TollHouse

I've seen the notion of Biblical-time slavery defended frequently based on the idea that slavery back then was "much nicer" than the slavery we saw in the U.S. 150 years ago.

Does anyone have some references to just how "nice" slavery was back then?

Corwin

It depended on the slaver mostly.

Through most of the ancient world slaves were still considered human, and still had SOME basic rights. (They may not have had much, but you still couldn't murder a slave with impunity.)

Our views on slavery tend to be influenced by the fact that slavery here, particularly the agricultural slavery in the south, was unusually brutal.

Vorkosigan

Roman slavery WAS unusually brutal. God help you if you were anything but a household slave.

Toto, <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000718" target="_blank">this thread on Daniel Wallace and Slavery</a> contains some useful URLs on Roman slavery.

Michael

Haran

Wow! Michael, I feel your post on Christianity and Slavery was at least as biased as you accuse Wallace of being.

You seem to enjoy implying that well-known and reputable scholars like Wallace are dishonest "apologists" as you quite unhonorably did in the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000131" target="_blank">Harper's Magazine thread</a>.

Wallace is a textual critic and expert in Greek among many other related studies. You can find his works up there with the best of them in collections by unbiased textual critics such as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802848249/qid=1015686643/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/102-7283068-1230502" target="_blank">The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essayson the Status Quaestionis by Bart D. Ehrman (Editor), Michael William Holmes (Editor)</a>

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you have just not done enough study to know who is and is not a good and relatively unbiased scholar.

The fact is that Roman slavery was quite different from the slavery of our recent past.

You make a rather weak case against the fact the main source of slaves during Roman times was war. You seem to say that slaves were obtained for the American south in a similar way through raids, etc. This is simply a weak comparison. What the slave traders of the 1800's did was to "steal" men. They had power in the form of guns and education and used it to overpower and enslave helpless populations. The Romans, on the other hand, were actually fighting wars against others trying to destroy them. Also, according to an article posted by another atheist here on the SecWeb, <a href="http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/96/Madden96.html" target="_blank">John Madden</a> (nope, not him...) Pompey, Tiberius, and Augustus made attempts at crushing and eliminating the kind of man "stealing" that went on in the 1800's as a source for slaves.

It becomes obvious through reading, that the slavery of the American south was very different from that of the ancient past.

Madden also leaves you with the sense that manumission was relatively common. Freedmen seem to have even owned slaves!!! Somehow, I think that if a Black person had received freedom in the recent past, he wouldn't have been allowed to do this. Even if he had, he would have been hated by his own for it.

All of this is mentioned not to justify slavery but to dispel the way we immediately link the idea of slavery with our relatively recent and hurtful past in the south which still affects us today. We are biased by these events and have a hard time seeing through the haze of race issues and cruel tortures, coloring all slavery of the past with this view.

Further, the Bible seems quite indifferent to slavery (as long as it is not cruel). The Bible seems to me to me to try and espouse as equal a society as possible in this day where almost 1 in every 3 people was a slave.

Christianity is not so concerned with the injustices here in life. Many Christians were slaves.... It is more concerned with what comes after this life.

It seems silly to me to complain about to Christians about slavery when they were the ones experiencing it. Jesus even said that we should try to be slaves to each other...you know, the least will be first... Christians should have a spirit of serving (from the word for slave).

Finally, there's even a verse in 1 Timothy that speaks pretty harshly against slavery:

8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
9 We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
10 for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers-- and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Here, we see that from a very early period, there was a belief that slave traders (or men stealers if you will) were against "sound doctrine" and to be grouped with murderers!

I feel that Atheists are a little hard-headed on this issue.... I don't see many Christians participating in slavery today... There were Christians that spoke out against slavery in the past... There were more than likely atheists that were slave traders/owners. There are more than likely atheists that would do so today and in the future. Why should they not? It's not like the God they don't believe in will punish them when they die, right?

Becoming sorely disappointed in the utter bias being encountered on a site for "freethought"...

Haran

ex-preacher

The only reason that Christians bring up the subject of Roman slavery is to somehow mitigate the Bible’s responsibility for the horror of African slavery practiced by Christians from the 17th to the 19th centuries. I submit that the relative severity of Roman slavery is completely irrelevant to the Bible’s culpability for later slavery.

