11-02-2003, 06:21 PM | #1 |
Elf Lord
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Slavery
This thread will start as a continuation of the discussion we were holding on the gay and lesbian thread. If it branches off into other topics about slavery, though, I have no problem with that.
I would like to respond to this article posted by Insidious Rex, since I didn't see it as getting much of a response. I may not have looked far enough, of course. |
11-02-2003, 06:24 PM | #2 | |||||||
Elf Lord
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That's probably not the best example, but I'm sure there are others. Quote:
Exodus 21:20 says "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished" Verse 21 simply says that if the person survives the beating, then the person does not have to be punished. The general teachings of the Bible on slavery all teach mercy toward slaves, so the fact that someone can commit a severe beating doesn't go to show that this is in anyway encouraged. Quote:
Also, this is a wife that the master gives him. Thus, she appears to be, from the beginning, known to be a temporary gift. The slave also can keep her, if he chooses to remain in bondage when his time is served. Quote:
It's rather similar to the draft, in that respect. It wouldn't be saying yes or no to whether the draft should exist, but is saying that soldiers who are in it should behave well and follow orders. Quote:
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11-02-2003, 06:27 PM | #3 | ||
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11-02-2003, 06:30 PM | #4 |
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I'm going to repeat, here, one of my main posts on this subject. It hasn't yet been answered, and if it's going to be, it had best be done here.
Slavery is a tough issue to define. I also would state that it has an even longer record than it might seem. Monarchies are one form of slavery, for example. Monarchies were a form of government that very broadly existed until very recently. They were one of the forms of government that worked best. Rejecting slavery could be seen as rejecting this form of government. But not only this form of government, completely, either. I will continue in this vein later. Slavery is basically a strong restriction on freedom, correct? This kind of definition poses many difficulties. For example, even in democracies there are restrictions on people's freedom. Plenty of laws are passed that plenty of people disagree with. Those laws still apply to those people, though. Laws do restrict people's freedoms. We have less laws controlling us now, and because of democracies, we have a stronger ability to choose what they are than exists in a situation with slavery. However, even in a democracy our freedom is restricted. Much of this restriction, and many of these laws, are clearly for our own good. Some are displeasing to us, though, and probably some would be better repealed. Slavery is basically a far more restrictive group of laws. However, just as the above mentioned laws, in governments, can be for their people's own good, so slavery can also in some circumstances be for the people's own good. For examples of how slaves have actually liked slavery, sometimes in the past, see the Civil War. Slaves fought on the side of the South in that war, as well as the North. quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally written in "Pictorial Bible Dictionary" Slaves among the Hebrews were more kindly treated than slaves among other nations, since the Mosaic Law laid down rules governing their treatment. They could gain freedom in a number of ways. Slavery continued in NT times, but the love of Christ seemed to militate against its continued existence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some people who became destitute offered that themselves become slaves. If slavery was illegal, many of these people would have starved and died. So let's see . . . there are a lot of points I've made here, I know. Slavery is basically a more restrictive set of laws. We have laws over ourselves now, and we can be viewed as under a much weaker form of slavery. The slavery in the past seems to have been stronger, though in Israel it was less terrible than in the surrounding nations. Slavery also can be beneficial for the people who are slaves. Therefore, refusing to have slavery, putting rejection of slavery as a necessary moral, does not seem like it would have been a wise thing to do. It would have been difficult to define, and could have been used as a reason for all kinds of rebellion in the future. However, as has been pointed out by RÃ*an and in the part I quoted from the Bible dictionary, the presence and love of Christ frequently causes slavery to become abolished. The Quakers are a good example of this. |
11-02-2003, 06:35 PM | #5 | |
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Jerseydevil, in this same section that Insidious Rex's article alluded to, I found a statement that rather contradicts what you said about slaves being regarded as less than human in the Biblical times.
