#slavery in the bible

[thyateira]

The early Christian abolitionists paved the way. Rather than emphasizing the specific Bible passages that directly approve of slavery, they looked at other biblical texts and themes that they saw as more big-picture, more transcultural and timeless: the creation of humanity in the “image of God,” the “liberation” and “redemption” themes of the Exodus, the love teachings of Jesus, and the salvation vision of Paul.

The next time we hear someone talk about the “clear teaching of Scripture” on women’s roles, or saying that “the Bible is clear” on homosexuality, or whatever the topic might be, think about this: the Bible is at least as clear on slavery, yet thank God we no longer believe that slavery is God’s will. We’ve read the Bible, and we’re following Jesus.

The Bible is clear: God endorses slavery -- Michael Pahl (2017).

[atheostic]

They're both so done.

That's the faces of two men who have heard one too many slavery apologists defending God-sanctioned biblical slavery and they're dying a little inside.

[theexodvs]

Biblical answers to MRA’s questions

Q: What is the appropriate response to a woman beating her male partner?

A: Eye for an eye (Lev. 24:19-20) is the maximum appropriate response regulated in Scripture. Remember that this works both ways.

Q: What is the appropriate response to a woman accusing a man of sexual violence or misconduct?

A: The same for any accusation by anyone of any gender, towards anyone of any gender, for any kind of act: presume innocence, according to Deuteronomy 17:6. Remember that this works both ways.

Q: What is the appropriate response to a woman falsely claiming a man is the father of her child?

A: The ninth commandment.

Q: What is the appropriate response to a woman misusing child support money provided by who is assumed to be the biological father of her child, conceived in intercourse rather than IVF, etc?

A: The mother and father should have been married before considering intercourse (Genesis 1:28, 2:24). If the woman is, in fact, misusing the money in this fashion, she is violating the eighth commandment.

Q: What is the appropriate response to women taking everything from their ex-husbands during a divorce?

A: Divorce should be a method of last resort, when absolute push meets absolute shove, for reasons relating to adultery (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:9). The Bible has no direct teachings on division of goods as a result of divorce, but Biblical divorce is subject to strict legal processes and permits a divorced woman to marry, suggesting the intent of Biblical divorce law is to ensure the woman survives (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). It is arguably appropriate, then, for a man to pay his ex-wife alimony as long as she does not remarry. Jesus tells us to seek out-of-court settlements, and to be on guard for being deprived of all our wealth if we proceed with a lawsuit (Matthew 5:25-26). This is a complicated issue that is to be resolved on a case-by-case basis.

Q: What is the appropriate Biblical response to intercourse between a female teacher and her male student who has not achieved the age of majority?

A: The Bible rejects any concept resembling an age of accountability (Psalm 51:5, Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:3). Before we concentrate on the teacher, we need to concentrate on the young man. His parents were responsible for teaching him (Proverbs 22:6), and that includes the seventh commandment. So if he has intercourse with someone to whom he is not wed, both he and his sexual partner are guilty of violating the seventh commandment; if this is in violation of his parents’ clear instruction, he is also guilty of violating the fifth commandment. If, however, we was not instructed to pursue his personal purity, it would have been better for his parents to be tossed into the sea with millstones around their necks (Matthew 18:6).

Q: What is the appropriate Biblical response to young men conceiving children before the age of majority, borne and birthed by women above the age of majority, and being required to pay child support?

A: Fathers have a primary duty to ensure the survival of their children (1 Timothy 5:8). Notice, it says, “And whoever does not provide for relatives and especially family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever,” rather than, “And whoever has achieved a certain age to be arbitrarily defined 2000 years after this writing and does not provide for relatives and especially family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Even the controversial laws regarding slavery in the Bible, found in Deuteronomy 20, are to ensure the survival of POWs, war widows, and their children. If a father cannot find a means of employment, then the child’s grandparents, who should have instructed the father on proper conduct, would be responsible.

Q: What is the proper Biblical response to male-only conscription?

