ok. I'll reiterate:
- Please stop skipping over the details I offer.
- Please explain how O.T. laws about caring for WELL-INTENDED FOREIGNERS (STRANGERS & SOJOURNERS) somehow don't apply to the 'slavery discussion.'
- Please explain how the Israelite legal adjudicators would have handled the supposed 'slave trade' which you atheists keep harping upon.
There, is that simple enough for ya?!
Okay. Let's see.
By "skipping over the details you offer" I presume you refer to your saying:
"How about if you read Isaiah 56 to 59, in full? There's a lot there that a white slave owner in the Antebellum South should very well have chewed on [but probably didn't if he wasn't well educated], don't you think? In fact, the entire book of Isaiah should be more than enough for most Americans who claim to be Christian and have lived in the context of the political developments of American society to chew on."
Well, I have now taken the trouble to read through Isaiah 56-59 in full, and I can't say it was a particularly interesting read. It seems to be fairly standard boilerplate about how people should do good, and the wicked will receive their just desserts. If there is anything in there, or anywhere else in the Bible, in which the system of slavery is condemned, please point it out to us. So far, in the fifteen pages of this thread, we have seen plenty of verses from the Bible explicitly supporting and commanding slavery as an institution, and none at all condemning it.
I thought it was especially amusing that you said this:
"Of course, on the other hand, those foreign prisoners of war and/or criminal types [think 'gangsta types'] who were not 'well-intended' could be subject to ... some beatings as slaves, especially if they remained recalcitrant to correction."
Oh, "gangsta types", eh? So slavery was okay with you, in some cases? And it's okay to enlave foreign prisoners of war? Thank you for making that concession. It may interest you to know that many of the black people who were sold as slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were "prisoners of war", captured by various African leaders and sold to slave traders. So presumably you're okay with this?
You also said:
"And that's not even getting into ALL of the various 'laws' in the Torah pertaining to how the Israelites were commanded by God to love and empathize with the well intended FOREIGNER/STRANGER/SOJOURNER."
And to enslave them, under certain circumstances. You know, I think I can see the problem here. You're taking all of the "In general, please be nice to each other" advice of the Old and New Testaments, and assuming that since
your morality holds that slavery is wrong, that these somehow overturn the Word of God, commanding that slaves be taken, kept, worked, beaten, and sold. But He's God, isn't He? How dare you contradict His word. If God says that slavery is a good thing and orders that it be practised, who are you to say that it is wrong?
We have rules laws today about being nice to people as well. We have rules against being rude or speaking hatefully, and laws against striking or beating people, and so we should. But we don't take these to mean that we should interfere with the lawful running of the state. We still put people in prison, confining them against their will, and so we should. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," is of course a morally praiseworthy and sensible way to live your life. But do you use it in everything? Do you give all of your money to a beggar? If I struck you, repeatedly and without without offence, would you forgive me, or would you call for the police? Should all money be redistributed, so that everyone has the same amount? Obviously not. And, in the same way, "rules" about "being nice to each other" are not expected other social rules (especially when they were established by God!) and nobody in the Old or New Testament expects them to.
We can see, on this forum, the old arguments being repeated, with the same conclusions. Christians opposed to slavery are of course right, and good for them for seeing it. But, quite simply, the Bible is on the other side of the debate.
The antebellum South was extremely familiar with the Bible, and happy to quote it. As you read the Bible you will find, quite simply, that it supports the pro-slavery side.
Baptists and the American Civil War: January 27, 1861 | Baptists and the American Civil War: In Their Own Words
Reading this sermon by Pastor Warren, we can agree that the slave holders were wrong, and can find many things to be horrified at. But when the preacher makes the case that slavery is founded in the Bible, he's on rock solid ground:
Had God, the Great Law Giver, been opposed to slavery, he would perhaps have said, “thou shalt not hold property in man: thou shalt not enslave thy fellow being, for all men are born free and equal.” Instead of reproving the sin of covetousness, he would have denounced the sin of slavery; but instead of this denunciation, when He became the Ruler of his people, He established, regulated and perpetuated slavery by special enactment, and guaranteed the unmolested rights of masters to their slaves by Constitutional provision.
And
He reproved them for their sins. Calling them the works of the flesh and of the devil. He denounced idolatry, covetousness, adultery, fornification, hypocrisy, and many other sins of less moral turpitude, but never once reproved them for holding slaves; though He alluded to it frequently, yet never with an expression of the slightest disapprobation.
And this, quite simply, is what it comes down to. Yes, slavery is a wrong and evil thing. And God commanded that we should practise it. To quote again from Pastor Warren:
Injustice, oppression, and wrong of every characteristic are rebuked and denounced in the Bible, but it no where rebukes or denounces slavery, but upon the contrary establishes and perpetuated it – therefore is neither unjust, oppressive, nor wrong.
