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[Harry the Emu]

What do you think about contradictions and inconsistencies in Bible?

if you google it, you’ll find a bunch of it. what’s the general stance on them?

[jimwalton]

Most of those sites are pure junk. There's no way to check them all out (and I bet many of them copy or cut-and-paste from each other), but I've looked at a wide selection of entries of some of the top sites. Many of the "contradictions" are not researched at all and are based on completely faulty reasoning. The kind of thing I'm talking about is where someone is happy one day and sad the next, so the site claims a "contradiction."

Most of the alleged contradictions can be resolved with even 10 minutes of research, something the creators of these sites apparently haven't bothered to do. Nor do they seem to bother to take into account literary devices such as hyperbole, metaphor, allegory, or a dozen others.

The very first entry of the Skeptics Annotated Bible is "The contradictory creation accounts." "The Book of Genesis begins with two contradictory creation accounts." Ridiculous. Genesis 2 is not synoptic (doubling back to retell what has already been told), but rather a sequel to Genesis 1, describing a later time period. Did the writers of the SAB bother to do ANY research? It seems not.

Second entry: "Who created the heaven and the earth?" Was it God or Jesus? Oh my. Scripture is quite clear, if they bothered to read it, that God was the creator and Jesus was the agent of that creation.

And so it goes. Most of these sites are pure nonsense by people who haven't done their homework.

But if you're either interested in or concern about alleged contradictions, we can talk further about them. Is there one (or are there a few) you'd like to converse more specifically about?

[Harry the Emu]

In particular, I'd be interesting in number 42 about slavery: https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/slavery.html

[jimwalton]

Well, that's a hefty one — 5 pages of verses! No problem

First off, God does not approve of slavery. Let's look (briefly, so I don't write 10 pages of stuff!) at the verses SAB mentions.

* Gn. 6.9. First, though Noah was righteous, Gn. 9 is obviously a mistake Noah's making. Second, God didn't tell Noah to curse Canaan. The curse doesn't have its origin in God. Third, Noah cursed Canaan, and says that as a punishment his descendants will be slaves to others. This is no justification of slavery. Slavery is an evil. Punishments are exactly that: punishments. Fourth, notice that the Canaanites were never slaves to the Israelites. The phrase Noah uses points to the inferior social and political status that will come after the conquest.
* Gn. 24.35 and the "slaves" of Abraham. Right, the KJV uses "servants" because the same Hebrew word ('eved) is used for both statuses. The probably were servants of Abraham's, and not chattel slaves. There is nothing in the story to lead us to the conclusion they were chattel slaves. In the ancient world, servanthood was a form of employment. Abe needed shepherds and other workers. He provided food, lodging, and protection in exchange. As far as we know, they could leave when they wanted. Abe didn't own them.
* Gn. 17.12-13. Did Abraham buy slaves? We have no record one way or another. The point of the text is that these "slaves" (servants) were given the same covenant status as people in Abe's own family. They were blessed with participation in the covenant blessings. These were not chattel, but full human beings and entitled to status and blessing.
* Gn. 16.8-9. Hagar was a maidservant—a concubine—, not a chattel slave. She didn't have the full status of a family member, but she did have status as an upper member of support staff. She performed a variety of household tasks as a servant to Sarai. Hagar was a legal extension of Sarah, and could even be a surrogate womb to bear an heir. As far as the Lord sending her back to an abusive situation, this was so that He could bless her (Gn. 16.10ff.). Even though Sarah was verbally abusive, the Lord would preserve her life, help her through it, and bless her son. It's not an endorsement of slavery.
* Gn. 26.12-14. Was Isaac a "proud slave owner"? No, but he was a wealthy man who needed help, which in those days was servants. We are not to think of the chattel slave pens of the Greco-Roman Empire or of the antebellum U.S. South. Isaac had huge flocks and so needed many hands. There is no notion that he owned these people. Nor is there any cause to view him as proud.
* Joshua 9.23-27. The Gibeonites were *cherem* (dedicated to the Lord). They are assigned to serve the sanctuary. For the sacrificial fires to be maintained and the purifying waters to be constantly replenished, much labor was involved. This task of providing wood and water was delegated to the Gibeonites. The menial nature of the work gave them permanent lower-class status in the servitude they had chosen. Nobody in Israel is using them as slaves.
* Ex. 12.44. Economic social status in the ancient world was different than anything in our world. We have to study the culture context to get an understanding. In Israel everyone had dignity as human beings (there were no chattel slaves), but there were different socio-economic statuses for levels of servitude. Here God is saying that those even with the lowest socio-economic status still got to participate in the covenant blessings and were allowed to participate in the festal celebrations of Israel. They were not to be treated as less than human. In the next verse you see that those who were not part of the household were not included in this.
* Ex. 20.17. When slaves (servants) were part of the picture, they were not to be treated like property (chattel). You couldn't covet (abuse) them any more than a neighbor's wife or house or field. They weren't just property to do with as you wish.

Um, this goes on for 5 pages. There isn't going to be room to cover them all, and I'm not sure you're interested in keeping reading anyway. The upshot is that God does not approve of slavery. Whoever wrote the SAB should have done some homework.

Most of the slaves of ancient Israel were debt slaves: They owed money and they worked to pay it off. The boss owned their labor, but not their person. When the debt was paid, they were done and go to go on their merry way.

To summarize:

First of all, the same word is used in the Hebrew Bible for servant as for slave. From the term, we can't tell if any particular text is chattel slavery or debt slavery, but it's even worse than that: we can't even tell if it's any kind of servanthood or any kind of slavery.

Second, most slavery in ancient Israel was debt slavery. It wasn't a whole lot different from our concept of employment: working for someone else so you could pay off your debts. It wasn't as common in their world as employment is in ours, but it was still all around. Sometimes farms failed or buildings burned down or a particular business deal would go belly up, and people needed to work for someone else to earn money to pay their debts. We call it employment; they called it slavery.

Third, most Israelites were poor farmers. They would need help to work the land, which usually came from large families and cooperative efforts (you help me with my land and I'll help you with yours). It's just a fact that most Israelites couldn't afford to own slaves.

Fourth, chattel slavery in the ancient world was NOTHING like the slave pens of Greco-Rome or the atrocities of antebellum slavery in America. Rome and the American South are what come to mind when we think of chattel slavery. The ancient world (especially Israel) was NOTHING like this. Even their "chattel slavery," and I'm not sure it's even accurate to call it that, was more like employment and "family" than ownership of a human being.

Fifth, slaves were granted full dignity as human beings. Exodus 21 is very clear about that. They were not granted full social status, but they were granted full dignity (human status).

Sixth, it seems to be true that Israelite slaves were treated very different than from the nations around them. This is no surprise; the Israelites had been slaves themselves, and God says one of His purposes is to redeem slaves and bring them to freedom. God doesn't approve of slavery. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that Israel were a slave-holding people group. On the other hand, or in addition, we know that there are periods in Israel's history where they were obscenely godless, and slavery may have thrived when they went apostate. This was not God's plan or God-approved.

Seventh, therefore slavery in Israel was most often barely existent. Archaeologists from various eras find evidences of slavery in the surrounding cultures, but there is no extra-biblical artifactual or documentary evidence of any slaves in Israel. That's significant. The ONLY record we have of slaves in Israel are isolated biblical texts, and it's treated quite minimally, for one, and it seems to be quite friendly, for two. By "quite friendly" I mean it comes across as a beneficial symbiotic economic relationship rather than an abusive chattel one.

If there are other specific verses you'd like to talk about, just say so.

[Harry the Emu]

Thanks.