If the Bible is a purely human document, one cannot hold its authors responsible for what others did hundreds of years later. As Haran points out, the authors were not very concerned with the here and now. It is quite obvious that the writers of the New Testament and the recorded words of Jesus anticipated a quick end to this world.

If, however, the Bible represents the unchanging will of an all-knowing and all-loving god, the Bible’s endorsement of human slavery stands as a damning indictment. An all-knowing god would have known that future generations of his followers would use the Bible as justification for whatever form of slavery they might practice. For 1700 years, precious few Christians believed that the Bible condemned slavery. Suddenly, after the Enlightenment, a few Christians suddenly discovered that the Bible did condemn slavery after all. Christians in slaveholding regions (and a significant number in non-slaveholding regions) did not agree. Today, many Christians are trying to re-write history. Some claim that “True Christians” didn’t practice slavery. Others, such as Haran, try to claim that since Roman slavery was less harsh than southern slavery (a dubious claim), the Bible cannot be held responsible.

By many measures, the life of a slave was far better in the antebellum South than in the Roman empire. Regardless of the comparison, all forms of slavery are inhumane. If the Bible was written/inspired by a divine being, that being must bear responsibility for condoning its widespread practice.

Haran

Hi ex-preacher. Noticed that you're from Arkansas. I'm originally from Arkansas as well. Springdale to be exact and went to the UofA in Fayetteville... I may live in Texas now, but I'll always be an Arkansan and Razorback at heart.

I think you miss a couple of things here, ex. The reason that I (at least) bring up Roman slavery is because of what I said in my previous post. The "problem" of slavery seems to be brought up much more by Atheists who (from what I've mostly seen) wind up blaming Christians for the slavery of the 17th to 19th centuries (sound familiar?).

This is not fair considering that most people called themselves Christians during this time period whether they were or not anyway. I also happen to believe that there have always been Christians working against things such as slavery - and using the Bible to effectively fight it, by the way.

I think it is intellectually dishonest to think that there were no Atheists involved in and encouraging slavery. As a matter of fact, I would even propose that with the completely negative view of slave traders found in the Bible and the view that slaves should obtain their freedom if possible, that only nominal "Christians" could have participated in forwarding and encouraging slavery.

This last view happens to be part of my own philosophy. Christians are often hammered for saying that another person could not possibly be a Christian, but I believe that this is somewhat reasonable. I, for one, am rather liberal (at least by the standards of many I know) in that I believe that most any Christian denomination may contain true Christians (with obvious exceptions of Mormons, JW's etc, who deny the basic ancient traditions handed down and replace them with modern inventions). However, I believe that there are people within Christian communities that call themselves Christian, but possibly do not deserve the designation (not even taking into account the more obvious "Christians" in name only - Crossan, etc.). I believe that many of these nominal Christians may not have read the Bible, not attend Church regularly, not give to charities, not truly understand basic Christian theology, etc., yet call themselves Christian. Some "Christians" in church are subdued Atheists incognito (this from experience) with no true fear of God or the ultimate judging of his or her actions here on earth. Unfortunately, when any of these "Christians" does something horrible, it unfairly reflects poorly on all of Christianity.

This is true, but even in the Bible, Christians began to realize that they may have misunderstood Jesus' words and remembered that no one would know the time of his coming except God. I don't think that they thought the world should continue in injustice until the end, but that it would continue in injustice and that it was better to ride life out until rewarded with the promised afterlife which, in its eternity, would make sufferings here on earth a whisp of nothingness (except for the witness that a silent and strong sufferer bears to those around him/her).

I do not see the Bible as endorsing slavery. How can people read the verse from 1 Timothy above (among other Bible verses) and honestly say things like this? How can slavery continue to survive if those who obtain the slaves are condemned as equals to murderers?! I'm being entirely serious here. I do not understand these views of Christianity endorsing, promoting, condoning, etc., slavery. It seems to me to only be harsh rhetoric with which to demean Christianity. ...in all honesty...

God knew that anyone who didn't have a healthy fear of him, his word, and his rules: "do unto others..." would end up corrupting anything they got their hands on no matter how upright. Perhaps this is why (I believe) a hell... No justice for our actions here on earth? I can't accept the Atheist views as any more enlightened... Sorry...

