Yea Or Nay: The Biblical Religion

[Picaro]

2. But….I’m gonna say that, aside from being responsible for Western Civilization, a whole bunch of super ideas came by way of the Bible. And by that, I mean largely in opposition to every other religion of antiquity. Brand, spanking new ideas that came from no other philosophy!

I'm going to say that the Bible is a fusion of Eastern and Western civilizations. There is a pretty clear path from the ancient Fertile Crescent through Israel to Greece and Rome. All these had their impact on the evolution of the Bible, not the other way round. To it's credit, Christian Europe's feudalism was the first major culture that was NOT based on slavery. The serfs were not much better off but they were not slaves either. In this country Quakers were in the vanguard of the Abolitionists but Southern Baptists went the opposite way:

Struggling to gain a foothold in the South, after the American Revolution, the next generation of Southern Baptist preachers accommodated themselves to the leadership of Southern society. Rather than challenging the gentry on slavery and urging manumission (as did the Quakers and Methodists), they began to interpret the Bible as supporting the practice of slavery and encouraged good paternalistic practices by slaveholders. They preached to slaves to accept their places and obey their masters. In the two decades after the Revolution during the Second Great Awakening, Baptist preachers abandoned their pleas that slaves be manumitted.[24]​

Europeans did indeed have slavery co-existing with feudalism; the Italian city-states for one had plenty of them working the farms and clothmaking factories and rowing the galleys. Thousands of wills survive of merchants lisitng their slaves as assets and how they wished to dispose of them throughout the Renaissance era. Spanish, Dutch, French, and English colonies were full of slaves. right up to the 19th century.

 

[Picaro]

yeah----chic knows just how to be a "nudnick"

She's a fairly decent troll for a right wing nutjob. She has a lot of time on her hands.

 

[irosie91]

And the ‘slavery’ represented in the Bible is in no way equivalent to that of the Democrat South.

The difference is that slaves, according to the Law of Moses, were supposed to be treated with DIGNITY.

That's all.

1. Actually, it far from 'that's all.'



As I stated....


2. Not only is the above not endorsed by the Bible…..but it is expressly forbidden.
The aspects that identify what we call 'slavery' today, the colloquial meaning, are the following:

a. permanence of bondage

b. treatment as material assets

c. control of the life and death of the slave: the slave could be beaten to death

d. an escaped slave had to be returned to his master….as decreed in the Dred Scott Democrat Supreme Court decision.


3. None of the above are allowed to the 'slave owner' by the Bible.


"The Bible uses the Hebrew term eved (עבד) and Greek doulos (δοῦλος) to refer to slaves. Eved has a much wider meaning than the English term slave, and in many circumstances it is more accurately translated into English as servant or hired worker."
Christian views on slavery - Wikipedia


e,g, "God spoke face-to-face with Moses but Joshua will be instructed by Eleazar; Moses was the servant of God but Joshua is Moses’s minister (Joshua 1.1)." https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/sites/ca.grebel/files/uploads/files/CGR-22-1-W2004-1_1.pdf







"If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything."
Exodus 21:2


So….if the Bible is your excuse for the imposition of slavery….the argument fails at the briefest perusal of the text.


4. But….how about simply defining black slaves as 'foreign'?

"While foreign slaves could be made slaves for life,…"


The treatment of blacks in the South doesn't seem to have conformed to this:

"….the laws regarding the general treatment of slaves applied to them as well (Lev 24:22, Num 15:15-16). The law made it clear that foreigners were not inferiors who could be mistreated (Ex 23:9); instead they were to be loved just as fellow Israelites were (Lev 19:33-34). " Slavery in the OT


If the Bible is used as the excuse used for slavery, then all of the restrictions need be followed.
They weren't.
It isn't.

So true - slavery in the Bible bears little resemblance to slavery in the world - e.g. the southern United States before the civil war. In harmony with (and expanding on) your point about Hebrew words for slavery, our Bible dictionary under slave explains the results of research:

Slave — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

This is an authorized Web site of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a research tool for publications in various languages produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

wol.jw.org

Excerpt:

"The original-language words rendered “slave” or “servant” are not limited in their application to persons owned by others. The Hebrew word ʽeʹvedh can refer to persons owned by fellowmen. (Ge 12:16; Ex 20:17) Or the term can designate subjects of a king (2Sa 11:21; 2Ch 10:7), subjugated peoples who paid tribute (2Sa 8:2, 6), and persons in royal service, including cupbearers, bakers, seamen, military officers, advisers, and the like, whether owned by fellowmen or not (Ge 40:20; 1Sa 29:3; 1Ki 9:27; 2Ch 8:18; 9:10; 32:9). In respectful address, a Hebrew, instead of using the first person pronoun, would at times speak of himself as a servant (ʽeʹvedh) of the one to whom he was talking. (Ge 33:5, 14; 42:10, 11, 13; 1Sa 20:7, 8) ʽEʹvedh was used in referring to servants, or worshipers, of Jehovah generally (1Ki 8:36; 2Ki 10:23) and, more specifically, to special representatives of God, such as Moses. (Jos 1:1, 2; 24:29; 2Ki 21:10) Though not a worshiper of Jehovah, one who performed a service that was in harmony with the divine will could be spoken of as God’s servant, an example being King Nebuchadnezzar.—Jer 27:6.

