I've GOT to get to Wal-Mart!

AV1611VET said:

Bombila --- QV please.

Click to expand...

I've read it, AV, and it backs my reading of the passage. They kept slaves. The only mitigating item is the statement that forced sex with slaves was not permitted. But since you call your purchased maidservant your wife, yet may evict her after taking another (or for no reason), it is nothing but concubinage, and the girl is not free to decide she does not want to be a wife, and even you must admit the circumstances for the unfortunate girl called wife are not likely consensual.

Yes, it points out the Jews were a little queasy about slavery, but not queasy enough to outlaw it.

You know, this is the aspect of holy text-based theism that I find most repellent, and I certainly include Islam and Judaism along with Christianity in this; and that is no matter how obviously morally wrong some passage is, so wrong and so plainly unfair and unjust that a child of eight can see it is wrong, let alone an adult who presumably has a developed conscience and is not a raving sociopath, there will be theists who will insist the passage is righteous and God-spoken, and not just a case of human error from the past which unfortunately has become enshrined in the text along with the more lofty and inherently decent pronouncements the faith may offer.

Almost every culture has grown from a past where the strong ruled the weak, those with arms stole land and goods from those with less arms, and men were content to make laws as they liked in terms of the women they regarded as property. The Abrahamic cultures were no different. The remnants of those old attempts at codifying a social order should be seen for what they are - over time, men strove to be better, be less harmful to their brothers and sisters. But that isn't where they began, and pretending the God decreed activities which men simply carried out in worshipful response is disturbing, and it is this kind of thing that pushes me further from faith the older I get, because I actually do know right from wrong.

AV1611VET said:

No, it isn't, Bombila; God wouldn't lead them out of slavery to the Egyptians, just to become slaves of themselves.

Click to expand...

AV wants us to believe that God would not do this because it would create a double standard.

Of course, one must remember that this is the same God who commanded "Thou Shalt not bear False Witness," but didn't so much as flinch when Moses lied to Pharaoh's face.

Exodus 5:1-3

1: And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
2: And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.
3: And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.

Anyone honestly think Moses was only asking for a three-day road trip? Got some prime Florida swampland for you...

Bear in mind, of course, that Moses told this whopper by God's direct order:

Exodus 3:18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

One must also remember that this is the same God who ordered "thou shalt not steal," but commanded the Hebrews, as they left Egypt, to swipe everything from the Egyptians which wasn't bolted down:

Exodus 3:21-22

21: And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
22: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.

"Borrow..." a nice euphamism then as now for common theft.

And spoil the Egyptians they did -- after God softened the brains of the very people He'd been torturing for the last ten plagues:

Exodus 12:35-36

35: And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:
36: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

"lent" them such things... were they ever returned?

of course, we can never forget that this is the same God who also commanded "Thou Shalt Not Kill," yet engaged in the wholesale slaughter of just about everyone -- Israelite and Gentile alike -- who dared displease Him.

Bible verses -- too numerous to list.

Apparantly, a double standard doesn't seem to faze God all that much, so I can't see how AV's attempt at apologetics means a whole lot.

If you think it is slavery, I promise you, you're not going to convince a KJVO, no matter who he is.

Click to expand...

Indeed -- Fanatics are rarely swayed by reason.

AV1611VET said:

Bombila --- QV please.

Click to expand...

bear in mind that this is the same AV who trashes wikipedia -- as he does all secular sources-- whenever it disagrees with him.

Apparantly God's not the only one who believes in the double standard.

Nathan Poe said:

AV1611VET said:

No, it isn't, Bombila; God wouldn't lead them out of slavery to the Egyptians, just to become slaves of themselves.

Click to expand...

AV wants us to believe that God would not do this because it would create a double standard.

Of course, one must remember that this is the same God who commanded "Thou Shalt not bear False Witness," but didn't so much as flinch when Moses lied to Pharaoh's face.

Exodus 5:1-3

1: And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
2: And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.
3: And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.

Anyone honestly think Moses was only asking for a three-day road trip? Got some prime Florida swampland for you...

Bear in mind, of course, that Moses told this whopper by God's direct order:

Exodus 3:18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

One must also remember that this is the dame God who ordered "thou shalt not steal," but commanded the Hebrews, as they left Egypt, to swipe everything from the Egyptians which wasn't bolted down:

Exodus 3:21-22

21: And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
22: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.

"Borrow..." a nice euphamism then as now for common theft.

And spoil the Egyptians they did -- after God softened the brains of the very people He'd been torturing for the last ten plagues:

Exodus 12:35-36

35: And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment:
36: And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.

