Fortuna

Actually, NO, the Hebrew does not support that interpretation at all, because the verb "nakah" (translated here as "smite") is in the imperfect tense, implying a present uncompleted action, while the "muth" (trans as "die") is in perfect tense (completed action). A more clear way of saying this might be ;

If a man while beating (imperfect tense) his servant or maid with a rod dies (perfect) under his hand,...

Sorry, inquisitive01, but the Hebrew, simply by virtue of the verb tense, does not support your reading of this verse. The subject of the completed action of "muth" is causually linked to the present action of the beating in the previous phrase.

Sven

Thanks for this nice argument! :thumbs:
But a nitpick: This was inquisitive01's reading of the verse. I suggest to edit your post.

Hobbs

All right, suppose we are misunderstanding the passage. Suppose it does mean what you say and our interpretation is incorrect.

Can you understand why, given our (faulty) interpretation, we have a problem with this passage? In other words, would you say:

"You are misunderstanding whom 'he' refers to, so you are misinterpreting the passage. But, given how you are interpreting it, I can see why you have a problem with this passage. If the passage said what you mistakenly think it says, then, yes, I agree that there would be a real problem here. But since your interpretation is mistaken, the problem you think is there really isn't there."

Or, would you say:

"You are misunderstanding whom 'he' refers to, so you are misinterpreting the passage. But, even if the passage meant what you mistakenly think it means, it still would not be a problem."

Amaleq13

Done and done. My feet are like wings, Sahib!

Gregg

This is like saying, "Feudal Japanese tradition allowed for men to beat their wives to death. Did every man beat his wife to death?"

Sven

Yes, and not_registerd is in essence saying that there's nothing wrong with such traditions, because it's still the decision of every man to beat his wife to death or not.

Angrillori

It's more like they're saying "As long as there are some men who don't beat their wives to death, then explicitly condoning the beating of wives to death is a morally good thing."

Analgous to:

"As long as some masters didn't beat their slaves near to death, then explicitly condoning the beating near to death of slaves by masters is a morally good thing." (Which also implicitly adds that the explicit condoning of the ownership of slaves is a morally good thing too.)

Fortuna

To whom it may concern,

Let's face it folks, at this point, this thread has become pretty much unproductive. It is apparent that the slavery in ancient Hebrew times was at least as bad as that in the early American civilization. Yet, we see some folks are nonetheless hades-bent on trying to "whitewash" it away by any means necessary. Factually, here is what I have been able to gather from this thread ;

1) A slave as described in the HB (Hebrew Bible) could be beaten to near death by his/her master with no sanctions at all against the master, provided he lived for a day or two after the beating.

2) Biblical slavery also had a very racist component. Different rules applied to slave of the Hebrew race as opposed to a Goyim. A hebrew was probably more akin to servant than slave, but a Goyim was a slave in the truest sense of hte word, and no amount of hand waving or non-sequitur arguments will make that fact go away.

3) These slaves/servants were explicitly stated to be the property of their masters. However, a Hebrew slave could be given his freedom in a jubillee year, but a goyim was a slave for life, as were his posterity.

4) A Master could do with his slaves as he wished, make them work in the fields, in the house, or even force female goyim slaves to become unwillling concubines.(but, this was probably not so with Hebrew female slaves, except under certain conditions, as I understand it(i.e. they were already known members of the oldest profession)

5) If I remember correctly, only goyim temple slaves could be used as sodomites. Hebrew slaves were not permitted to fulfill that role. (But, could a female Hebrew act as a temple concubine ? I think so, I'll have to look that one up).

6) To make things even worse, remember, only a married woman could commit adultery with one of the house slaves. Hebrew males were permitted to have as many concubines and goyim sex toys as they pleased without censure ! The only way a hebrew freeman could commit adultery was with another Hebrew freeman's wife or daughter (and in the case of a daughter, he had the option of marrying her, or could make restitution to the girl's father - Remember, there was no such requirement for goyim women).


After considering these issues, it is difficult to see any major difference between the slavery of biblical times and that of the early USA. Both had racial undertones. Both were property, and both could have been captured and enslaved against their will (the goyim in the biblical case).

But, as we have seen here, some people will bring in non-sequiter's and hand-waving ad naseum to try to whitewash it away, even to the point of trying to intentionally mis-interpret an english translation (which as one poster pointed out, is really irrelevant to the issue anyway, I bring it up just to show the lengths some are willing to use to effect a cover-up)

In the end, what does all this tell us about the bible itself ? It suggests to me that slavery was common practice in those biblical times, and was an accepted institution. Thus, we can safely conclude that the writers of the bible were nothing more than products of their time and locale. And this in and of itself weighs heavily against the idea of divine inspiration.

Fortuna

Angrillori

Brilliantly put Fortuna.

:notworthy

Just one question, for my own reference, do you have sourcing for the temple slaves/sodomite/concubinage? Preferrably biblical? I'm sure I'd find that useful next time the "God's objective universal eternal morality" threads pop up.

Thanks!

Craigart14

Let's see, now . . . who says slavery is bad?

The book of Exodus and at least two thousand years of commentary. The Egyptians got to whip you and you had to make bricks without straw.

The question I would like answered is: when giving instructions regarding slavery, why didn't Jesus, subversive, rebellious temple-cleanser that he was, say something more straight orward, like "set your slaves free"? Whether it's race slavery, as in Europe, the Arab world, and the New World, or the slavery practiced by the Africans who sold slaves to the Europeans, the Arabs, and the Americans, or the slavery of the Biblical world, it's still ownership of another human being, which, no matter how you slice it or how many bad analogies you trot out, is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, fuck, wrong wrong, wrong, wrong. Jesus, being God and all, should have known that and should have had the guts to say it. Wonder why he didn't? Could it be that the writers of the gospels, who after all were trying to convince a Gentile audience to follow a Jewish mystic into a heaven that was quite foreign to Greek views of the "afterlife," didn't have the guts to put those particular words into his mouth? Oh, sure, you can tell the Gentiles that the Jews suck, that they killed the son of Gawd, so your new converts won't be angry at the Romans, but let's not threaten the economic status quo by demanding the liberation of someone's property. Or could it be that the writers of the gospels thought slavery was just dandy? Since the institution of slavery persisted in the US until 1865, in South America until 1895, and in Saudi Arabia until 1964, they weren't the only ones who liked it, so I suppose they shouldn't be criticized too much for it. But Jesus should have done something.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, there is still slavery today. I have met freed and/or escaped slaves in Africa and in Vietnam. A UN expert on the situation told me that there were something like 18,000,000 slaves in the world. This was in the summer of 2002.

Craig

Remember: George Bush was born on third base, but he thinks he hit a triple.