Originally Posted by arnoldo

Truly, the teachings of the Lord and the apostles would have abolished slavery like no other social reform system ever known. As Herb Vander Lugt accurately observed:

"Jesus and the apostles didn’t go on an anti-slavery crusade, because doing so would have been futile and a hindrance to their primary mission. The priority of Jesus was the provision of salvation."

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Better yet, for an even more scholarly examination, please read all of Elaine Pagel's and Bart Ehrman's major books.

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Both of those individuals support Christianity, try again.

http://bartdehrman.com/index.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/religion/pe...?netid=epagels

Originally Posted by bartdehrman.com

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer

Editorial Review From the Publisher

In times of questioning and despair, people often quote the Bible to provide answers. Surprisingly, though, the Bible does not have one answer but many "answers" that often contradict one another. Consider these competing explanations for suffering put forth by various biblical writers: The prophets: suffering is a punishment for sin. The book of Job, which offers two different answers: suffering is a test, and you will be rewarded later for passing it; and suffering is beyond comprehension, since we are just human beings and God, after all, is God. Ecclesiastes: suffering is the nature of things, so just accept it. All apocalyptic texts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament: God will eventually make right all that is wrong with the world. For renowned Bible scholar Bart Ehrman, the question of why there is so much suffering in the world is more than a haunting thought. Ehrman's inability to reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of real life led the former pastor of the Princeton Baptist Church to reject Christianity. In God's Problem, Ehrman discusses his personal anguish upon discovering the Bible's contradictory explanations for suffering and invites all people of faith--or no faith--to confront their deepest questions about how God engages the world

Darby Orcutt - Library Journal

This serious book by a serious scholar will be talked about and cannot be ignored by any collection. Ehrman (religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why) is a New York Times best-selling author and a familiar media figure in the scholarly discussion of the New Testament. Here, he turns from his usual historical-critical concerns to theological consideration of the problem of suffering: namely, if God is all-powerful and all-loving, how can suffering exist? Ehrman writes in a clear and engaging style, bringing personal reflection and reason to bear on academically sound readings of biblical perspectives on suffering, from both the Old and the New Testament. Ultimately, the book is a very personal statement that will anger some and resonate with others; most important, it will provoke mature consideration of this very important question. For all libraries.

Originally Posted by princeton.edu

Elaine Pagels joined the Princeton faculty in 1982, shortly after receiving a MacArthur Fellowship. Perhaps best known as the author of The Gnostic Gospels, The Origin of Satan, and Adam, Eve and the Serpent, she has published widely on Gnosticism and early Christianity, and continues to pursue research interests in late antiquity. Her most recent books include Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (was on the New York Times best-seller list) and Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, co-authored with Karen King of Harvard.

Originally Posted by disseminary.org

Pagels frames the work in the context of her own spiritual life. From the devastating grief of her young son's death to a moment of exaltation shared with her daughter at a Christmas Eve service, she has pondered her persistent attraction to and aversion from Christianity, and this book begins to explain those feelings.

Moreover, she rebukes orthodox Christianity for its narrow insistence on doctrinal conformity. Time and again, she adduces the weak arguments and awful consequences of authoritarian theological leadership. Pagels does not soft-pedal the harsh language that church leaders directed against those with whom they disagreed, and she invites readers to identify more closely with the free thinkers whom she admires than with the Athanasius, Irenaeus, and other bishops of the dominant tradition.

Finally, she advances theological arguments in favor of the traditions she favors. She sets the Gospel of John over against the Gospel of Thomas and suggests that John was written as a somewhat peevish rebuke to Thomas’s mystical spirituality. She argues that the orthodox churches committed themselves to a fourfold gospel canon and to the creedal definition of sound faith; thus they shut out the profound spiritual insights of the many texts that she has devoted her career to understanding, translating, and expounding. Pagels lobbies gently for Christians to devote their energies more generously to spiritual growth, so that they might welcome the resources that non-canonical texts (and non-Christian faiths) stand to offer.

Originally Posted by James Holding

A letter-writer asked me to look into this classic book in the field and check it for accuracy. Here's the scoop: Though it was written some time ago, it lives up to its future lineage as quite the usual mix we've come to expect from the modern Jesus Seminar crowd -- a mix of accurate information mixed in with speculation of varying degrees being passed off as accurate information. You'll have to discern which is which yourself, but this may help you decide.

A good cautionary premise: Pagels is one of those critics infected with that naive sort of universalism that supposes that every religious belief is valid if it is valid for the holder. Now The Gnostic Gospels is admittedly an excellent primer for the history of the Nag Hammadi texts, the beliefs and writings of the Gnostic movement, and some aspects of church history. You can trust Pagels on these accounts, certainly, for information if not for critical evaluation. Where you have to watch out with this text is where the typical line on the dates of the Gospels is uncritically accepted, and where it seems that the heretics are given favor just because their beliefs are preferred by Pagels over Christianity's intolerant exclusivism -- her profession of neutrality as to who is "right" or "wrong" notwithstanding. Case in point: Pagels' treatment of the differences in belief over the resurrection of Christ -- orthodoxy's physical body versus the intangible ghost and spiritual "resurrection" of the Gnostics. The orthodox view is misrepresented by both bad data (the same misinterpretation of "flesh and blood" we have found Robert Price guilty of) and by unwarranted speculation (it is supposed that Luke's Emmaus road story suggests a "different view" of resurrection, when there is no grounds at all for saying that it does), and is not even described with reference to Jewish views of resurrection, which were ALWAYS physical and would seal the matter clearly in favor of the orthodox view. Pagels can hardly be trusted for a fair evaluation of the data when not all of the data is presented.

