Of course here "may buy" isn't a command.
No, but it is
permission, isn't it? And while I appreciate that saying "You have to go and do evil things" is significantly worse than "It's fine to go and do evil things, and here is how you do them" I can't see the latter as a moral action, and I'm very surprised that you can.
Generally the main source of slaves for Israel we know most famously is from the same time period and also the aftermath of the commanded destruction/erasure of the cities that sacrificed children to B'aal, Moloch, etc.
...
The peoples that had been sacrificing children in fire as their permanent ongoing culture (something so awful we can hardly even comprehend it) --
And how do you know they were doing that? Because it says so in the Bible? You should be careful about taking a primary source's word about its enemies.
A) Total Destruction/Erasure of the city and all traces of its culture --
(Sending everyone to be sorted in the afterlife Day of Judgement all will face -- judged by their deeds (Psl 62:12, Rom 2:6), the innocent and forgiven going to eternal Life, the rest to eternal death. )
OR
B) Allowing Some Survivors to remain alive, so that many are given a place as slaves instead of being left to starve
Think about this. Just think about it.
You come to my home, you destroy my city, you kill my family - and then you expect me to be grateful for you sparing my life to live as a
slave?
I think the problem you have here, Halbhh, is confusing "not as horrible as it might be" with "not being horrible".
Are these destroyed cities in those wars the instances of taking slaves from the survivors you are thinking of as being a commanding the taking of slaves?
I'm willing to admit that when I said "God told people to take slaves" I may have misspoken. The Bible verses obviously show "God telling people they could take slaves".
Or was it the more general regulation of being allowed to buy slaves later from the remnants and peoples around after the destruction of the child-sacrificing cities?
Does it matter? For antebellum slavery, would it matter if you owned a slave straight off the ships from Africa, or one who had been born a slave in the USA?
So, what have we seen? You're trying to make excuses for Biblical slavery by saying, if I read you correctly, that the people who were enslaved deserved it. But did they? First of all, I can kind of agree with punishing criminals with slavery. Not unlike community service, perhaps? If slavery for condemned criminals were ever re-introduced, well, I could see a case possibly being made for it. But in this case, the logic doesn't apply. Were these cities really that depraved? All we have is the Bible's word to go on. Even if they were, was every person in the city an evil criminal? Ridiculous. Not all of them, not most of them, not many of them. No, all that happened was the Israelites went to war against them, and then decided to take slaves.
So, in short, any defence of the Biblical verses must fail. I'm sure you'd have much the same reaction to antebellum slaveowners talking about how they rescued the black people from their lives of savagery and misery in Africa, and brought them to work in civilisation. You're making much the same argument here.
Ah, you think it means "rape" as you wrote into the text yourself...
Your idea, or how you see it.
Interesting
assertion....
Let's try to see if that makes sense in the text. We need more translations. Here are many of the top, mostly widely respected translations.
New International Version
and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
I'd say all of the translations you quoted say much the same, and all have the same problem. Let's explore them, by all means.
I'm seeing the words "marry" and "husband" and "wife"....and I know that those words have legal significance inside Israel....
Do you think a person would rape the person he is marrying? I'm sure it happens at times, but you suggested it was more one of the norms -- not an uncommon thing, but instead a commonplace...
So. Imagine you are a young woman - a teenager, say - living in a city. A foreign army comes and destroys your family and friends and fellow citizens, but you, being young and pretty, catch the eye of a soldier. He takes you back to his city, imprisons you in his house, and tells you you will be his wife.
This is obviously a shocking moral travesty. And it seems very much like a violation of the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you? Are you saying the young slaves wanted their families killed, their homes destroyed, and to be carried away to be forcibly married?
Instead of painting on our own extra assumptions, what can we learn from the text itself about rape?
...
25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die.
26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor,
27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."
Sorry, what? Is this your idea of moral behaviour?
If that happened today - if a man raped a woman and then, when she reported it to the police, he said "It's okay, I'm going to pay her father and marry her," - what would you think of that?
Also, these verses don't even apply, because we're talking about war booty above.
Halbhh, the more you try to defend the Bible, the more you lay it's appalling immorality bare. Let's recap:
* It's okay to attack foreign cities, destroy them, and kill the inhabitants, except for those you wish to take as slaves.
* It's okay to forcibly take girls with you, just so long as you marry them (without their consent - and to forestall your possible answer, consent cannot be valid if given under duress).
* It's okay to rape girls as long as you promise to marry them.
Your defences of the Bible rely on a whole lot of tenuous assumptions (the inhabitants of the cities were so shockingly evil they deserved to be slaughtered? Women are happy to "marry" their captors?) and, even if you take these assumptions for granted, it's still appalling behaviour.
Where was I? Oh yes. So, we can now see that the Bible is pro-barbaric forms of slavery.