having trouble finding something to reply to your most recent post that I didn't already address, so I'm just going to quote myself in reply to these. I'll bold the pertinent parts so that you notice them.

You:

So if you buy a house or car....fully paid straight cash....and you go into debt or are fined in some way and have it taken from you...you never owned it?

You can own land "legally"....but the government can also take it from you literally anytime it wants....so is it not really property?

And yet it's those assets which have easily defined value and can be liquidated easily which are almost always the first to go....it's not as if you get to choose to keep your car and give up your beanie baby collection.

I see what you mean though...but there's other kinds of asset forfeiture which aren't debt related. Try to cross the border with 25,000$ without declaring it and see what happens....it won't even matter if the money is legally yours.

Also see my land example above...there need be no debt involved....and the compensation for your land need not be what you consider fair.

Now me:

Ownership, however, is lifelong unless the owner decides to give it up, or it is taken from him.

So yes, a third party can take ownership of the things you own. If Jim takes ownership of himself again, and always had the ability to do so, then he was never really owned by Bob. Jim always owned himself and had the ability to remove himself from any situation he didn't like. Just like pets. They can't take ownership of themselves, but a third party can seize them from you and cause you to not own them anymore.

If the time period was predetermined, that control of Jim returns to Jim after a set amount of time, then Jim only rented himself to Bob, much like you would rent a U-Haul. You don't own that truck while it's in your possession, U-Haul does. You may be treating it like property, and acting in generally the same manner as if you owned it, but you don't really own it.

You:

Even your explanation here admits the obvious point...."most people" is not "all people"...and if you're going to declare a moral fact that exists apart from any context, it will need to apply to all people all the time....otherwise its not a moral fact.

So what's wrong with consensual slavery? I don't really care if you want to define it as lifelong....as long as both consenting parties understand this prior to entering such an agreement.

Now me:

Mostly that's a case of preferences given a short list of possibilities. If offered a decent paying job, enough to buy a house and raise a family, most folks wouldn't want to go back to their masters. But even those that do, would want to retain the right to leave at any time their master turns cruel, or leaves them in the care of his cruel children. I find it hard to believe that just because they wanted to go back to that life that they also wanted to forfeit their right to change their mind whenever they pleased. And if they can do that, then they aren't owned by another person.

So most people won't want to, and the few that do would still want to retain their rights. That covers everybody.

But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that if there were someone who would at some point in their life desire to forfeit all of their rights, is the person who takes ownership being moral? Obviously, the slave in this scenario isn't who we're questioning the morality of, just the owner.

If Jim changes his mind later on, and Bob says, "Tough noogies! You signed a contract, you're mine!", that would require a strong lack of empathy and an unreasonable amount of self interest to do.

If Bob always intended to let Jim go if he did ever change his mind, regardless of what was said during the initial agreement, then he never really considered himself to be the owner of Jim. He was merely treating him like property.

 

[Sanoy]

We can't make conclusions on anything that He doesn't specifically mention. Like my analogy to murder, it doesn't work to broaden what He said to other topics. We may have to disagree on this. If He says nothing should change, and then mentions only a few things that should change, I would say that we should assume anything He doesn't mention shouldn't change. This would make His initial statement only a little less than accurate. But if what is meant that a lot of other things He doesn't mention should change, then His earlier statement is false and meaningless.

What he have here is sufficient to deny the proposition that Jesus is confirming the national law. As far as whether He is leaving the rest intact let me make two points.

• We should not expect Christ to go through every law on the mountain if He wanted to teach a deeper understanding of the law. So the unmentioned laws are not indicative in any way of their confirmation
  
• If He wants to show that the law is incomplete He will show a few points from which people can understand how the entire law is incomplete. And that is consistent with his teachings through parables and self teaching examples. And we see in Luke 10:27 where Christ confirms that the true law is merely 2 commands rather than relevant collection of law.

Both our positions rely on the interpretation of the verse. This is not a one sided thing here. English understanding is a false position. You must have a contextual position to assume it is the English understanding.

Regarding your moral grounding. Let me put it this way. If you are going at this from a hermenutical approach you have nothing to worry about in regards to your moral grounding. If you are attacking this verse based on your moral grounding then there may be some fallacious reasoning that needs to be drawn out. My intent in that question is two fold. 1 I want to go beyond talking about these verses and show you that your moral intuitions are coming from God. 2. I want to make sure that your reasoning is sound in regards to your disagreement with these verses. So that is the truth of it, and I'll leave it to you to decide.

