Sheshbazzar

The Bible and its present day believers purport its words to present the perfect will of an omniscient and never changing god.
The followers of the gods of the Assyrians, Persians, and Macedonians are not around attempting to push their religious beliefs upon everyone by manipulating our governments into passing of, and enforcing of religiously based laws.
This "god" through his followers claims to be superior to all of those contemporary gods and cultures, as such it is only right and proper to hold such a prescient and all knowing god to a higher standard of morals, ethics, and knowledge than all other ancient gods.
"He" should have known, and should have denounced involuntary servitude, IF 'He' was really an all knowing god rather than a human figment of imagination.

Stephen T-B

"Don't compare ancients with moderns, compare them with their contemporaries" (bacht) - so, beiing guided - via its prophets - by this god, advertised as "perfectly just" and "perfectly loving" and "all-knowing" didn't make the Bronze-Age Hebrews any better than their neighbours?
I see.

bacht

If Roman gentiles hadn't adopted the Tanakh we wouldn't even be talking about the Jews. They had no way to impose their ethics on anyone. They were fighting for survival pretty much their entire recorded history. The Jews were underdogs who dreamed of a divine champion who could fight their enemies. If not for Christianity the Jewish scriptures would have remained obscure and unnoticed by the rest of the world.

If you're concerned about modern believers and their use of scripture that's a separate argument. If you're saying that people don't practice what they preach that's hardly a blinding insight. Secular humanists can be just as guilty of this.

You seem to think that God is standing by, ready to intervene in human affairs when injustice occurs. This is simplistic, and doesn't reflect the Biblical attitude as I understand it.

bacht

I don't understand this obsession with beating up on the Hebrews. These people were NOBODIES in their own time. And how are you so sure that the writings (which few could read anyway) actually reflected the practices of Iron Age Jews?

You're as guilty as fundies of reading this book as if it were a completely reliable report of life as it actually unfolded. Why don't you pick on someone else? The people who wrote these words turned to dust centuries ago.

Sheshbazzar

I don't believe in God, so I'd hardly think that this imaginary being has ever intervened in any human affairs. Justice only derives from the ethics and acts of men, no god ever "gave" or instituted any of those slavery laws, they are all, entirely the creation of primitive society.

sslichter has been attempting to make it appear that slavery as outlined in the Bible was a benevolent and voluntary institution.

Indentured servitude of Hebrews servants to Hebrew masters was conducted on far different terms than that involuntary servitude that was the lot of non-Hebrew slaves taken in battle, or bought on the market, something that the texts under consideration reveal that sslichter is avoiding dealing forthrightly with.
Slavery has always been immoral, and no law, then or now, can turn injustice into justice.

Sheshbazzar

No one here is obsessed with beating up on the Hebrews. The SUBJECT of this thread is after all "SLAVERY" and specifically the Hebrew's treatment of the subject, as it is revealed to us by surviving documents, that is The TaNaKa. Investigating exactly what those documents say, and what they imply, is in no way "beating up on the Hebrews".
Do you have some reason to believe that the Jews documents do not "reflect the practices of Iron Age Jews"? Perhaps you would like to start a new thread where you can present your evidence for that thesis?

bacht

Do you have good reason to believe that the book of Kings or Deuteronomy accurately reflected events on the ground? It's disingenuous to pretend that the Bible is straight history, it's more the opposite.

Does the legal code in your city or state reflect the actual behaviour of residents? At best it's an ideal version of how people should act, not a record of what they actually do. Laws about slavery in the Bible probably derived from similar ideas in surrounding cultures, they wouldn't have been created out of nothing. And these rules may or may not have actually been followed by real Judeans, Samaritans and Galileans.

The reason I say you're beating up on the Hebrews is because I don't hear any outrage about practices of their contemporaries. How many slaves do you think actually lived in Palestine in biblical times? If you crossed the border into Egypt I suspect the number would jump by an order of magnitude at least.

Sheshbazzar

In that the subject of this thread is the Hebrew/Jewish account of how they allegedly dealt with the matters of slavery, how their contemporaries acted is not the principal subject under consideration.
"Slavery has always been immoral, and no law, then or now, can turn injustice into justice." This applies as much to the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians and Macedonians as it does to Hebrew Jews.

If you want to start another thread on the documentary evidence of Egyptian or Assyrian regulations pertaining to the institution of slavery, in the "NON-ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS & PHILOSOPPHY" or "GENERAL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION" forums, I'll be glad to address that subject there. (and express similar outrage at the injustice of the inhumanity of men towards their fellow man)

But THIS forum, in case you missed the heading IS "BIBLE CRITICISIM & HISTORY" thus its principal aim is to explore the documents of the Judeao-Christian and Abrahamic religious heritage.
As such, consideration of the documents and practices of other religious heritages is here only ancillary to these subjects.

Craigart14

I agree that judging the people in ancient societies by modern standards is unfair. But we're judging God, who supposedly gave His eternal, immutable laws to the ancient Israelites, just as Allah gave His eternal, immutable laws to Mohammad--bloody harsh laws in both cases. They may have been fairly liberal for the standards of the time, but what in the law could not have been written by a decent human being of the first millennium BCE or the seventh century CE? As for revealing His law slowly as we become able to handle it, what happened between Leviticus and Matthew that convinced God we were ready for pork chops and popcorn shrimp?

It's not confusing at all. It's pretty clear what it says about slavery.[/QUOTE]

Yes, the Bible is so clear that 30,000 different Christian sects have been arguing over its meaning for 2,000 years.

Craig

Johnny Skeptic

Some of the passages clearly endorse, or allow, if you will, the wrongful abuse of non-Hebrew slaves. Consider the following:

Item 1

Exodus 21:2-4 (NIV)

"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free."

Item 2

Exodus 21:12-14 (NIV)

"Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death."

Item 3

Exodus 21:20-21 (NIV)

"If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."

Item 4

Leviticus 25:44-45 (NIV)

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 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."

Regarding item 1, please note that after six years, a Hebrew slave gained his freedom, but item 4 shows that slaves from other nations could be forced to be slaves for life. Part of item 4 says "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." That is a good example of racial bigotry, but what else should one expect from a race of people who appointed themselves as God's chosen people. Chosen for what?

Regarding item 2, if a Hebrew deliberately killed another Hebrew, he was put to death, but item 3 shows that if a Hebrew deliberately killed a non-Hebrew slave, he was not put to death, only punished, but not punished at all if the slave recovered in a day or two. Item 3 does not specifically say non-Hebrew, but non-Hebrew is implied because it would not make any sense for item 2 to talk about Hebrews, and for item 3 to also talk about Hebrews. In other words, it would not make any sense for item 2 to say that a Hebrew should be put to death if he killed another Hebrew, and for item 3 to say that if a Hebrew killed another Hebrew, he would only be punished.

More accurately, if a Hebrew slaveowner killed a non-Hebrew slave, he would only be punished, and not punished at all if he severely beat his non-Hebrew slave and the slave recovered within a few days. On the other hand, if a Hebrew killed another Hebrew, he was put to death. In addition, some texts guarantee eventual freedom for Hebrew slaves, but the same right to freedom was not guaranteed to non-Hebrew slaves, who were sometimes passed on as inherited property.

The texts clearly show an unfair double standard based upon racial bigotry. Simply stated, some texts endorse, or allow, the murder of non-Hebrew slaves, while other texts forbid the murder of Hebrews.