Having read the Bible as an ex-preacher, you know that Jesus said "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." All it takes is a few to make a difference. You are attempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater as so many of my atheist friends (e.g. I was treated poorly by so-called Christians in Church, so Christianity can't be true...). A person can show from the Bible that slavery is not something to be condoned (just like I am). The people who used the Bible to condone slavery and slave trade probably had not read or considered 1 Timothy, nor Jesus' words summing the whole of "The Law", nor much else about equal treatment - neither slave nor free. Isn't it just possible that these "Christians" had not found the "small gate and narrow road"?

In answer to the many who attempt to throw the baby out with the bathwater and rewrite history as if only Christians were somehow to blame as the instigators and perpetuators of this institution.

This statement makes no sense to me and is not what I am trying to claim. See above.

Ultimately, it was the Christians who were the slaves spoken of and to, so you shouldn't have much cause for concern. We know that we have something better after this life anyway.

Haran

Boshko

"Our views on slavery tend to be influenced by the fact that slavery here, particularly the agricultural slavery in the south, was unusually brutal."
Caribbean slavery was actually a good bit worse since sugar-farming is such back breaking work...

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Haran:
Wow! Michael, I feel your post on Christianity and Slavery was at least as biased as you accuse Wallace of being.

Good. Then it should be simple for you to point out material errors in it.

You seem to enjoy implying that well-known and reputable scholars like Wallace are dishonest "apologists"

1. Wallace is a either an incompetent or dishonest apologist. This is demonstrated by what he actually wrote on slavery. As I showed in that thread.

Wallace is a textual critic and expert in Greek among many other related studies.

...and this gives him what expertise to write on slavery in Roman times? There he and I are on an equal footing -- we are both amatuers.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you have just not done enough study to know who is and is not a good and relatively unbiased scholar.

I am not interested in dissecting his textual skills, which are excellent. Rather, it is his ethical judgements, and his statements on slavery, that are at issue. It is fallacious to claim that he has authority in this area because he has some authority in another.

The fact is that Roman slavery was quite different from the slavery of our recent past.

Yes, as I showed, it was much more brutal.

You make a rather weak case against the fact the main source of slaves during Roman times was war. You seem to say that slaves were obtained for the American south in a similar way through raids, etc. This is simply a weak comparison. What the slave traders of the 1800's did was to "steal" men. They had power in the form of guns and education and used it to overpower and enslave helpless populations.

I suggest you read some major work, such as Hugh Thomas' <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684835657/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870</a>. The Atlantic traders obtained slaves through a variety of methods, including kidnapping, but more generally by trading or buying from African potentates.

Indeed, I said exactly this at the outset of the paper:

• In fact, African slaves sold in the Americas were taken in raids, wars and through sales as well, among the many methods by which they were taken.

The Romans, on the other hand, were actually fighting wars against others trying to destroy them.

Oh, well, my article is invalidated because the Romans sometimes got slaves while fighting wars to save their asses . Can you address any of the alleged differences between Roman slavery and Southern slavery?

Also, according to an article posted by another atheist here on the SecWeb, <a href="http://www.ucd.ie/~classics/96/Madden96.html" target="_blank">John Madden</a> (nope, not him...) Pompey, Tiberius, and Augustus made attempts at crushing and eliminating the kind of man "stealing" that went on in the 1800's as a source for slaves.

You have misread my points. First, war was only one source of slaves. You could become a slave by being born one, by selling yourself, by being captured, and several other routes. This was true for African slaves in the Americas, and true for slaves in Rome. The only difference is that the Atlantic slave traders did not annex entire kingdoms along the way, like the Romans did. This was not some lack of will-to-power, but because Europeans lacked the technology to exploit Africa until the second half of the 19th century. But that's another story.

It becomes obvious through reading, that the slavery of the American south was very different from that of the ancient past.

Yes, it was much less brutal.

Madden also leaves you with the sense that manumission was relatively common.

Sure, for household slaves. But not for slaves in forests, fields, mines, ships, quarries, construction gangs....

Freedmen seem to have even owned slaves!!!
Somehow, I think that if a Black person had received freedom in the recent past, he wouldn't have been allowed to do this. Even if he had, he would have been hated by his own for it.

