Board index ‹ Slavery in the Bible

[MIA]

I recently said in a comment: "...But the god in question condones obviously evil practices like slavery."

The reply I recieved was: "Provided you demonstrate why slavery is evil, maybe I'll agree with you."

I just want to be clear on this, the way you christians see an issue is that it is morally good by default if god said it is. There is no actual need to justify why logically, it is good because god is good, hence it is necessarily good (basically circular reasoning based on christian theological claims).

This can be expanded to any topic you prefer based on the god of the bible; killing babies, genocide, etc.

It always appeared to me that there are two possibilities:.

Christians have thought about what is considered good and determined it through logic and evidence that it is in fact good...and this matches gods teachings.

Whatever god said is good is necessarily good, and being able to make sense of why is largely optional.

I would have placed everyone but perhaps some biblical literalists in the former category...but based on what I keep seeing said on the internet (but never in real life...no one ever seems to want to attach their names to defending slavery in the bible) this is not a valid view on Christians.

It seems like many more maintstream christians take the stance that the bible is the authority, what god says in it is true and atheists who want to disagree better come to the conversation with some brillant justifications for why the bible should not be accepted without any actual contemplation.

In order words...christians seem to believe that the bible is right until proven wrong...and even then it is not wrong but the teaching is misunderstood.

Is my view fair? Why or why not? And do Christians think they should give the bible this benefit of the doubt? And do atheists think it is acceptable to defer to the authority of the bible in this way?

[jimwalton]

Slavery is not morally good by default. Things aren't good because God say they are good; things are good if they conform to God's nature (the ground of objective morality). God won't say anything is good except that it conforms with his good and righteous nature, so just saying something is good doesn't make it good (even if God said it, but God would never say it if it weren't so). And, in the context of this conversation, God never said that slavery is good.

> christians seem to believe that the bible is right until proven wrong

The Bible has to prove itself just like any other claim to truth.

[MIA]

God condones slavery in the bible. Why would it condone slavery if it were not good? Does god...change what is good based on what it expects humans to do?

[jimwalton]

First of all, God doesn't change what is good based on what He expects humans to do. Good is objective and doesn't change with human expectations.

Second, God does sometimes accommodate human behavior, even though it's less than ideal. In Matthew 19.8 Jesus said, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning." There is an objective good, and sometimes an accommodation based on human response.

Third, I don't think "condoned" is the right word. It suggests some sense or degree of approval, and that's difficult to establish, but I don't sense that it's the mind of God. In the Bible God does not dictate the shape of society. He does not seek to form a "perfect" society, because no society is perfect (since it is a society of fallen humans). He rather speaks into the shape of society as it exists in those times and encourages his people to live holy lives in that society. He does not dictate an ideal kind of government (monarchy vs. democracy); he does not dictate a system of marriage (arranged vs. love) or even polygamy vs. monogamy; he does not dictate the way that a society is stratified (slaves and free); he does not dictate a certain sort of economy (market economy vs. barter). Every social structure is flawed. I don't think "condoned" is the best term to express God's attitude toward slavery. "Accommodate" might be a better choice.

Fourth, regarding slavery in particular, the slavery in the ancient world was nothing like the system that existed in the US in the 19th century. Most slavery talked about in the Bible was debt slavery, which was a way for someone whose crops had failed or who had suffered several bad years in a row could continue to feed his family by he or a member of his family working off the debt. It is no more oppressive than the current system of credit card debt and what people have to do to work it off.

[Skeptical]

> Slavery is not morally good by default.

So then I take it that your morality is subjective.

> Things aren't good because God say they are good

If things are good independent of god then god cannot be the foundation of an objective morality.

> ...things are good if they conform to God's nature (the ground of objective morality). God won't say anything is good except that it conforms with his good and righteous nature...

And you know this how exactly? I was a believer for over 20 years. It certainly is just my anecdotal experience but I found it to be true that every believer, including myself once upon a time, has a very different opinion as to what god's nature is. If there is any objective proof of god or his nature than why so many varying opinions?

[jimwalton]

> I take it that your morality is subjective.

Not at all. Not sure where you got this assumption. I believe in objective morality that has its ground in the nature and attributes of God.

> If things are good independent of god then god cannot be the foundation of an objective morality.

Things are not good independent of God. They are good because they are reflections of God's nature and attributes. It's just that they aren't good "just because God says so." God's nature and attributes are the basis for objective good.

> And you know this how exactly?

We have two ways to access the nature and attributes of God. One is through what He reveals to us in nature (order, regularity, purpose, cause and effect, beauty, etc.) and the other is through the specific revelation of Himself in the Bible. It is only through understanding the Bible that we come to grasp the nature of God and His attributes.