I understand that people not speaking up against evil in this world leads to it's continuance. But you are unknowingly faulting them for their cultural language and generalized vocabulary. These things were not robust law codes. Languages that do not include a diverse vocabulary rely on contextual understanding. So an ancient reader of this text would view it in light of it's entire content to give clarity of meaning to commands. Additionally this book was not available to any but the priesthood. Either a formal law would be distributed, either written or verbally expressed to the population, or it was distributed through temple readings that may have expounded on the text just as Christians do in church today. Further the casuistic law would be supervened by the apodictic law and holiness practices (like treating strangers well, give back the lost property of your enemy etc). As far as Egyptian slavery they were held captive against their will. We know this not just because the Bible says so but because the Egyptians themselves tell us on the Berlin Pedestal (Stellae 21687).

Why think Israel has no extradition laws. Why do you think the worst of Israelites at base? Whenever there is an ambiguous situation you seem to go with them being the bad guy in that situation. Are you from a Muslim background? I just want to cover that base here, so we are not talking past each other because I feel like I am running up against a prejudice or a bias here in the unreasonableness of your accusations against them. As far as the last verse I don't know what it refers to. I know that from other parts of the law Israelites were not to be considered full servants as they had only one master Yahweh. So an Israelite wasn't bonded as tightly. It obviously doesn't mean that non Israelite servants were to be ruled over ruthlessly. Who would say that? It is a distinction, but don't know what contextual meaning it has. As a non professional text critic I would say the context goes to the prior word "rule" for Israelites. It is contrasted with an Israelite servant who is ruled loosely, only being bonded 6 years and encouraged by God to be free in Exodus 15:13-15. So it is a distinction, but I don't know what it means precisely. I know it doesn't mean whatever our imaginations tell us it means though. Remember Gilgamesh and the snake? That word is actually earthlion, and refers to the Mushussu. That is a great example of how badly taking the English can go.

I don't think you did explain why Moses would condone real slavery. Your response simply assumes your conclusion that this does mean real slavery, but we have not gotten there yet. I haven't seen anything from you yet to substantiate the proposition that it means slavery in the modern sense, apart from the English word.

"I got back to that other post earlier in this post. See above." I looked above for your description of being a seeker but I didn't find it.

I don't think there is anything morally wrong with tributaries in Israel. Israel was God's land to give, Israel did not take land apart from the promise. God gave the former rulers 400 years to complete their iniquity before He judged them partly through His going before Israel and partly through Israel. There was no actual command for genocide, war texts are non literal, what you recall is merely the fashion of ANE language. I can give you a ~10min scholarly primer on reading war texts if you want, it's really good.

It condemns the slave trader and all in his company. Israels law did not extend outside Israel, which is the case for any nation.

The ESV is also my favorite. How is "ruthless slavery" a term of peace? Does that make any sense? It doesn't to me, peace agreements usually include a compromise and I see no compromise in giving oneself into ruthless slavery. The Septuagint translation actually uses tributaries here, and the Greek words used are υπήκοοί (listening too) and φορολογητοί (Something you carry or wear, which makes sense as a tributary). Tributaries were a common practice for all nations, it's why we have culturally expansive empires rather than burnt out wastelands. The bronze age was a globalized region interdependent on trade routes through various cities. For example copper from Cyprus and tin from Afghanistan just to make bronze. And the Cherem was not a general command but only toward the cities God specifically commanded in judgement.

You are demanding modern moral progression on this, and it will be demanded of you in 500 years when people look at our moral barbarism. This was the Camelot of the ANE it was a huge leap in moral progression. When Israel became a kingdom they would have had a much more expansive law code. And before then they likely had tribal code in addition to the Torah. We don't know what the formal law looked like, you impose far beyond reason in your dealings with this text.

 

[Kemet]

Or, more simply, that not all laws applied to all people. Foreigners could be slave traders and sell their wares to Israelites, but Israelites couldn't be slave traders and could own foreign slaves. Note at the end of that Bible quote it explicitly calls for unfair treatment based on whether someone is an Israelite or not.

What I have posted before is, the slavery scriptures of the Bible and Tanakh of Judaism read like an operational manual with instructions and guidelines for the enslavement of humans including, children.

Your post....

"Or, more simply, that not all laws applied to all people. Foreigners could be slave traders and sell their wares to Israelites, but Israelites couldn't be slave traders and could own foreign slaves. Note at the end of that Bible quote it explicitly calls for unfair treatment based on whether someone is an Israelite or not."

....is an excellent example of what I am referring to.

Is Slavery Moral?

No, and under no circumstances.

 

[HypnoToad]

I just edited my last post. You might not have got that part yet. Would you mind reading the addition?

Ok. I don't see it changing anything.

 

[HypnoToad]

I will say, however, that this statement:

If the only thing which matters is salvation, morals are irrelevant.

is a non sequitur and is self-contradicting.

If we say salvation is the only thing that matters, then you have to know what salvation is. In Christianity, salvation is, simply put, accepting Christ. What you have to realize is that rejecting Christ is an immoral thing to do, which makes accepting Christ a moral thing to do.

So “salvation” = “accepting Christ” = “a moral thing”.

