Johnny Skeptic

If the God of the Bible exists, and inspired the writing of the Bible, he did a very poor job regarding many issues, including the issue of slavery. He knew in advance that millions of Christians would misinterpret what the Bible says about slavery, at great cost to society, but chose to do nothing about it. He knew that Christians would conquer the largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion, but chose to do nothing about it. He knew that women would be subjugated until the 1900's, but chose nothing about it. He knows in advance which rapists will commit rape, but does nothing about it. He knows which hurricanes will kill people, but chooses to do nothing about it. No person who has principles and morals could love such a being. What is the point of praying to an apathetic God?

Dr Rick

It's usually belatedly agreed to preclude enslavement. For more centuries than not, the Bible was used to defend the practice of slavery

It may be a bit of an understatement to label explicit biblical commands that slaves are to obey their masters, biblical limits on the severity of slave beatings, and biblical assertions that slaves are property as merely "inappropriate and misleading."

Amaleq13

Upon further consideration, I think you are correct on this point (what is being stolen is the freedom of the individual) but you continue to go beyond what the text actually states in claiming this as a general prohibition against buying or selling or just owning humans as forced labor.

Right, there is nothing prohibiting the owning or selling of slaves one has not kidnapped. Period.

Berggy

The point is that what slavers truly do. They steal the freedom of people and sell them off as slaves and/or force then to work for the slavers. When the Israelites went to get servants for themselves, they never stole these people's freedom, they paid to have that servant transferred to them, to work for them. This completely shows that enslaving people was not the practice of the Israelites according to God's Law.

Not only this, you must also take into consideration that if the Israelites bought genuine slaves, those that were taken involuntarily and brought onto the market to be sold, then the Israelites would have taken part of violating Exodus 21:16 and Dueteronomy 24:7.

The servants that the Israelites were buying were already genuine indentured servants and they were merely transferring the service of the servant from one party to another, hence, indentured servitude. After six years, they would then be released.

Dr Rick

This reasoning is severely flawed: a contradictory Bible could at once condemn slavery and approve of it.

As it turns out, though, this time there is no contradiction. Nothing in the Bible condemns the institution of slavery. Exodus 21:16 condemns kidnapping and making a slave of the victim, not slavery. Nothing here could be construed as prohibiting obtaining slaves by other means, such as conquering a nation and taking the survivors as war booty. Deuteronomy 24:7 prohibits making slaves of other Israelis, but not non-Israelis.

Leviticus 25:44-46 clearly permits slavery, provided that those enslaved are not Israelis:

And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.

Berggy

Read my previous post in this thread and read the rest of my posts concerning the evidence regarding the scriptures you quoted. The institution of slavery is condemned, not indentured servants. Im tired of repeating myself.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Berggy: If the God of the Bible exists, and inspired the writing of the Bible, he did a very poor job regarding many issues, including the issue of slavery. He knew in advance that millions of Christians would misinterpret what the Bible says about slavery, at great cost to society, but chose to do nothing about it. He knew that Christians would conquer the largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion, but chose to do nothing about it. He knew that women would be subjugated until the 1900's, but chose to do nothing about it. He knows in advance which rapists will commit rape, but chooses to do nothing about it, at least much of the time. He knows which hurricanes will kill people, but chooses to do nothing about it. No person who has principles and morals could love such a being. What is the point of praying to an apathetic God?

Anat

The non-Israelite slave was enslaved for life. I see no arrangement to free children born to him in captivity. There is no need to buy a child as a slave in order to have children who are enslaved. (And BTW I am a native speaker of modern Hebrew and have been reading Tanakh in Hebrew since I was 7, no need to lecture me on simple stuff. I know what I mean.)

In some cases. But what if she was married of to a slave? Tough luck for her. And her children. And her husband, faced with the dilemma of choosing to go free and losing his family or staying with his family and losing any chance ever of regaining freedom.

Sorry, I object to this unjustified distinction between 'true' and not-so-true servitude. They are all servitude. In the ancient world at large there were individual slaves who rose from low status to one that was higher than that of a free commoner via skill, ties and the goodwill of masters. There is no need to prohibit your 'true' servitude for such a situation to arise. There being some wealthy slaves is no indication of the status of the majority of slaves.

Careful!! You are conflating foreign born and Hebrew slaves here. You are also ignoring a more important source of 'true' slavery - prisoners of war. And the foreign slaves are not released after 6 years or at any time. They are permanent slaves.

No. You are misinterpreting the text. This is not about a slave marrying into the master's family. It is about a male slave marrying a female slave. Because your way makes no sense - why would a freeborn woman not be sent along with her now freed husband? The whole idea of biblical marriage is the transfer of a woman from the responsibility of her father to the responsibility of her husband.

Johnny Skeptic

If the Bible is the word of God, it ought to say a lot more about slavery than it does. If I wanted to write book for people to use as a guide to live their lives, I most certainly would not write about slavery like the Bible writers did.

seebs

If they could, they would.

But the Hebrew law is that either he must abandon them, or he becomes a slave for life; he becomes a chattel, no longer an independent human with what passed for civil rights among the Hebrews. His master can beat him until he dies, and suffer no penalty, as long as it takes him at least three days to die.

Sorry, but no. The policy in question clearly uses the family as a tool to convert people from indentured servitude into full chattel slavery.