A: The Bible is actually more vocal on which men shouldn’t go to war than should (Deuteronomy 20:5-8). It is worth noting that after the Conquest of Canaan, ancient Israel never fought a war of choice unless it was in a state of mass idolatry. If conscription constitutes chattel slavery, as has often been argued, it violates Exodus 21:16. Thus, regardless of what’s between a soldier’s legs, there is nothing in Scripture to support conscription, and plenty to suggest that conscription and the sociopolitical situation which usually belies it are transgressive.

[atheostic]

@skystonedclouds

"God does not endorse slavery…."

That's funny. 'Cause in Leviticus 25:44 he explicitly says his followers can own slaves:

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves."

And he says that slaves can be given to your children as their inheritance:

"You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life..." (Leviticus 25:46)

And that fathers can sell their daughters into sex slavery:

“A young woman who was sold by her father doesn’t gain her freedom in the same way that a man does. If she doesn’t please the man who bought her to be his wife, he must let her be bought back. He cannot sell her to foreigners; this would break the contract he made with her. If he selects her as a wife for his son, he must treat her as his own daughter.” (Exodus 21:7-9)

"God doesn’t endorse human sacrifice…"

My dude. My buddy. My pal.

Also what about that time Abraham was told to sacrifice his son?

Or when God killed all the firstborn in Egypt?

Or when Jephthah made a vow to sacrifice whatever would come out of the door of his house and God accepted the vow, knowing full well that the first thing would be a human, who was then sacrificed?

"The point is if the woman had people nearby and she never cried for help or had any resistance it was considered consent."

You... you realize you're victim-blaming rape victims, right? Not screaming for help does NOT equal consent. That's not how consent works.

And if she DID consent without coersion she doesn't deserve to be stoned to death.

"By the way if the father refused to let them to marry they would not marry and he’d just pay a fine."

a) Yes, the rapist would pay a fine to the injured party -- which according to the Bible was the father, not the rape survivor. "You break it, you buy it" kind of thing. Because women are legally possessions with no self-autonomy according to the Bible.

b) Yes, if the FATHER decided she shouldn't marry him, not if the VICTIM decided she wouldn't marry her rapist.

c) And you think just paying a FINE is the correct punishment for RAPE???

d

"The father had to represent the woman in those days so he would represent her will on her behalf to the rapist."

Yes, the father was the one the rapist dealt with -- because women weren't legally considered people. Funny how you skip over that.

And you're entirely assuming that he'd represent her will. Because guess what?

We have recent examples of women being forced to marry their rapist because of THIS rule in the Bible.

It was common practice to shame women into marrying their rapists in Italy until the 1960s. Read up on Franca Viola.

Does God have free will?

If not, why not; but if He does, can He choose evil?

[blackwolfmanx4]

Real Talk:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

[bitchy-peachy]

I'm about to get yeeted from tiktok again LMFAO

[a-typical]

The slaves had drummed into them, from plantation and pulpit alike, from courthouse and statehouse, the notion that they were hereditary inferiors, that God intended them for their misery. The Holy Bible, as countless passages confirmed, condoned slavery. In these ways the 'peculiar institution' maintained itself despite its monstrous nature - something even its practitioners must have glimpsed.

There was a most revealing rule: slaves were to remain illiterate. In the antebellum South, whites who taught a slave to read were severely punished. "[To] make a contented slave," Bailey later wrote, "it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason." This is why the slaveholders must control what slaves hear and see and think. This is why reading and critical thinking are dangerous, indeed subversive, in an unjust society.

Bailey was sent to work for Capt Hugh Auld and his wife, Sophia, moving from plantation to urban bustle, from field work to housework. In this new environment, he came every day upon letters, books and people who could read. He discovered what he called 'this mystery' of reading: there was a connection between the letters on the page and the movement of the reader's lips, a nearly one-to-one correlation between the black squiggles and the sounds uttered.

Surreptitiously, he studied from young Tommy Auld's Webster's Spelling Book. He memorized the letters of the alphabet. He tried to understand the sounds they stood for. Eventually, he asked Sophia Auld to help him learn. Impressed with the intelligence and dedication of the boy, and perhaps ignorant of the prohibitions, she complied.