The Greek term douʹlos corresponds to the Hebrew word ʽeʹvedh. It is used with reference to persons owned by fellowmen (Mt 8:9; 10:24, 25; 13:27); devoted servants of God and of his Son Jesus Christ, whether human (Ac 2:18; 4:29; Ro 1:1; Ga 1:10) or angelic (Re 19:10, where the word synʹdou·los [fellow slave] appears); and, in a figurative sense, to persons in slavery to sin (Joh 8:34; Ro 6:16-20) or corruption (2Pe 2:19).

The Hebrew word naʹʽar, like the Greek term pais, basically means a boy or a youth and can also designate a servant or an attendant. (1Sa 1:24; 4:21; 30:17; 2Ki 5:20; Mt 2:16; 8:6; 17:18; 21:15; Ac 20:12) The Greek term oi·keʹtes denotes a house servant or slave (Lu 16:13), and a female slave or servant is designated by the Greek word pai·diʹske. (Lu 12:45) The participial form of the Hebrew root sha·rathʹ may be rendered by such terms as “minister” (Ex 33:11) or “waiter.” (2Sa 13:18) The Greek word hy·pe·reʹtes may be translated “attendant,” “court attendant,” or “house attendant.” (Mt 26:58; Mr 14:54, 65; Joh 18:36) The Greek term the·raʹpon occurs solely at Hebrews 3:5 and means subordinate or attendant."

Btw, the name of one Bible book is the name of a 'slave." Do you know which book?

Hint: his name means loving. [Greek philia = brotherly love]

Peanuts.

Slavery can be "voluntary" as servants are by force and voluntary as well.

Slaves are owned while servants can leave and look for a different master.

In biblical times the Israelite was supposed to treat the slave with dignity, that's all. But slaves were owned as well as their descendants. And if they capable to kill their own prophets, what impede them to kill their slaves at their will?

There is a tendency to believe that the Israelite was a "just" society, but the bible narrates clearly they were as mother f***rs as peoples from other nations of the world. Even when the laws were given by their god, , they didn't obeyed them.

Why do you think their god punish them one time after another?

Like today, you can use the best English dictionary to define "limit 55 miles per hour", but drivers in highways and routes break the law by driving well over 70 miles per hour.

Same as well, your interpretation of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek might be fine, but such is not a guarantee that men from those times respected the meaning of those words.

True, the Biblical history of Jews is filled with apostasy - most kings were apostate. A few, like Josiah, were faithful.

As Political Chic posted, slavery in Biblical times were like employees of employers in most cases. For example, there were no debtor's prisons. A person was 'sold' into slavery for a certain number of years according to the debt they owed. Also, in the Jubilee year, all slaves were freed, no matter what their debt had been.

Btw - there were no prisons in Israel. Rather, there were laws of compensation.

You’re certainly free re-write the Bibles and change definitions but why would you expect others to accept such dishonesty?

I was posting according to what was written in the Bible and the excerpt from our Bible dictionary cited many verses - did you check out any of those verses?

Do you know which Bible book is named for a slave whose name means "loved?"

What is written in the Bible?

Read it.

Peter: 18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

Timothy: 1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered.

Colossians: 22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

keep in mind---the NT writers see slavery consistent with Roman law

 

[PoliticalChic]

2. But….I’m gonna say that, aside from being responsible for Western Civilization, a whole bunch of super ideas came by way of the Bible. And by that, I mean largely in opposition to every other religion of antiquity. Brand, spanking new ideas that came from no other philosophy!

I'm going to say that the Bible is a fusion of Eastern and Western civilizations. There is a pretty clear path from the ancient Fertile Crescent through Israel to Greece and Rome. All these had their impact on the evolution of the Bible, not the other way round. To it's credit, Christian Europe's feudalism was the first major culture that was NOT based on slavery. The serfs were not much better off but they were not slaves either. In this country Quakers were in the vanguard of the Abolitionists but Southern Baptists went the opposite way:

Struggling to gain a foothold in the South, after the American Revolution, the next generation of Southern Baptist preachers accommodated themselves to the leadership of Southern society. Rather than challenging the gentry on slavery and urging manumission (as did the Quakers and Methodists), they began to interpret the Bible as supporting the practice of slavery and encouraged good paternalistic practices by slaveholders. They preached to slaves to accept their places and obey their masters. In the two decades after the Revolution during the Second Great Awakening, Baptist preachers abandoned their pleas that slaves be manumitted.[24]​

Europeans did indeed have slavery co-existing with feudalism; the Italian city-states for one had plenty of them working the farms and clothmaking factories and rowing the galleys. Thousands of wills survive of merchants lisitng their slaves as assets and how they wished to dispose of them throughout the Renaissance era. Spanish, Dutch, French, and English colonies were full of slaves. right up to the 19th century.

Informative.

 

[PoliticalChic]

yeah----chic knows just how to be a "nudnick"

She's a fairly decent troll for a right wing nutjob. She has a lot of time on her hands.

And knowledge.