skepticgirl

Leviticus 25
38 I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39 "When, then, your countryman becomes so impoverished beside you that he sells you his services, do not make him work as a slave.
40 Rather, let him be like a hired servant or like your tenant, working with you until the jubilee year,
41 when he, together with his children, shall be released from your service and return to his kindred and to the property of his ancestors.
42 Since those whom I brought out of the land of Egypt are servants of mine, they shall not be sold as slaves to any man.
43 Do not lord it over them harshly, but stand in fear of your God.
44 "Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you buy them from among the neighboring nations.
45 You may also buy them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. Such slaves you may own as chattels,
46 and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, making them perpetual slaves. But you shall not lord it harshly over any of the Israelites, your kinsmen. http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/le...eviticus25.htm


It seems the above says Israelites may not inslave their fellow Israelites, but can enslave foreigners.

But does anyone know what slavery was like in those times? Can anyone legitimately argue that God's apparenet permission of slavery is not evil because slavery back then was not like slavery of blacks in America for instance?

Styrofoamdeity

I would say that arguing the relative evils of, say, 19th Century black slavery and Biblical slavery is giving too much away to the Biblicists. I would frame the argument is "Given the incredible evils of the black slave trade, why does the Bible not condemn it? Afterall, it must have been forseeable to Jesus or God that this twisted and evil practice would occur as a further development of slavery existing in their times." Wouldn't it have been a simple task to preach for an end to slavery or to mention, somewhere or other in the Bible, that all races are worthy of respect? If they couldn't forsee the possibility of these developments, then they could not have been remotely omniscient. Or did they just not really give a shit?

It is hilarious that the Bible is combed for authoritative commentary on the morality of stem cell research, while adherents can't even quote portions of it condemning torture or slavery, which surely existed in some forms during its writing. If it is "applicable to all times" as Christians state, shouldn't it have something to say about the greatest evils of human history and less about, say, what to eat or not to eat?

Toto

This is a frequent topic here. You can search the forum for previous threads.

Slavery was an established institution in the ancient world. As in the South, a few house slaves were relatively well treated, and some slaves were well educated and acted a scribes, but most were used for labor and had low status. All could be beaten at the will of the master.

Slavery contains a link to Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History with Documents (or via: amazon.co.uk) which contains biblical arguments used by the Confederacy.

Slavery and the Bible contains a link to a scholarly journal.