By the time Frederick was spelling words of three and four letters, Captain Auld discovered what was going on. Furious, he ordered Sophia to stop.

But Auld had revealed to Bailey the great secret: 'I now understood ... the white man's power to enslave the black man. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.'

Without further help from the now reticent and intimidated Sophia Auld, Frederick found ways to continue learning how to read... Then he began teaching his fellow slaves: 'Their minds had been starved . . . They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul.'

With his knowledge of reading playing a key role in his escape, Bailey fled to New England, where slavery was illegal and black people were free. He changed his name to Frederick Douglass (after a character in Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake), eluded the bounty hunters who tracked down escaped slaves, and became one of the greatest orators, writers and political leaders in American history. All his life, he understood that literacy had been the way out.

— The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan (1996)

[aspirant1598]

[papirouge]

I was today years old when I learned that 'O Holy Night' 3rd verse had been censored by White demons pro slavery Christian south pastors because its writer (John Dwight) was an abolitionist clerical and purposely slid into the lyrics "the slave is a brother".

Still to this day, churches either remove the 3rd verse or even change the lyrics (in modern versions - hi Carrie Underwood!) to not refer to the slavery mention.

source :

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Gift of God is Eternal Life in Jesus Christ

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. 20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Romans 6:16-23 | Cambridge Paragraph Bible (CAMB) The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version, by Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, 1813-1891. Published by Cambridge University Press. Cross References: Genesis 2:17; Genesis 4:7; Job 33:27; Proverbs 11:19; Proverbs 14:12; Matthew 4:23; Matthew 6:24; Luke 4:18; Luke 20:16; John 8:32; John 8:34; Romans 1:8; Romans 3:5; Romans 6:1-2; Romans 7:4; 1 Corinthians 14:6

Read full chapter

What does it mean that the wages of sin is death?

[gxlden-angels]

LMAO I love these two's growth they nailed the Bible Belt Simulator™️

[atheostic]

Responses for when Christians argue in favour of slavery:

[captainjonnitkessler]

People will dismiss the importance of interpreting the Constitution because “maybe we shouldn’t care what a bunch of racist sexist slaveowners would have thought 200 years ago”

But bring up one passage from a holy book that hasn’t aged well and people will trip all over themselves to say “well, actually, in this translation, and if you use this interpretation, and if you listen to this crackpot theory that no theologian takes seriously but that I’m going to present as established and widely accepted, then -” instead of just following through on “maybe we shouldn’t care what a bunch of racist sexist slaveowners would have thought 2000 years ago”

[lentendays]

Something something Jacob and Esau parallels.

In biblical times Jacob, Abraham's grandson, became known as "Israel" through Years Of Redemption but was for the first part of his life kind of a tool. He was born clinging to his twin brother Esau's heel, much like baby AFO is grabbing onto Yoichi here. (Not sure who's older since AFO is called "older brother" but Yoichi literally means "First son". If we take the First Son interpretation, the parallels with Esau continue.) For that reason he was named Jacob, which means "Heel" or "may God protect" OR "ASSAILANT".

Like AFO sucking the life out of Yoichi and his mother, Jacob grew up jealous of Esau and wanted to take all that he had - and he did. Through tricking Esau, he got Esau's birthright. And by tricking his aging, blind dad, he got his dad's blessing for the firstborn, which his dad was not able to regive to Esau when he asked. Both the most important things a firstborn child could have in those times.

Idk where this is going but it's a cool parallel.

[ausetkmt]

More INCORRECT White Interpretations of Black Culture

they again admit that they are not initiatied and in their opinion there is no requirement to be a part of an ancestral Religion, yet this is all about Ancestors Working For You - so NO,

Stop This and Learn about your Ancestors if you were not born with African ancestors, because your ancestors will be waiting for you wherever you may choose to worship them. Just Leave ATR Out of it.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"What a deliciously evil God! Mass murders, the endorsing of slavery. I"d say, you wn't find that in moral books like Humpy Dumpty, or Three Little Pigs."