The Christian Bible condones slavery explicitly in numerous passages. One of those reference often by slave owners in the Antebellum South comes from the story of Noah.
Genesis 9:24-27
9:24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
9:25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
9:26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
9:27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
The book of Joshua also demonstrates the Christian god’s support of slavery:
9:27 And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose.
In fact, there are numerous biblical instructions on how to acquire slaves, making it clear that buying people for money is perfectly acceptable.
Exodus 21:2-7
21:2 If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
21:3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
21:4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.
21:5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free:
21:6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
Leviticus 22:10-11
22:10 There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.
22:11 But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.
Or slaves can be taken in war.
Deuteronomy 20:10-14
20:10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
20:11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
20:12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
20:13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
20:14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
Leviticus goes on to make it clear that slaves are inheritable possessions.
25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.
There are also many biblical instructions on how to treat slaves. Genesis 16:6-9 says that angels will force slaves to return to their owners.
16:6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
16:8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
16:9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
Beating slaves as long as they don’t die immediately is perfectly fine.
Exodus 21:20-21
21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
21:21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
Leviticus shows that slaves are property, not covered by the laws protecting other people.
19:20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.
The New Testament doesn’t fare any better. Slavery is explicitly condoned in many places.
Luke 12:46-47
12:46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
Luke 17:7-9
17:7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
17:8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
17:9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
1 Corinthians 7:21-22
7:21 Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
7:22 For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.
Ephesians 6:5 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.
Colossians 3:22 Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.
1 Timothy 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:9-10
2:9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again;
2:10 Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
1 Peter 2:18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
Nowhere in the Christian Bible is slavery explicitly condemned nor are any of the verses that explicitly support the practice repudiated. Of course, numerous verses are interpreted to be anti-slavery. The fact that both slavery proponents and abolitionists were able to quote scripture in support of their views demonstrates clearly that the bible is, at best, ambiguous. Surely a book intended to provide moral guidance could have found room in the Ten Commandments for “Thou shalt not own slaves.”
The rational conclusion is that the bible is an amalgamation of writings by many different men, each with his own political goals and views on morality. It is only those who hold it to be the inerrant word of their god who find themselves in the position of attempting to defend the odious passages that clearly support slavery. That attempted defense is a blatant and appalling demonstration of religious belief overriding common decency and empathy.
I started this thread because of a grossly offensive comment by fifthmonarchyman:
Over in the “Species” thread, fifthmonarchyman has been doubling down on this vile defense of owning other people. He is incapable of simply saying “Slavery is wrong and the bible is wrong where it condones it.”
CharlieM writes:
Apparently, like fifthmonarchyman, your religious beliefs render you incapable of understanding how grossly offensive this statement is.
The way that matters most is not being owned by another person. Your bible condones that practice. If you think it doesn’t matter, you should experience it for yourself.
I have to say, I’m not really sure why it’s supposed to be interesting and important that the Bible contains passages that are morally repellent and which have been used (and which are being used today) to legitimize dehumanization and oppression.
It’s also true that the Bible contains passages that are morally insightful and have which have been used (and which are being used today) to criticize dehumanization and oppression.
That just seems . . . obvious.
fifthmonarchyman writes:
I would like to see you deprived of your “merely” physical freedom and see how your tune changes.
Your religion makes you a bad person.
Yet you denied there was any objective moral content to your objection. Why should anyone care about your own personal subjective moral sensibilities?
Personally, I find your failures to act in keeping with the rules of this site grossly offensive. But that doesn’t seem to move you in the slightest.
What’s interesting, and abhorrent, is that there are theists like fifthmonarchyman who refuse to recognize that those passages are morally repellent. His beliefs cause him to attempt to defend them.
So much for Patrick’s claim that the Bible is just an ancient book. And surely the Bible is not the only ancient book that has something to say about slavery.
If you feel I have violated any site rules, please raise your objection in the Moderation Issues thread.