> has a very different opinion as to what god's nature is

This is often because people either (1) don't read and study carefully, or (2) they make it say what they want it to say so they can believe what they want to believe.

[Skeptical]

> First of all, God doesn't change what is good based on what He expects humans to do. Good is objective and doesn't change with human expectations.

Based on your completely subjective interpretation. Is the problem not glaringly obvious?

> Second, God does sometimes accommodate human behavior, even though it's less than ideal.

Did you not just completely contradict yourself here?

[jimwalton]

Wow, not at all. When God accommodates human behavior, He is not, then, declaring that behavior to be good, He is merely permitting less than the ideal because of our weaknesses. In the Matt. 19.8 text I was quoting, if you're familiar with the text you'll read that Jesus says God accommodated divorce, but not because it was good. Instead, it was because their hearts were hard. Jesus says in v. 6 what the good is: Married couples should stay with each other. And then he goes on to say that when people get divorced, even though it's because their hearts were hard, it's still adultery. I didn't contradict myself at all.

[Plant Eater]

You can beat your slave as long as he does not die in three days. Lets not pretend that slavery in the 19th century was any worse. Owning another human is morally wrong. God have easy made a commandment "Do not own people", yet he did not instead he gives very detailed instructions on how to treat your slave, and how long they are to be a slave,(and a way to trick your slave to be yours forever). "It is no more oppressive than the current system of credit card debt and what people have to do to work it off.", I am just gonna call bullshit on this. If I owe on a credit card, I do not get beat, I have a few outs if I need them, I can't be sold to someone, I honestly can't understand why you would even put this in.

[jimwalton]

I get sort of weary of people who cherry pick texts without really doing the work of study, or really understanding what's going on. The Bible deserves more than a 1"-deep reading.

> You can beat your slave as long as he does not die in three days.

This is not what the text says, or what it is about. I assume you're talking about Ex. 21.20-21. First of all, you should know that this is case law, not God's command to beat slaves (nor even God's approval of such beating). God never commanded people to beat slaves, or approved of it. Secondly, you'll notice that the rules for slaves were the same as rules for free persons. The OT affirms the full personhood of debt-servants. Thirdly, if it's the Exodus text you're talking about, the situation (case law) is not "you can beat your slave as long as he doesn't die in 3 days."

Look at the full text: an owner who beats his slave to death is to be punished to the full extent of the law, up to and including the possibility of execution (Ex. 21.20).

If the owner beats his slave, (again, not a situation of which God approves), there is no punishment unless he injures him. If he injures him, Ex. 21.26-27 tells us that the owner is to be punished with commensurate punishment, and the slave is to go free, as a reward to the slave, a deprivation for the master, and to ensure that never happens again. God doesn't approve of beatings.

> Lets not pretend that slavery in the 19th century was any worse.

The 19th c. was way worse. There was nothing in the ancient world of Exodus like the slave pens of Greece and Rome and the atrocious human abuse of the Western World during the colonial era.

> Owning another human is morally wrong.

Almost all slavery in the Bible is debt-slavery: people working for someone else to pay off a debt. We call it employment; they didn't have such a word, and they call it slavery, but it wasn't the same "institution," and "institution" is really just the wrong word because it misleads one to think in 19th c. terms.

Secondly, therefore in the ancient world they didn't own other human beings, they owned their labor.

> "It is no more oppressive than the current system of credit card debt and what people have to do to work it off.", I am just gonna call bullshit on this.

Then you haven't done your homework. Dr. Paul Wright says, "There is no evidence of chattel slavery in the ancient Near East. While slavery was known in may cultures there, the type of slavery was debt-slavery, punishment for crime, enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves."

The Israelites didn't own other people; they owned their labor. Lev. 25.44 is about buying their labor. In chattel slavery the person was property, the slave owner's rights over the slave's person and work were total and absolute, and the slave was stripped of his identity. This does NOT describe so-called "slavery" in ancient Israel.

Jacob Milgrom agrees: "The false assumption here is that the alien is a chattel-slave, not a debt-slave. 'Canaanite slaves are permanent possessions.' This law merely indicates that the jubilee does not apply to non-Israelite slaves; it does not imply that the slave is a piece of property at the mercy of his master."

Mendelsohn also agrees: "[Leviticus 25.46] does not imply that the slave is a piece of property at the mercy of his master."

> I honestly can't understand why you would even put this in.

Because you haven't done the research. You are thinking "slavery" then means the same thing that "slavery" does now. You are thinking that God approved of owning another human being, which He didn't. You are thinking that God approved of the abuse of human beings in a slavery situation, which is not what the Bible teaches.