There were black plantation owners. Even female black plantation owners. Interesting bit of history, found in most books on the French period in Louisiana.

All of this is mentioned not to justify slavery but to dispel the way we immediately link the idea of slavery with our relatively recent and hurtful past in the south which still affects us today. We are biased by these events and have a hard time seeing through the haze of race issues and cruel tortures, coloring all slavery of the past with this view.

Let's see, so far you have not managed to point out a single material error in my post. Was Roman slavery brutal? It was arguable MORE brutal than southern chattel slavery.

Further, the Bible seems quite indifferent to slavery (as long as it is not cruel). The Bible seems to me to me to try and espouse as equal a society as possible in this day where almost 1 in every 3 people was a slave.

Good look with this morally nihilistic argument. Do you think human beings with life expectancies of ten years, chained at night in underground jails, worked like animals during the day and fed on scraps, should, or should not be freed? Simple question, and Paul's answer was "no."

Christianity is not so concerned with the injustices here in life.

Yes, I've noticed.

Many Christians were slaves.... It is more concerned with what comes after this life.

Haran, you are just regurgitating Wallace's nihilistic and inhuman moral position. Do you have any actual errors to point out to me?

It seems silly to me to complain about to Christians about slavery when they were the ones experiencing it.

Some Christians were slaves. Some slaves were Christians. Are you saying that there was 100 percent overlap?

Jesus even said that we should try to be slaves to each other...you know, the least will be first... Christians should have a spirit of serving (from the word for slave).

"Service" is not the same as "slavery." Haran, this is tripe. How could you and Wallace write so intelligently on texts and history, and so stupidly on ethics?

Finally, there's even a verse in 1 Timothy that speaks pretty harshly against slavery:

8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
9 We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
10 for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers-- and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Delighted to see it. However, it is irrelevant, since Christians did not attempt to free the slaves.

Here, we see that from a very early period, there was a belief that slave traders (or men stealers if you will) were against "sound doctrine" and to be grouped with murderers!

That's fine, but can you point out any material errors in what I wrote?

I feel that Atheists are a little hard-headed on this issue.... I don't see many Christians participating in slavery today... There were Christians that spoke out against slavery in the past... There were more than likely atheists that were slave traders/owners.

ROTFL. Haran, the vast, vast majority of southern plantation owners were Christians of one sort or another.

There are more than likely atheists that would do so today and in the future. Why should they not? It's not like the God they don't believe in will punish them when they die, right?

No, atheists believe they'll be punished in THIS lifetime. Can you make an actual argument against

• (a) the facts cited in my piece showing the inhumanity of Roman chattel slavery; or
  (b) my argument that the Christian position is nihilistic and inhuman?

Becoming sorely disappointed in the utter bias being encountered on a site for "freethought"...

As I thought at the outset, no actual argument anywhere in this missive. Thanks, Haran. Come back when you actually know something about (a) the Atlantic slave trade and southern chattel slavery and (b) the <a href="http://vassun.vassar.edu/~jolott/republic1998/spartacus/slavelife.html" target="_blank">conditions of Roman slavery...</a>

Secondly, rural slaves were forced to do work that was both physically and emotionally straining. Field hands were given a life expectancy of about ten years due to the physical exhaustion they encountered on a daily basis. Among the jobs they were expected to perform were as ploughmen, hunters, ditchers and forester. Slaves were expected to work all day on very little food and water, and were whipped or beaten when they did not. The extreme nature of the environment in which rural slaves lived is best exemplified by the number of slave revolts which resulted from rural area as opposed to urban areas. Urban slaves had very little to complain about, as will be discussed later, and revolt only would have led to their execution, whereas for rural slaves death was the outcome no matter which route they chose to exercise.

Michael

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

ex-preacher

And I'm a Texan living in Fayetteville - go figure! I'm working on a Ph.D. in American history. Slavery in the American South is one of my fields - thus my interest in this subject.


<strong> My concern is not with blaming Christians for slavery as much as blaming the immorality of the Bible for supporting such a cruel practice.