Substituting that into your claim, we get:
“If the only thing which matters is a moral thing, morals are irrelevant.”

… which is a self-contradicting statement. Morals can NOT be irrelevant if the thing which matters most is a moral thing.

 

[cvanwey]

Ok. I don't see it changing anything.

Okay. I started a new thread, "Are Morals Subjective, Objective, ....". If you care to justify your specific rendition of morals, be my guest

Peace

 

[HypnoToad]

Okay. I started a new thread, "Are Morals Subjective, Objective, ....". If you care to justify your specific rendition of morals, be my guest

Peace

Showing that none of your proposed moral systems ever actually rules out slavery doesn't require me to justify my morals.

 

[cvanwey]

Showing that none of your proposed moral systems ever actually rules out slavery doesn't require me to justify my morals.

True, but you might want to take a crack at why God thinks slavery is moral, while most humans don't.

 

[Moral Orel]

That was a big response. I've been reading it, but I'm not going to respond to all of it all at once. I'm going to pull some things out so that maybe we can trim this down a bit.

Whenever there is an ambiguous situation you seem to go with them being the bad guy in that situation. Are you from a Muslim background? I just want to cover that base here, so we are not talking past each other because I feel like I am running up against a prejudice or a bias here in the unreasonableness of your accusations against them.

I actually come from a Christian background growing up, lost interest/faith over the years, and came on CF to see how credible faith was. After many discussions with many different Christians, I don't believe at all anymore.

You are demanding modern moral progression on this, and it will be demanded of you in 500 years when people look at our moral barbarism. This was the Camelot of the ANE it was a huge leap in moral progression. When Israel became a kingdom they would have had a much more expansive law code. And before then they likely had tribal code in addition to the Torah. We don't know what the formal law looked like, you impose far beyond reason in your dealings with this text.

Only if these morals have a divine source would I expect so much from them. If it's just humans writing moral laws, I don't think they did any better or worse than their contemporaries. It isn't that I think the ancient Israelites were evil, I just think they should have done a lot better if God told them how to act.

Regarding your moral grounding. Let me put it this way. If you are going at this from a hermenutical approach you have nothing to worry about in regards to your moral grounding. If you are attacking this verse based on your moral grounding then there may be some fallacious reasoning that needs to be drawn out. My intent in that question is two fold. 1 I want to go beyond talking about these verses and show you that your moral intuitions are coming from God. 2. I want to make sure that your reasoning is sound in regards to your disagreement with these verses. So that is the truth of it, and I'll leave it to you to decide.

My grounding traces back to one value, basically. People should be happy. There are better ways to be happy, and being nice actually seems to produce more happiness. That's the gist of it. Now why does it feel good to feel happy? I dunno.

What he have here is sufficient to deny the proposition that Jesus is confirming the national law. As far as whether He is leaving the rest intact let me make two points.

• We should not expect Christ to go through every law on the mountain if He wanted to teach a deeper understanding of the law. So the unmentioned laws are not indicative in any way of their confirmation
  
• If He wants to show that the law is incomplete He will show a few points from which people can understand how the entire law is incomplete. And that is consistent with his teachings through parables and self teaching examples. And we see in Luke 10:27 where Christ confirms that the true law is merely 2 commands rather than relevant collection of law.

Both our positions rely on the interpretation of the verse. This is not a one sided thing here. English understanding is a false position. You must have a contextual position to assume it is the English understanding.

Well, I'll walk it back a bit. I can't say He confirmed all of the old Law, since I have to at least leave it open that He just outright contradicted Himself. But, it seems most likely that what He's saying is that you need to do better than just follow the Law to make it to Heaven. So where it says don't do this, also don't do that. And where it says it's okay to do this, don't unless something drastic. But, we can't just infer that whatever the Law permitted is now impermissible either. If He doesn't mention it, we can speculate, but that's all it is. So I won't say He confirmed slavery, but by being aware of it's existence and saying nothing while being in a position to instruct, He condoned slavery. He didn't have to say anything in any specific speech, but somewhere.

However, that being said, He doesn't say that those two commands are the "true law" as if that's all there is. In Matthew He says that all of the Law is based on those two commands. He never takes away from anything that the Law says you can't do, but makes a few mentions of things you also shouldn't do. So we can't therefore say "national law goes away" or anything like it.

 

[Sanoy]

That was a big response. I've been reading it, but I'm not going to respond to all of it all at once. I'm going to pull some things out so that maybe we can trim this down a bit.

I actually come from a Christian background growing up, lost interest/faith over the years, and came on CF to see how credible faith was. After many discussions with many different Christians, I don't believe at all anymore.

Only if these morals have a divine source would I expect so much from them. If it's just humans writing moral laws, I don't think they did any better or worse than their contemporaries. It isn't that I think the ancient Israelites were evil, I just think they should have done a lot better if God told them how to act.