It also speaks against mistreatment of slaves. Quote:
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11-02-2003, 10:19 PM | #6 | ||
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It is true that many former slaves considered themselves better off before emancipation; they had guaranteed shelter and food from their masters (in most cases it was barely enough to survive, but it was still a given). And because they were considered private property and the sole source of labor, they also had certain protections (a severely injured slave did not work--but also keep in mind that slave owners made an art out of inflicting frequent and severe punishment just short of causing debilitating injuries). So while they might have thought they had it better as slaves (and looking at the many oral histories and memoirs available, that was hardly a ubiquitous sentiment), it is a rare circumstance a slave actually liked their situation. They knew they were in bondage; they knew about the freedoms enjoyed by blacks in the North (such as they were). They were also haunted by the constant fears of being sold "down the river" (which was essentially a death sentence) and having their families broken up, among others. Slaves didn't so much like slavery as they coped with and played the system. Most accounts of slaves enjoying their servitude come from the slave owners as a defense of slavery. And there were slaves in the Confederate army, but rarely did they fight; mostly they were relegated to do the dirty work whites didn't want to do, primarily to free up more white men to do the actual fighting. Remember, and this is not exaggeration--the greatest nightmare of any white antebellum southerner was a black man with a firearm (images of Nat Turner and Denmark Vessey), and even in the most desperate moments of the war they were incredibly loathe to hand over weapons to their slaves. The slaves involved in the CSA war effort were forced to be involved; unlike blacks in the Federal army, they were generally not too enthusiastic that their side should prevail. I know this a specifically targeted (and long-winded) response to a small part of your post, but I imagine there are others who can respond to the more philosophical points you bring up. As far as the Biblical references--I'm not a Christian and haven't read the Bible in a long, long time, so out of respect for others and to save embarrassment I won't go near those |
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11-02-2003, 11:38 PM | #7 |
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Hey, Lief, you might want to post a link to this thread - I didn't realize you started it until after I posted a response on the other thread.
And that quoting of Ephesians in the original article was really ridiculous, since the verse about masters being good to slaves was immediately after the verses they quoted. Talk about lifting out of context! A very poorly-written article, IMHO. One wonders if they even bothered to look up the verses themselves.
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11-03-2003, 12:23 AM | #8 |
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My position on slavery is that I'm against it.
I just wanted to make that clear. |
11-03-2003, 02:02 AM | #9 | |
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Wll, since our creationism thread is about gay marriage and our homosexuality thread is about Biblical slavery, I think I'll do some posting about pet rats here....
One thing to note about the laws on slavery from Exodus and Leviticus- most of the ones dealing with length and terms of bondage covered only Hebrews, i.e. fellow tribal members. Leviticus 25 Quote:
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11-03-2003, 02:26 AM | #10 | |
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11-03-2003, 02:43 AM | #11 |
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On the general issue, though, jd is absolutely right. The Old Testament, as we see, contained many passages that, while moderating slavery, also sanctioned it.
And the same thing applies in the New Testament. Paul had the time and energy to condemn homosexuality; one would think that he could just as easily spoken a word against slavery. Look at the letter to Philemon; Paul practically pleads with him to free his slave Onesimus, but never quite dares to put it in words. How simple just to have said "Free this man , because in Christ there is neither slave or master; all are brothers and sisters, therefore a Christian cannot own slaves." Easy, simple- but he didn't say it. To my way of thinking, owning, buying , and selling another human being is worse than consensual homosexual relations- but the authors of the Bible disagree.
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11-03-2003, 10:42 AM | #12 | |
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11-03-2003, 10:57 AM | #13 |
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REPOSTED FROM "Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals" thread.