"lent" them such things... were they ever returned?

of course, we can never forget that this is the same God who also commanded "Thou Shalt Not Kill," yet engaged in the wholesale slaughter of just about everyone -- Israelite and Gentile alike -- who dared displease Him.

Bible verses -- too numerous to list.

Apparantly, a double standard doesn't seem to faze God all that much, so I can't see how AV's attempt at apologetics means a whole lot.

If you think it is slavery, I promise you, you're not going to convince a KJVO, no matter who he is.

Click to expand...

Indeed -- Fanatics are rarely swayed by reason.

Click to expand...

Nathan Poe said:

AV1611VET said:

Bombila --- QV please.

Click to expand...

bear in mind that this is the same AV who trashes wikipedia -- as he does all secular sources-- whenever it disagrees with him.

Apparantly God's not the only one who believes in the double standard.

Click to expand...

AV1611VET said:

Bombila, please don't twist the Scripture into a pretzel, ignore commentary from a 19th century theologian on this subject*, ignore Wikipedia, then lecture me on morals --- I'm not interested.

* And don't think I didn't notice you bypassed his point about [19th century] apprenticeship.

If you have anything further to say on the subject, go find someone who's gullible and ignorant enough in the Scriptures to believe you.

Click to expand...

Iam not the one who is trying to gussy up this particular bit of scripture to make it marginally palatable to modern people, nor am I 'twisting scripture into a pretzel', but reading it plainly as it is written.

Why should I have brought up apprenticeships? No one was trying to pass them off as God's law, and besides that apprentices had the advantage of being taught a trade.

Why not just say you prefer not to discuss it further, rather than lashing out at me in this paranoid fashion? "Go find someone who's gullible and ignorant enough in the Scriptures to believe you" indeed!

AV1611VET said:

That's exactly what they did --- it was three day's journey from Egypt to Mt Sinai.

Click to expand...

I expected AV to justify God's/Moses's lie.

I wonder if he has the backbone to address the issue of whether they ever intended to come back?

AV1611VET said:

If you have anything further to say on the subject, go find someone who's gullible and ignorant enough in the Scriptures to believe you.

Click to expand...

We have AV -- where would we find someone more gullible and ignorant in Scriptures?

Nathan Poe said:

AV1611VET said:

That's exactly what they did --- it was three day's journey from Egypt to Mt Sinai.

Click to expand...

I expected AV to justify God's/Moses's lie.

I wonder if he has the backbone to address the issue of whether they ever intended to come back?

Click to expand...

Nathan Poe said:

AV1611VET said:

If you have anything further to say on the subject, go find someone who's gullible and ignorant enough in the Scriptures to believe you.

Click to expand...

We have AV -- where would we find someone more gullible and ignorant in Scriptures?

Click to expand...

So, how's that ignore list working out?

AV1611VET said:

If you have anything further to say on the subject, go find someone who's gullible and ignorant enough in the Scriptures to believe you.

Click to expand...

Look, AV, we get it, you don't like slavery. What people want from you is to acquiesce that perhaps, just perhaps the Hebrew word ebed as outlined in Strong's Concordance and as described quite well by Bombila's points could mean "slave".

What you are doing here is annoying people not by merely defending your point, but rather by actively ignoring and treating a valid alternative point as if it had zero value.

I think everyone here can agree that the Bible can be used to say slavery is wrong, but indeed it can be used, and has been used by christians over history, to justify slavery.

The wording, the verbiage, the common meanings of these words (even the word "servant" can mean "slave") render the Bible less than overtly clear on the subject.

You are perfectly within your right to proclaim God is against slavery. However, you do your argument no favors by maligning the valid points so far raised about the words (as I said, even "servant" can mean slave).

Apparently we need to lecture you on debate strategy. But by your actions of telling someone that they are "gullible" and "ignorant" on Theology because you fail to acknowledge that the word ebed can commonly mean "slave" in Hebrew, and that the english word "Servant" while not necessarily means slave, CAN means slave.

Are you tracking on what we are saying here?

I am not being overly nasty on this point to you. I'm merely frustrated that you have taken the tack of attacking the opposing side without acknowledging that they might have a point on the words.

When you do that you automatically undercut any value of your point. Do you see?

Here's an example:

Imagine you and I are neighbors and my dog is sitting in your yard defecating. I'm not going to clean it up and in fact you've seen this happen 20,000 times in the last 3 months. I never clean it up. So you tell me to clean up my dog's feces. I say "that isn't feces".