My grounding traces back to one value, basically. People should be happy. There are better ways to be happy, and being nice actually seems to produce more happiness. That's the gist of it. Now why does it feel good to feel happy? I dunno.

Well, I'll walk it back a bit. I can't say He confirmed all of the old Law, since I have to at least leave it open that He just outright contradicted Himself. But, it seems most likely that what He's saying is that you need to do better than just follow the Law to make it to Heaven. So where it says don't do this, also don't do that. And where it says it's okay to do this, don't unless something drastic. But, we can't just infer that whatever the Law permitted is now impermissible either. If He doesn't mention it, we can speculate, but that's all it is. So I won't say He confirmed slavery, but by being aware of it's existence and saying nothing while being in a position to instruct, He condoned slavery. He didn't have to say anything in any specific speech, but somewhere.

However, that being said, He doesn't say that those two commands are the "true law" as if that's all there is. In Matthew He says that all of the Law is based on those two commands. He never takes away from anything that the Law says you can't do, but makes a few mentions of things you also shouldn't do. So we can't therefore say "national law goes away" or anything like it.

It got long again, but I have made over 1,000 posts and you are the third non Christian that I have had the opportunity to dialogue with. So I want to do the best with the opportunity. You don't need to respond to everything.

When you were a former Christian were you ready to share your faith? It may be that same way with a lot of the Christians here. Some beliefs are natural and basic and take some introspection and thought to express why one believes. But I have listened to around 100hrs of Atheistic debate from respected people in their field and never once felt I had a reason to doubt my beliefs.

God has given 2 revelations. His General Revelation (Romans 1) in the things that were made and the moral values that we apprehend, and His explicit revelation through Jesus Christ. All moral progression would come through the moral values we apprehend from Gods General Revelation. We apprehend their existence but moral knowledge comes in semantic conditions. It is hinged on semantics, as what is right or wrong often swings on a semantic condition. We learn more and more about these semantic conditions as we come to know God. Philosophy is not enough to scrutinize morality through analyzing moral semantics. Only trust in God as we see in Matthew 5 where Christ had to reveal what a full commitment to morality looks like.

I'm not sure what to call that kind of grounding so I'll call it a relative grounding, it is relative to the definition of happy, which is relative to what a person says is happiness to them. So it works for people that commit themselves to what many believe to be objective moral values and duties, but it falls apart to those that don't, like Charles Manson. So if it only functions for people that already have the experience of Objective moral values and duties why not go ground it in the one thing that will solidify right and wrong? At least in the case of servitude here, they are each voluntary committing themselves, so this choice is directly in line with their happiness. That's not to say they are happy about the present condition, but they know happiness lies on through it, and the Bible says some do find happiness there because the Israelites were called to such a high standard of holiness.

Here is whats interesting about the feeling of happiness. We imagine happiness on the other side of many actions. Like 'I'll be happy when I get this boat', and happiness doesn't come. Even the twisted person might imagine happiness coming after a crime but it does not come, at least not the version of happiness we speak of. It is tied to an ought, we feel happy when we accomplish or experience what we ought to accomplish or experience. One person might get a boat and be happy and another might not. It depends on what they wanted the boat for and what they used it for. So if there is an ought, then what or who is the ought giver and why is it bound to the things that are great rather than merely the things that we want.

Correct we can't confirm directly that Christ is rewriting everything. We can just see that He is calling us to go past the law in the general sense and that He is not confirming the national law as written through His comment about changing the law. Well I don't think Jesus is required to renounce voluntary servitude because I don't think there is anything wrong with it as presented in the OT. But even if there was I don't think we can condemn people for what they didn't say, if so we could condemn everyone for condoning slavery right now for all the times we didn't say something about it. In His case it goes beyond His purpose to confirm or deny the law here, His purpose was to say it doesn't go far enough in approaching the Holiness required of you. So even if it meant slavery, this general command to greater Holiness, bound up in Love your neighbor and God, covers slavery. Jesus confirms these two as the greatest commandments and draws them from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:4,5. So Israel already knew the greatest commandment was to love their neighbor as themselves (and love the Lord). Israel was Camelot, and we also become better people when we put our trust in Christ, or commit ourselves to His nature which you never stopped doing.

 

[Daniel Newhouse]

Moses led his people out of slavery. But remember, God relied upon the "stiff necks" of the jews to be her chosen people.
Frankly, slavery is a way to send people to hell. So, of course its immoral! But just because you're experiencing slavery, doesn't mean God is going to save you. This is relevant to Doc Holiday, with the verdict to repair the judge's fence. When property is damaged, should the government fine you for it? I am leery of, "asset forfeiture?" Have you seen Miami Vice where the cops haul a load of dope? And then sell it! I think the idea of assigning a "good works" as a court punishment is fine.