<strong> Certainly, Christians have used the Bible to support and oppose every imaginable position. I'm not sure, though, how anyone can read the Bible and not get the impression that slavery is OK. Most of the major characters of the OT had slaves. The descendants of Canaan were promised evelasting slavery. Joshua condemned the Gibeonites to perpetual slavery. Jesus never had a harsh word to say about slavery. Slaveowners loved to quote Luke 12:47 "The servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows." The letters of Paul and Peter enjoined slaves to obey their masters.

<strong> Hold your horses, there, pardner! Who said atheists weren't involved in slavery? And how is that relevant to the Bible's pro-slavery stance?

<strong> Absolute poppycock. I'm sure this makes you feel better, but besides being a cop-out is blatantly untrue. You are practicing an incredibly selective reading of scripture. Since only "slave-trading" was condemned, do you think it is fine to own slaves as long as you don't traffic in them? This was the position taken by many Christian slaveowners (see Walter Johnson's "Soul by Soul"). I would encourage you to read Josiah Priest's 500 page book "A Biblical Defense of Slavery."

To claim that the Bible doesn't endorse slavery or that "True Christians" didn't own slaves reveals that you have read neither the Bible nor the voluminous paper trail left by Southern Christian slaveowners.

<strong> Facsinating and utterly irrelevant musings. Read the Bible and read what the Christian slaveowners said.


<strong> It's not that they misunderstood Jesus, it's that Jesus himself taught a quick end to the world. I suppose it's progress that you recognize the fallacy of the authors of the Bible.

<strong> Because there are dozens of other verses that support slaveholding. Even the 1 Timothy verse does not condemn slaveholding.

<strong> Yes, how did slavery survive? Perhaps all the Christians until 1700 (and the vast majority of Christians until 1800) weren't really Christians since virtually every one of them supported slavery. What were they?


<strong> Gimme a break! This is a complete cop-out. Why couldn't he have said "Slavery is wrong." How about this: "Do not hold slaves." Here's another: "I abhor slavery." How about "Slaveholders shall burn in hell." Or maybe: "If you have slaves, set them free."


<strong> My beliefs aren't about finding the most comfortable position. For me, it's about finding the truth. Certainly, it is comforting to believe in a place where all the scales of justice will be balanced. I think that's why heaven and hell were invented in the first place - to give comfort to the suffering. Unfortunately this also teaches people to put up with injustices, whether on a massive scale like slavery or on a private scale, such as spousal abuse.

<strong> No one disputes that a few can make a difference. Jesus promises from the start that though many are called he will only choose a few, thus condeming most of humanity to the hell that you cherish.

<strong> Humanity is the baby. Christianity is the bathwater. And it's time for a change.

<strong> You have not succeeded.

<strong> Right. They hadn't read the Bible. I would be willing to bet large sums of money that the average slaveowner in the South could quote ten verses for every one that you can quote. They were steeped in the Bible. They pumped out hundreds of commentaries, had five hour church services. The wealthiest planters often knew Greek. It is more plausible that you are the one who has missed the plain meaning of scripture in order to make it conform to modern humanitarian sensibilities.

<strong> Ah, so it's OK to lie if it's for a good cause.


<strong> Ultimately, many of the masters were Christians also. If that was not the case, please explain the following verse to me: "Masters, be kind to your slaves."

<strong> The exact concept that Christian slaveowners tried to teach to their slaves.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: ex-preacher ]</p>

NOGO

What is obvious for some is not obvious for others.
Why did the Israelites leave Egypt?
Were they having a good time there?
Why did they invent the sabbath?
A day of rest! What a great notion!
Only a slave who worked 7 days a veek would come up with this one.
Remember that Egypt in the bible is often called the "house of slavery". A great civilization like Egypt is reduced to "the house of slavery".
This is certainly not due to the fact that their slaves were well treated.

The headdress that Jews, Muslim and some Christian preachers wear is a symbol of what?
It can be summed up as follows.
"There is noone above me except God"
It is a statement from a slave.
It is a statement of freedom.
It was not brought about by good treatment.

Spartacus! This gentleman led a slave rebellion against Rome. They were crushed. Damn slaves, they had it so good and they dare rebel. They were trying to leave the Italian peninsula. They were not trying to overthrow the empire. They were double-crossed and massacred.

The only reason you have in trying to show that slavery was much better in ancient times is to condone everything the bible says on the subject.

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>