We begin to argue. I point out that my dog has a digesting problem that renders his intestines incapable of fully digesting his food, and therefore since it is not fully digested and contains chunks of recognizable food it is actually food my dog is putting on your lawn and not feces and that isn't offensive.

Now, imagine for one second that I stick to this "definition" no matter what you say or what you cite to prove that it is both 'feces' and 'offensive'. But I continue to ignore you and just repeat my points while my dog uses your yard for a toilet.

Would you not get annoyed?

That's what is happening here. We all have brought up points that would likely have been in the minds of those Christians in the past who, thinking themselves somehow in tune with God, were looking for a reason to justify their enslavement of another human being. And they could easily find those words in their Bible.

Again, NO ONE HERE IS FOR SLAVERY and we know you think slavery is against God's law. HOWEVER, that isn't what is being debated here. All we have are the words and while many of us like myself are obsessed with words, we realize that sometimes words are imprecise.

Can you or can you not acknowledge that the word ebed in Hebrew can (and apparently was commonly used) to mean "slave", and that the english word "servant" can mean "slave"?

(All slaves are servants but not all servants are slaves.)

AV1611VET said:

What you need to learn, Thaumaturgy, is what a KJVO is.

Click to expand...

What AV fails to grasp is that we know exactly what a KJVO is, but attempt to reason with them anyway.

Asking a KJVO to change one word to another is like asking someone to repaint the Mona Lisa, change the style of her hair, and say that is just as valid as the original.

Click to expand...

It's rare to see a Bible worshipper describe their Idolatry in such explicit detail.

Are there any words in the corpus of the Constitution that need to be changed? The Declaration of Independence? The Magna Charta?

Click to expand...

The Constitution has been changed -- repeatedly.

A second point --- if ebed can mean:

1) slave, servant
a) slave, servant, man-servant
b) subjects
c) servants, worshippers (of God)
d) servant (in special sense as prophets, Levites etc)
e) servant (of Israel)
f) servant (as form of address between equals)


--- where does this end?

Click to expand...

Ask a linguist -- Hebrew isn't what you'd call a very expressive language.

AV1611VET said:

What you need to learn, Thaumaturgy, is what a KJVO is. Asking a KJVO to change one word to another is like asking someone to repaint the Mona Lisa, change the style of her hair, and say that is just as valid as the original. Are there any words in the corpus of the Constitution that need to be changed? The Declaration of Independence? The Magna Charta?

A second point --- if ebed can mean:

1) slave, servant
a) slave, servant, man-servant
b) subjects
c) servants, worshippers (of God)
d) servant (in special sense as prophets, Levites etc)
e) servant (of Israel)
f) servant (as form of address between equals)


--- where does this end?

Click to expand...

Context, context, context. The bane of AV's reading skills. For AV, a text is just words put into a certain order. Meaning, context, background, they don't mean nothing.

AV1611VET said:

What you need to learn, Thaumaturgy, is what a KJVO is. Asking a KJVO to change one word to another is like asking someone to repaint the Mona Lisa

Click to expand...

You will note that, as I said, servant can also mean "slave".

When you couple that with the various points Bombila raised then you are stuck with many cases of "servants" who are pretty much forced to submit to the will of their "owners", they are "bought", they are "freed" after a certain amount of time.

Now, obviously I'm not asking you to veer out of the KJV when I say this.

Servant is in the KJV, right?

But the fact that you deny the history of where the KJV came from, well that's your problem. I suspect you might fear what history tells you about your faith so you wall it off.

But that's just my opinion.

--- where does this end?

Click to expand...

This is a topic that requires consideration of all the facts in evidence. Even if you limit it to the KJV only (and ignore where the KJV came from) you are still left with a point that is anything but crystal clear.

The fact that you fail to acknowledge even the possibility that this point could be correct, even though you disagree with it, says a lot about how 'strongly' you believe your own argument I suspect.

Where does it end? Well, it ended for you whenever you stopped learning and looking. For the rest of us it really never does end.

...

AV1611VET said:

Then "mean it" somewhere else --- not in the King James Bible.

Click to expand...

Then address the whole context of both the use of the term "servant" and the points Bombila raised that point to slavery.

This is ridiculous. I'm not here to make you question your faith. You do with your faith whatever it is you want. I can read, quite well, thank you. I know what I read in the Bible and I can read the history.

I believe what I believe, you believe what you want. It isn't my place to try to make you doubt your religious faith. That's your cross, not mine.

When religious people attempt to take this type of "debate" to the sciences then I'll have more to say. This isn't important enough to waste electrons on.

Just keep your beliefs, they are yours.