 

[Moral Orel]

I'm not sure what to call that kind of grounding so I'll call it a relative grounding, it is relative to the definition of happy, which is relative to what a person says is happiness to them. So it works for people that commit themselves to what many believe to be objective moral values and duties, but it falls apart to those that don't, like Charles Manson. So if it only functions for people that already have the experience of Objective moral values and duties why not go ground it in the one thing that will solidify right and wrong? At least in the case of servitude here, they are each voluntary committing themselves, so this choice is directly in line with their happiness. That's not to say they are happy about the present condition, but they know happiness lies on through it, and the Bible says some do find happiness there because the Israelites were called to such a high standard of holiness.

I'd like to focus more on the slavery in the OT, since that's a lot more on topic than my sense of morality. But how you view how I view morality is going to tint your perception of my statements, so I do want to explain myself in that regard. My morality isn't relative. When I say happy, I mean feeling something like joy, even if it's fleeting. Lots of people feel joy for lots of reasons, true, but the goal is to feel as much happiness as possible, and some things only lead to fleeting happiness, and some things lead to true contentedness, which is a constant, persistent feeling of being happy. So someone who buys a boat will feel happy about it, but maybe only for a short while. Someone who goes around killing other folks will feel happy when they do it, but only for a short while. Someone who does good for others will feel happy about their life in general, and that's a lot more long term happiness than short thrills. My beliefs about what lead to long term happiness are a result of studying human psychology, and how humans in general work.

Correct we can't confirm directly that Christ is rewriting everything. We can just see that He is calling us to go past the law in the general sense and that He is not confirming the national law as written through His comment about changing the law. Well I don't think Jesus is required to renounce voluntary servitude because I don't think there is anything wrong with it as presented in the OT. But even if there was I don't think we can condemn people for what they didn't say, if so we could condemn everyone for condoning slavery right now for all the times we didn't say something about it. In His case it goes beyond His purpose to confirm or deny the law here, His purpose was to say it doesn't go far enough in approaching the Holiness required of you. So even if it meant slavery, this general command to greater Holiness, bound up in Love your neighbor and God, covers slavery. Jesus confirms these two as the greatest commandments and draws them from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:4,5. So Israel already knew the greatest commandment was to love their neighbor as themselves (and love the Lord). Israel was Camelot, and we also become better people when we put our trust in Christ, or commit ourselves to His nature which you never stopped doing.

Imagine a king who knew that his subjects were enslaving one another. If he says and does nothing about it, he is condoning that slavery. It isn't the same as one of his peasants keeping his mouth shut. If the king says it's a law, then it becomes a law that the subjects should follow. If a peasant says something, nothing happens. So we can continue discussing whether there is real slavery in the OT, and we can discuss whether Jesus said anything to make us think that "love your neighbor" applied to "don't own people". But if He didn't say anything about it, we can't hand wave that away.

The argument I am making is essentially an argument from silence, which is generally a fallacy. But when a book claims to be the source of morality, then it should cover all of the biggest moral faux pas that humans commit. If I had a textbook that claimed to cover all of mathematics but never mentioned algebra, that wouldn't be a very good textbook, and I can judge it by what it doesn't say.

 

[Sanoy]

I'd like to focus more on the slavery in the OT, since that's a lot more on topic than my sense of morality. But how you view how I view morality is going to tint your perception of my statements, so I do want to explain myself in that regard. My morality isn't relative. When I say happy, I mean feeling something like joy, even if it's fleeting. Lots of people feel joy for lots of reasons, true, but the goal is to feel as much happiness as possible, and some things only lead to fleeting happiness, and some things lead to true contentedness, which is a constant, persistent feeling of being happy. So someone who buys a boat will feel happy about it, but maybe only for a short while. Someone who goes around killing other folks will feel happy when they do it, but only for a short while. Someone who does good for others will feel happy about their life in general, and that's a lot more long term happiness than short thrills. My beliefs about what lead to long term happiness are a result of studying human psychology, and how humans in general work.

Imagine a king who knew that his subjects were enslaving one another. If he says and does nothing about it, he is condoning that slavery. It isn't the same as one of his peasants keeping his mouth shut. If the king says it's a law, then it becomes a law that the subjects should follow. If a peasant says something, nothing happens. So we can continue discussing whether there is real slavery in the OT, and we can discuss whether Jesus said anything to make us think that "love your neighbor" applied to "don't own people". But if He didn't say anything about it, we can't hand wave that away.

The argument I am making is essentially an argument from silence, which is generally a fallacy. But when a book claims to be the source of morality, then it should cover all of the biggest moral faux pas that humans commit. If I had a textbook that claimed to cover all of mathematics but never mentioned algebra, that wouldn't be a very good textbook, and I can judge it by what it doesn't say.