RÃ*an and JD, back when the bible was written by men, slavery was a common thing. People owned other people and counted them as their property and wealth. The bible condones the owning of human beings because it was written by men who understood slavery as the norm in their society. Why the hell would someone write a book that condemned a common practice among the people who would read it? Can you imagine the uproar if the men who wrote the bible told everyone who owned slaves to set them all free? I can guarantee for one thing, that the bible would not have survived to today if they had. And RÃ*an, I think I understand JD's frustration. You agree that slavery is bad, yet the bible, the book you are defending, allows and accepts slavery as a nonoffensive and nonpunishable practice. Really, can't you see that the bible is flawed? |
11-03-2003, 12:33 PM | #14 |
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Objective: to be thorough, yet succinct and clear
Outlook: hazy... at best Ruinel, JD... you don't REALLY expect Rian - or me - to make that kind of admission about the Bible, do you? As a cornerstone of the faith, we Christians tend to give the Bible every benefit of the doubt we can. I don't KNOW why the Bible does not outright condemn slavery - and agree it would be nice if it did. I agree that it was written by men - but then the question comes in of whether these men were inspired by God in their writing. The Christian will think so - the atheist will not. I can try to GUESS at why the Bible doesn't condemn slavery - but I doubt that would satisfy you. One possible guess (DISCLAIMER: guess only!) is that even in His written word, God gives an ideal, but allows for something less. The only other example of this that comes to mind now is when Jesus tells the people of his day that; yes, Moses allowed their ancestors to divorce their wives, because their hearts were hard, but that was not the way it was intended to be from the beginning. (see - now we can morph the "slavery" thread into a discussion of divorce! ) I could be WAY OFF though. To get a more satisfactory answer, you may want to approach an evangelical theologian - who accepts the Bible as true, and who is a bit better versed in it than I am. Please understand a couple other things about the Bible. For one, on many matters, it doesn't come out and say; "this is true, this is not / this is right, this is wrong." - it does on SOME things, but not all. We try to apply the principles from what it DOES tell us, to cover other issues we encounter. Second, the Bible (and God) is much more concerned with the spiritual than the physical. That doesn't mean to take care of the spiritual and that the physical doesn't matter at all - but one has priority over another. God would rather I be free - but He would also rather I be a slave who loves and serves Him than a freeman who neither loves nor serves Him - again, Christian perspective. And... on the matter of perspectives, what teaches you that slavery is wrong? Your conscience? Teachings of our day? Those standards have proven quite flimsy down through the ages of history. As I stated in the other thread, Abolitionism was a profoundly Christian movement. Don't really expect to change anybody's mind this way... I thought I could when in my teens and twenties, but I know better now. Maybe I can at least promote a little more understanding though. Had intended to refrain a bit from some of these debating threads, but when I saw the Bible under attack (and I still think it's unwarranted to outright say the Bible condones slavery) - I couldn't help myself... and may still be unable to stay out of the fray if it happens again. |
11-03-2003, 01:13 PM | #15 |
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The Abolishion movement also had its extremely violent periods also. Including outright murder... by the Christians.
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11-03-2003, 01:15 PM | #16 |
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Ruinel,
Murder by Christians... totally misguided. I cover that in the other thread as well. See my response to I-Rex about John Brown. |
11-03-2003, 01:39 PM | #17 | |
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11-03-2003, 01:40 PM | #18 |
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The bible is flawed. Only a fundamentalist Christian would disagree with that. The bible was written by human beings, maybe men (but how do we really know that only men wrote the bible? I know that I certainly was not there), and it can not be used to define social theory, scientific or historical fact. Scripture reflects the human communities from which it arose. These communities included, men, women, Jews, Gentiles, statesmen, philosophers, freemen, slaves, etc., etc., all properly acting according the very human social and cultural mores of their time. Scriptures reflect the reality of the times in which they were written. As such the Scriptures are a valuable tool in evaluating the cultural anthropology of the historical communities from which they arose.
However, the primary emphasis of Scripture is not human reality. The Scriptures tell us of divine reality, and not necessarily in connection to the human limitations of the historical circumstances surrounding the human cultures they reflect. It is the Christian’s purpose to reduce the truths about the divine from the mythology of Scripture. If all you have to work with are the Scriptures, then admittedly it becomes very difficult to separate the limitations of its human reflections from what Scripture indicates about the divine. All too often it boils down to personal opinion. Is there slavery in the bible? Well, yes, of course there is, because slavery was part of the cultures reflected by the Scriptures. Does this mean that what the Scriptures say about the divine is illegitimate? There's no way to make that kind of connection. These are two distinct realities we are dealing with: the human limitations of Judeo-Christian mythology, and what this Judeo-Christian mythology tells us about God. Does the presence of these human limitations bring into question the divine inspiration for this mythology? No. God does not dictate laws from above, but speak to men and women of every culture and generation... this is exactly why the inspired Word of God is presented as a mythology... because only mythology has the power to transcend time and place and become applicable to all people of all times and places.
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11-03-2003, 01:51 PM | #19 |
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JD, I think you're just posting without really paying attention to what you're reading. Seems there's no way I can insulate my posts from your misinterpretation - when you're bound and determined to mininterpret / mis-state / over-state them
From G-le-M's post, you can even see that there is a wide view WITHIN Christianity of how the Bible is to be taken. But that's a whole 'nuther thread. I wasn't going to touch on it myself - but there it is. To REALLY understand all that... debating on a thread won't come close! It will literally take years of studying scripture, theology, church history - and then some. Cheers |
11-03-2003, 01:57 PM | #20 | ||||
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