On the other hand, the Gnostics are given every possible break: Their cowardly avoidance of persecution by adaptation of syncretism is seen as a case of independent and worthwhile thinking (hard to believe, when that sort of attitude was normal for the period in Rome); their self-authenticating internal witness to "truth" is described in sympathetic terms; likewise their appeal to having had "secret wisdom" or knowledge, certified only by the claim that the giving of the knowledge to them was secret as well! A critical thinker would not give such claims the time of day, but Pagels is not interested in determining who is right or wrong; she thinks only that the differences were matters of power and politics, where only might made right and the history was written by the winners who were only interested in making the losers look bad rather than in truth versus fiction. Subjective and personal interpretation is all. And postmodernism had its early predecessors.

Of the rest of the work, little needs to be said; the basics are the same, and there are those few outrageous statements you can easily pick out. (Did Martin Luther really mean the same thing as the Gnostics when he said that the true church was "invisible"??) The Gnostics, like Pagels thought that mixing truth with error was just no big deal; but a wiser authority than Pagels tells us that broad roads lead inevitably to destruction.

Originally Posted by James Holding

Even Ehrman [Ehr.OxC, 46n], though he has only found a few dozen corruptions - which he was able to identify because original readings were still preserved! - cannot resist speculating that there are actually "hundreds" of undiscovered corruptions. This is rather like the wandering soothsayer who carries a sign saying "THE WORLD WILL END TOMORROW" - having faith that someday, he will be right! The evidence is far better that we DO have the "original text" -- it is simply mixed up with "unoriginal variants," and it is speculative to believe we have lost any real parts.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Much of Ehrman's writing has concentrated on various aspects of Walter Bauer's thesis that Christianity was always diversified or at odds with itself. Ehrman is often considered a pioneer in connecting the history of the early church to textual variants within biblical manuscripts and in coining such terms as "Proto-orthodox Christianity." In his writings, Ehrman has turned around textual criticism. From the time of the Church Fathers, it was those denounced as heretics (Marcion, for example) who were charged with tampering with the biblical manuscripts. Ehrman theorizes that it was more often the Orthodox that "corrupted" the manuscripts, altering the text to promote particular viewpoints.

Ehrman became an Evangelical Christian as a teen. His desire to understand the original words of the Bible led him to the study of ancient languages and to textual criticism, to which he attributes the inspiration for an ongoing critical exploration of the basis of his own religious beliefs, which in turn gradually led to the questioning of his faith in the Bible as the inerrant, unchanging word of God. He now considers himself an agnostic.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

But my main arguments is this thread have not been against slavery, they have been against an immoral double standard of slavery.

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Even though the non-Hebrew slaves were getting rest on the sabbath should they also have been set free after six years and at the year of jubilee?

Originally Posted by arnoldo

If so, what other treatment should the non-Hebrew slaves have been given in order to avoid an "immoral double standard"?

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Also, if you have any archaelogical evidence that these non-Hebrew slaves were mistreated (such as burial sites of slaves whose bones showed malnutrition, rampant disease, short life spans, frequent breaks,etc) this would be helpful.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

There is no doubt that Old Testment slavery was immoral. Consider the following Scriptures:

Leviticus 45:26

KJV - And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

NASB - You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another.

NIV - You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

The Amplified Bible - And you shall make them an inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a possession; of them shall you take your bondmen always, but over your brethren the Israelites you shall not rule one over another with harshness (severity, oppression).

The word "but" appears in all four translations. It is used to distinguish between two different methods of treatment regarding two different groups of people, Hebrews and non-Hebrews.

Consider the following excerpts from the aforementioned Scriptures:

KJV - ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

NASB - you shall not rule with severity over one another.

NIV - you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

The Amplified Bible - you shall not rule one over another with harshness (severity, oppression).

Those texts clearly show that the writer believed that it was immoral for Hebrew slaves to be forced to be slaves for life. We know that because previously in the same sentence, involuntarily forcing non-Hebrew slaves to be slaves for life was endorsed, followed by the word "but," which as I said "is used to distinguish between two different methods of treatment regarding two different groups of people, Hebrews and non-Hebrews."

Simply stated, the texts endorse treatment for non-Hebrews that was considered harsh treatment for Hebrews.

Originally Posted by arnoldo

[Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman] support Christianity, try again.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

I am ready to accept your admission of defeat.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Of course, why not?
They should have gotten whatever treatment Hebrew slaves were getting.

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Even though the non-Hebrew slaves were getting rest on the sabbath should they also have been set free after six years and at the year of jubilee?

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Of course, why not? They should have gotten whatever treatment Hebrew slaves were getting.

Originally Posted by arnoldo

Why?