He is a king, but His kingdom is not of this world. The king of this world was Caeser who, afaik, condoned slavery. He did not speak against Roman law - he had prophecy to fulfil in being killed by the Jews rather than Rome. He did however speak to all immorality at once through His calling everyone to the Father as the grounding of objective moral values and duties. And so a trusting relationship with Christ is to lead one down the path of moral rightness, which could never be achieved through moral semantics alone. And through what else but the Father could He call the entire world to do what is truly right? If instead we ground what is right and wrong to happiness we may come to evolve a morality where doing harm in certain cases may invoke long term happiness. In fact we could have evolved any number of moral values and be having an entirely different topical subject.

 

[Moral Orel]

He is a king, but His kingdom is not of this world. The king of this world was Caeser who, afaik, condoned slavery. He did not speak against Roman law - he had prophecy to fulfil in being killed by the Jews rather than Rome.

Caesar also condoned adultery which was legal in Rome, but Jesus spoke out against that. So, yes, He did speak against Roman law, He just overlooked slavery when He chose which things were worth mentioning.

He did however speak to all immorality at once through His calling everyone to the Father as the grounding of objective moral values and duties. And so a trusting relationship with Christ is to lead one down the path of moral rightness, which could never be achieved through moral semantics alone. And through what else but the Father could He call the entire world to do what is truly right? If instead we ground what is right and wrong to happiness we may come to evolve a morality where doing harm in certain cases may invoke long term happiness. In fact we could have evolved any number of moral values and be having an entirely different topical subject.

No, actually, we've evolved to be social creatures. Over time, we've learned to look at the big picture, and plan for the future, and so we've developed more complicated morals than constantly seeking instant gratification. For instance, humans are empathetic creatures, in general. We feel happy when other humans feel happy. So making others feel happy is good because it makes us happy. That's how we're wired, biologically speaking. And since there are objectively better methods to make other people happy, I absolutely can have objective morality without a need to invoke a creator. We've studied anger and hatred, and we've studied compassion and kindness, and we know what makes humans happy and what doesn't.


But let's get back to the OT slavery that I've glossed over thus far.

Why think Israel has no extradition laws.

Because there aren't any listed in the OT. Should we just imagine there are laws that the OT doesn't state? But let's ignore that for a moment. We have a law that says don't kidnap, if someone get's caught buying a kidnapped person, then they're just as guilty as the kidnapper. Fine. You can't say that the entire slave trade was outlawed by this verse because one type of slave wasn't allowed. Imagine foreigners who had POWs as slaves. Those people aren't kidnapped, so they should be free to be traded. There's no reason to think they weren't.

As far as the last verse I don't know what it refers to. I know that from other parts of the law Israelites were not to be considered full servants as they had only one master Yahweh. So an Israelite wasn't bonded as tightly. It obviously doesn't mean that non Israelite servants were to be ruled over ruthlessly. Who would say that? It is a distinction, but don't know what contextual meaning it has. As a non professional text critic I would say the context goes to the prior word "rule" for Israelites. It is contrasted with an Israelite servant who is ruled loosely, only being bonded 6 years and encouraged by God to be free in Exodus 15:13-15. So it is a distinction, but I don't know what it means precisely. I know it doesn't mean whatever our imaginations tell us it means though.

There's obviously a distinction, and I don't need to know what it is specifically. Clearly, Israelites and foreigners operated under different rules and had different protections via the Law. So you can't take a law and claim it protected foreigners too. Think about the law that says Hebrew men can't be slaves for life unless they volunteer. Making that specific distinction sure seems to point to the fact that foreigners could be made slaves for life.

I don't think you did explain why Moses would condone real slavery. Your response simply assumes your conclusion that this does mean real slavery, but we have not gotten there yet. I haven't seen anything from you yet to substantiate the proposition that it means slavery in the modern sense, apart from the English word.

You asked how in the world Moses could make laws that enslaved people as if there was no possible reasoning for it. I'm not saying that was necessarily Moses' reasoning, but it is entirely plausible that he only saw Israelites as being above out and out slavery. He saw them as God's chosen people, why wouldn't they be deserving of better treatment than everyone else?

I don't think there is anything morally wrong with tributaries in Israel. Israel was God's land to give, Israel did not take land apart from the promise. God gave the former rulers 400 years to complete their iniquity before He judged them partly through His going before Israel and partly through Israel. There was no actual command for genocide, war texts are non literal, what you recall is merely the fashion of ANE language. I can give you a ~10min scholarly primer on reading war texts if you want, it's really good.

Nope. The cities I mentioned are outside of the land promised to the Israelites, so not only are they not the Canaanites that God commanded to exterminate every last one, they are not inside the promised land at all. There were two outcomes when Israel came upon one of these cities. Forced labor and killing every last male of a certain age. If your choice is labor or death, that's slavery. It's possible that they mean tributaries, it's also entirely possible that they mean POWs. If they end up killing all the men, then they take the women as "plunder" and "spoils of war", so I see no reason to speculate that they left even the men where they were instead of taking them back to Israel.

