The Midge

You would have to back up your claim about the New Testament because slavery is not endorsed in it merely commented upon or used as a metaphor. In fact Philemon was asked not to treat his slave as a fellow brother.

Most slaves were POWs or aquired through raiding. Is that any better?

The principles underlying the law are applicable today. Decent treatment of people is the principle behind the Hebrew regulations on slavery/ bond servants' servants.

Your comments about the Jews is a sweeping generalisation and many 'Christians' hardly ever read the Bible yet alone take it seriously.

The Midge

Did the rich man have slaves in the first place?

Vorkosigan

Another's argument assumed, for the sake of argument, that he might/did. So my rebuttal is that if he can sell such slaves as he might possess, then the institution of slavery is effectively accepted and authorized. However, I personally do not subscribe to the view that this passage really refers to slavery in any way, but is simply a way for Jesus to describe the serious of the commitment required to join his new movement.

Vorkosigan

dantonac

Paul addressed folks who owned slaves. He did not tell them to release them, he asked them to be nice. To runaway slaves he said "Go back".

Paul addressed people who were gay. He told them they were going to hell.

Conclusion? In Paul's view owning/using humans involuntarily as property was OK, having consentual sexual relations with the same gender was not.

Amaleq13

I think it is safe to say Paul has some "issues" when it came to sex of all varieties.

It is odd that a collection of books allegedly inspired by The Supreme Entity would have so many beliefs grounded in the culture of the humans who actually put the ideas on paper.I mean it is almost as though such an Entity had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the texts.

Supreme Beingses are tricksy!

Vinnie

http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/sho...hlight=slavery

Saw this thread today at tweb. Apparently Vork managed to find it as well!

Two additional things: Those who have Crossan might be interested in some brief comments about Paul and his stance on slavery in the prologue of BOC.

8There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Many think Paul's Gospel represents a stirring call to human freedom and autonomy. In th passage above Paul seems to espouse ethnicity negation, gender negation and class negation. Yet Paul, inconsistently, only took the first of these views out into the streets (Jew//Gentile distinction)

Crossan quotes an interesting cite in regards to Paul's statement as well:

"Some Christians (whether Jewish or Gentile) could declare that there is no Greek or Jew, no male or female. No rabbinic Jew could do so, because people are bodies, not spirits, and precisely bodies are marked as male or female, and also marked, through bodily practices and techniques such as circumcision and food taboos, as Jew or Greek as well. -- Daniel Boyarin Carnal Isreael p. 10/.

And this thread inspired this:





Vinnie

Sheshbazzar

This was previously discussed in this thread, but I guess it needs to be reiterated, it is most certainly -NOT- "Decent treatment of people..........." to beat them to just short of the loss of life, so they can recover and be forced back into an involuntary servitude to the bastard that beat them!

Midge, why try to whitewash the subject, it is obvious, that these 'Slave laws' were invented by men, and perpetuated, to serve the greed of men.

If such laws were indeed given by a 'god', then that god was cruel, inhumane, and moraly bankrupt, and far more evil than any man who has ever lived, because it was by his own perverse commands, made with an absolute forekowledge and premeditation, that uncountable millions of people were sentanced to lives of cowering in servitude,misery and terror.

Respectfully, Sheshbazzar

diana

No, it practically shouts out that the "good Christian"* should sell his slaves. Selling one's property is not liberation, it's liquidation.

d

* [derail] Redundant expression or oxymoron? Depends on the Christian. I would argue here that Jesus was giving a commandment to all Christians, good or bad. I've yet to meet a single one IRL who even obeys the spirit of this order, incidentally. [/rerail]

[Edited to add: DOH. I see Vork already covered this point at the end of page two. That's what I get for being so far behind.]

diana

The problem I have with the failure of the bible to condemn the practice is that the explanation that "the bible's stance on various issues was progressive for that time" forgets, for the moment, the claim that morality is presumably objective and that the bible is inspired of God--both standard Christian claims. If morality is objective, slavery was as wrong then as it is now, and should have been condemned outright. If the bible is inspired of God, whether something was "progressive for that time" or not is a non-issue.

Didn't Paul regularly condemn and forbid things that were "accepted practice at the time"? (What would be the point of forbidding things people didn't do, anyway?)

For these reasons, I think Vork has a solid point that still has not been adequately addressed: the failure of the bible's writers to condemn slavery outright, particularly when opportunity was practically beating the door down, ultimately speaks volumes about the bible's lack of inspiration and clearly subjective morality. (I think that's the gist of it, anyhow.)

d

SEF

See Genesis 16, where Sar'ai/Sarah makes her maid-servant, Hagar, have a child with her husband, Abram/Abraham, in her place and then beats her for being contemptuous. The maid runs away. God sends an angel to find her and send her back - telling her to submit to her mistress.

I'd call that pretty solid evidence that the alleged god of the Hebrews approved of slavery and the ill-treatment of slaves. Though he does sometimes offer them bribes.