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Jesus WAS a Pharisee.It contains the Torah - originally, the core theology of the Pharisees. And Jesus also warned us against the teachings of the Pharisees.
The bible explicitly endorses two types of slavery....indentured servitude (for Hebrews) and chattel slavery (for non-Hebrews). With indentured servitude, a person voluntarily agreed to sell his labor to his master for a temporary period of time after which the servant would be granted some kind of remuneration. With chattel slavery (the type of slavery that existed in America during the 1800s), the slave was the permanent property of his master. Most Christians acknowledge that indentured servitude existed for Hebrews, so I won't discuss this. I want to concentrate on the slavery that applied to non-Hebrews (i.e. chattel slavery). Below I will show that the Hebrews got their chattel slaves by buying them or capturing them during war.
Leviticus 25:44-46 (NKJV)
44 And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have—from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. 45 Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. 46 And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.
Here you can see that Hebrews can buy non-Hebrew slaves as permanent property. This is in contrast to Hebrew indentured servants who entered into a contract with their masters for a set period (7 years). Indentured servants couldn't be bequeathed as inheritance because they were not considered permanent property. Also, notice that this passage makes a distinction between the treatment of Hebrews servants who are not to be treated ruthlessly like non-Hebrews were.
The second way chattel slaves could be obtained is by attacking foreign cities and enslaving the inhabitants:
Deuteronomy 20:10-18 (NKJV)
10 “When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. 11 And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you. 12 Now if the city will not make peace with you, but war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. 14 But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat the enemies’ plunder which the Lord your God gives you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.
16 “But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, 17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 lest they teach you to do according to all their [a]abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.
Here we see that when the Hebrews attacked a non-Hebrew city they made an offer to the inhabitants:
(1) surrender and pay a tribute (i.e. they would be forced to work for the Hebrews) OR
(2) the men would be slaughtered and women/children and livestock taken as plunder.
In case (2), women and children are described as plunder, which is property that is (usually violently) acquired by the victor during a war. Here the Hebrews could march into a house of the conquered city and drag out any women and children and enslave them. These weren't combatants and posed little treat to the Hebrews, but they were of economic value.
Today we recognize that slavery is immoral because slavery, by its very nature, is a violation of a person’s liberty. It reduces people into objects that can be owned. Some apologists claim that slaves were treated with kindness and not abused like black slaves in America were. Even if this was true, this makes no difference to the morality of owning another person as property - slavery was and will always be immoral. Other apologists argue that these laws are no longer in force. Again this is irrelevant. The fact is that there was a point in history where god thought that owning another person as property (chattel slavery) was okay.
My question is, if an omnipotent and benevolent god exists and he gave these laws to humans, why would he condone slavery? A benevolent god and a god that condoned slavery is a contradiction. Either the god of the bible exists, in which case he isn't benevolent or he doesn't exist.
Below is an excellent video which counters many of the objections that apologists have on this subject:
Jesus WAS a Pharisee.
I'd do the morally correct thing. Commandment 11: thou shall not own other people like they are property.If you were God, what would you have done?
From the general gist of His teachings. They fall right between those of the famous Pharisee schoolmasters Shammai and Hillel. Any religious Jew who has studied Shammai and Hillel and is honest enough to give our Lord's teaching a fair evaluation will tell you the same.Jesus was a rabbi, not a Pharisee. From what verse(s) are you getting your assertion?
Funny how he elected the "man in the desert".The New Testament is not the pure message of Truth either. There are both truths and lies in it.
In it, Jesus warned against someone who will claim to see Him in the desert / wilderness --- Saul / Paul.
He did say "love your neighbor as yourself," which is a lot more demanding than simply not treating people like they are property.I'd do the morally correct thing. Commandment 11: thou shall not own other people like they are property.
What if your neighbor keeps slaves?He did say "love your neighbor as yourself," which is a lot more demanding than simply not treating people like they are property.
He did say "love your neighbor as yourself," which is a lot more demanding than simply not treating people like they are property.
So at some point in human history it became immoral for slavery to be a consequence of war?What many fail to realize is that it is anachronistic to put your moral values as a standard for stuff in the past and compare it with American slavery (why else people would ask those questions)? Folks failed to realize slavery was a voluntary economic system when stuff like capitalism didn't exist and the economic situations were mostly based on survival. Regarding people from other nations who became slaves, what else should they have done with them? Kill them? If that would have happened you would had complained about genocide because you think people interacted like it was the 21st century.
Funny how he elected the "man in the desert".
There lived an ascetic once who sold himself as slave to such neighbors and through prayer and service he managed to convert them. One way to deal with the problem...What if your neighbor keeps slaves?
I'm thinking your neighbor's slaves are not really neighbors themselves. They are more like cattle, or other property owned by your neighbor.There lived an ascetic once who sold himself as slave to such neighbors and through prayer and service he managed to convert them. One way to deal with the problem...
Jesus WAS a Pharisee.
Indeed, which means the 'keeping of slaves' he had in mind is not how you imagine it or how some have practiced it.Apparently the writer of Leviticus saw no contradiction between "you should love your neighbor as yourself " and keeping slaves. See Leviticus 19:18
Indeed, which means the 'keeping of slaves' he had in mind is not how you imagine it or how some have practiced it.
So at some point in human history it became immoral for slavery to be a consequence of war?
I wonder what changed in the conditions of human living?
Your thinking, not scripture's, as I understand it.I'm thinking your neighbor's slaves are not really neighbors themselves. They are more like cattle, or other property owned by your neighbor.
Hey some slaves moved in next door. Lets bring them a bundt cake.Your thinking, not scripture's, as I understand it.
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