The ESV is also my favorite. How is "ruthless slavery" a term of peace? Does that make any sense? It doesn't to me, peace agreements usually include a compromise and I see no compromise in giving oneself into ruthless slavery. The Septuagint translation actually uses tributaries here, and the Greek words used are υπήκοοί (listening too) and φορολογητοί (Something you carry or wear, which makes sense as a tributary). Tributaries were a common practice for all nations, it's why we have culturally expansive empires rather than burnt out wastelands. The bronze age was a globalized region interdependent on trade routes through various cities. For example copper from Cyprus and tin from Afghanistan just to make bronze. And the Cherem was not a general command but only toward the cities God specifically commanded in judgement.

All peace means is "not war". You can't speculate that they were being diplomatic just because they talked about the non-war option of forced labor. No matter what, it was labor or death. No in between.

 

[Sanoy]

Caesar also condoned adultery which was legal in Rome, but Jesus spoke out against that. So, yes, He did speak against Roman law, He just overlooked slavery when He chose which things were worth mentioning.

No, actually, we've evolved to be social creatures. Over time, we've learned to look at the big picture, and plan for the future, and so we've developed more complicated morals than constantly seeking instant gratification. For instance, humans are empathetic creatures, in general. We feel happy when other humans feel happy. So making others feel happy is good because it makes us happy. That's how we're wired, biologically speaking. And since there are objectively better methods to make other people happy, I absolutely can have objective morality without a need to invoke a creator. We've studied anger and hatred, and we've studied compassion and kindness, and we know what makes humans happy and what doesn't.


But let's get back to the OT slavery that I've glossed over thus far.

Because there aren't any listed in the OT. Should we just imagine there are laws that the OT doesn't state? But let's ignore that for a moment. We have a law that says don't kidnap, if someone get's caught buying a kidnapped person, then they're just as guilty as the kidnapper. Fine. You can't say that the entire slave trade was outlawed by this verse because one type of slave wasn't allowed. Imagine foreigners who had POWs as slaves. Those people aren't kidnapped, so they should be free to be traded. There's no reason to think they weren't.

There's obviously a distinction, and I don't need to know what it is specifically. Clearly, Israelites and foreigners operated under different rules and had different protections via the Law. So you can't take a law and claim it protected foreigners too. Think about the law that says Hebrew men can't be slaves for life unless they volunteer. Making that specific distinction sure seems to point to the fact that foreigners could be made slaves for life.

You asked how in the world Moses could make laws that enslaved people as if there was no possible reasoning for it. I'm not saying that was necessarily Moses' reasoning, but it is entirely plausible that he only saw Israelites as being above out and out slavery. He saw them as God's chosen people, why wouldn't they be deserving of better treatment than everyone else?

Nope. The cities I mentioned are outside of the land promised to the Israelites, so not only are they not the Canaanites that God commanded to exterminate every last one, they are not inside the promised land at all. There were two outcomes when Israel came upon one of these cities. Forced labor and killing every last male of a certain age. If your choice is labor or death, that's slavery. It's possible that they mean tributaries, it's also entirely possible that they mean POWs. If they end up killing all the men, then they take the women as "plunder" and "spoils of war", so I see no reason to speculate that they left even the men where they were instead of taking them back to Israel.

All peace means is "not war". You can't speculate that they were being diplomatic just because they talked about the non-war option of forced labor. No matter what, it was labor or death. No in between.

Yes but Adultery wasn't an economic foundation of his country nor was it a law. Christians were killed just for being a Christian, sometimes even being blamed because the former gods were not working. I do not think we can logically expect Jesus to go about renouncing every Roman law that is immoral, essentially waging war against Rome, and live long enough to be killed by the Jews. That would be an outrageous and unrealistic expectation.

There are a lot of social creatures out there that do not have our morals. Ants, Bees, wolves, Lions, birds. When I was in college I watched ducks get rapped nearly everyday day outside the lunch hall window. They evolved the morality that that was okay, and there is no binding force that keeps our morality what it is if we ground it to evolution, nor is it any highground. Evolution is concerned only with survival that passes on DNA. That is the extent of it. Turn the other cheek, and don't enslave man, doesn't help me pass on my DNA. And don't forget happiness itself, as a biological function, can evolve, there is nothing holding it to what it is besides mutation and natural selection. While this may seem insurmountable now all it takes is a selective pressure and all this "moral highground" goes out the window, those that are immoral survive on the backs of their brethren and pass on their genes, now epigenetically selected, and survival selected toward immorality. This morality is a house build on sand. And think back to the ANE under this condition, they were acting upon their evolved morality at that time, while we, in the modern era, are merely acting according to a different evolved morality which may change entirely in a thousand years. There is no high ground, no truly right or wrong behavior, or even compulsion to obey our selected morality under this system. So if you do feel like what they did is objectively wrong you should reject your current grounding as it's foundation is not capable of supporting such a weight. Israel is merely unfashionable here, not truly wrong. We cannot judge an inch without a ruler, and the ruler being applied here persistently changes it's length making it no good at all.

The OT is not an exhaustive law, it is a collection of Law. Your expectations on how to consider this text are mistaken, that is not just my thoughts, but comes from a lecture at Yale University on Biblical law. Yes we should consider that there are other laws, do you think a nation could survive on a few pages from these two books? This is that prejudice and bias again. You try and find whatever loophole you can to try to make Israel a monster. But that is just a hopeful argument from silence. But I'd like to know why you want there to be something wrong here? Why is that? What led you to leave Christianity, and can you honestly say you bear no resentment or anger toward it?

Foreigners can be slaves for life... if that is what they choose. It just doesn't work to try to search for loopholes to make Israel the bad guy because it will always stand on silence. Leviticus 19:18 but love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:13 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself. God didn't want Israelites to be slaves forever because they serve God as their master, and they were slaves in Egypt. That is why they are different.

Ok if Moses thought Israelites were better then why did he not adopt a law like Hammurabi where the law was relative to ones social situation rather than the law of equality which Moses actually created? Rich or poor, native or foreigner, the law is the same for each (Quantitative values varied in accordance with the poor).

You are going to have to tell me what city you are referring too, as the text in reference is a general proposition not referring to a specific city but vague references of distance, and I don't recall you ever mentioning a specific city. I know there were cities on the way, some let Israel pass some did not but I beleive this takes place after that. As far as the cities that resisted the men were killed. All that is left are orphans and their mothers, which is exactly what Israel takes in. It would be worse to leave them there to die of starvation. Neither of us knows how they are treated because such laws are not included, but we do know they are destitute if they remain.

I think it was a tributary as the older LLX renders more clearly, and "forced" is not in the text. God gave the land to Israel, to be a nation of priests for the sake of all nations. There were not going to be any cities that did their own thing, worshiped their own gods, and polluted the land. This was Gods allotment in all the earth, for the sake of all the earth. If they wished to remain they would serve the Lord and I see nothing wrong with that.

 

[Moral Orel]

You try and find whatever loophole you can to try to make Israel a monster. But that is just a hopeful argument from silence.

Okay, I need you to stop and listen to me for a minute. I don't know how many times you've repeated this, and ignored me when I've replied to it directly now, but it's getting a little insulting. Israel was no worse than many other nations of it's time. Just because I don't believe you that Israel was the first and only nation to outlaw slavery in the entire world for thousands of years, doesn't mean I think they were evil.

 

[Sanoy]

Okay, I need you to stop and listen to me for a minute. I don't know how many times you've repeated this, and ignored me when I've replied to it directly now, but it's getting a little insulting. Israel was no worse than many other nations of it's time. Just because I don't believe you that Israel was the first and only nation to outlaw slavery in the entire world for thousands of years, doesn't mean I think they were evil.

I agree it was no worse, but your default state and tendency on unknowns is that it is no better. And you seem to seek out ways in which it was no better on points of silence, and I don't understand that. I don't mean to offend you but that is what I am seeing from my perspective.

I am not claiming, nor have I ever stated that Israel was the first or only nation to outlaw slavery, I am saying they are vastly progressive against an ANE backdrop.

 

[Non sequitur]

According to the Bible, the God of the holy Old Testament and New Testament seem to condone slavery (a few samples below):

OT: Exodus 21, Leviticus 25:46
NT: Luke 12:47, and Luke 17:7-10, John 13:16, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Timothy 6:1-2

Does this mean slavery is moral?

Thank you in advance for the response(s).

That totally depends on how one (re)defines slavery.

 

[Moral Orel]

I agree it was no worse, but your default state and tendency on unknowns is that it is no better. And you seem to seek out ways in which it was no better on points of silence, and I don't understand that. I don't mean to offend you but that is what I am seeing from my perspective.

That's fine if we disagree. I am saying that they aren't better. But that is vastly different from attacking them and calling them "monsters" or "evil" as if I'm singling them out from all of ancient history for owning slaves.

As to the argument from silence, that was a fair call on what I said about Jesus confirming slavery, because He said nothing about slavery. The OT Law says you can buy slaves and force people to do labor, so it is not an argument from silence to not imagine there were laws contradicting the laws we know they did have. The OT isn't silent about slavery, so I can't make an argument from silence about it.

I am not claiming, nor have I ever stated that Israel was the first or only nation to outlaw slavery, I am saying they are vastly progressive against an ANE backdrop.

You've claimed that none of their servitude was for life and none of it was involuntary; those are key ingredients for slavery. Have I misunderstood your claims?