The Christian God, as distinguished from the Jewish G-d, or the Islamic Allah. Good for you Patrick, in your ability to separate them all.
It is just an old book. The fact that some people take it oh so very seriously doesn’t change that.
I’m sure there are others, but fifthmonarchyman and CharlieM aren’t defending the indefensible in those.
How about you, Mung? What do you think of the passages in the bible that explicitly condone slavery?
All you theists seem to have different views of what your god is. The only shared characteristic is an utter lack of evidence for any of them.
Don’t be an ass Patrick. You have publicly acknowledged the existence of posts which violate the rules and admitted that in spite of that fact you decided to take no action. It should not even be a matter of dispute.
And you constantly violate the site rules, which is the primary reason you should not be a moderator. It shows you have no respect for the rules.
Let’s use PatrickLogic.
Slaves can be taken in war. Therefore the Jewish God condones war.
Your irreligion makes you bad person. Teaching your irreligion to your children is child abuse.
The “Jewish God” LMFAO!
Yeah, I see that. I don’t see that as a character defect or moral flaw. I see your point, about the epistemic flaw or epistemic vice that consists in being in the grip of an ideology.
But it’s not as if they are using the Bible to complain that since the Bible condones ancient Hebrew and Greco-Roman slavery, therefore 18th/19th century chattel slavery in the Americas couldn’t have been so bad and African Americans should stop complaining about institutionalized white supremacy.
If that were their position, they’d be compounding their epistemic failing with a moral failing — but that’s really quite different from the epistemic failing by itself.
The Jewish god not only condoned war; he required it. War and genocide.
Of course the Jewish god is the Christian god and the Muslim god. Jesus insisted that the testimony of Moses was absolutely true. The Qur’an denies the divinity of Jesus, but not the word of Moses.
Apparently most of you didn’t grow up in the American South, as I did. I was about 20 years old before I met anyone outside my family who did not believe, and loudly proclaim, that slavery was approved of by the Christian god.
What is the difference between this and Judaism?
I grew up in Texas, not in the American South. I never heard that slavery was approved of by the Jewish god.
Mung,
Tradition trumps text .
I grew up in the south in the buckle of the bible belt and never once heard that slavery was approved of by God.
That is until I met an militant atheist with no knowledge of the Bible.
As Ive often said if God was like the strawman that you folks have constructed I’d reject him too.
peace
It seems to me that a good case can be made that slavery is approved of by evolution. If it were not it would not have been the universal practice of humanity in the time before Christ.
As a Christian I can say that Slavery is wrong because Christ explicitly said it was wrong (Mathew 7:12)
What I’d like to know is under what grounds do you have for declaring all other cultures to be morally corrupt in this matter.
It sounds a little raciest and imperialistic to me.
peace
There is no law that says that you cannot hate Jews, Muslims, or Christians.
On the one hand we have AFAIK the universal testimony of modern Christians and the vast majority of all Christians of all times and all traditions declaring that the Bible does not condone slavery.
On the other hand we have a very small minority of deeply flawed Christians of the past and a few anti-christian zealots declaring that the bible does condone slavery.
Search long and hard enough and you can someone who thinks the bible says almost anything. That really does not prove anything though except that people are imaginative in their sin.
peace
Patrick denies the existence of objective moral values.
That Patrick denies the existence of objective moral values doesn’t prevent him from acting as if objective moral values actually exist.
If someone is actually interested in an objective scholarly look at this question I would recommend this
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7501.html
peace
Sure. And if evolutionary theory really was the straw-person position that creationists have constructed, I’d reject it too.
Good for you. When was this? What years?
Did you start college before 1963?
What do you mean by an objective moral value? If you and I should disagree about what would be right or wrong in a given situation, does that necessarily mean that at least one of us isn’t being objective? How about if I should disagree with my cat (as I often do). What about situations where moral values come into conflict?
I’m perfectly happy with the idea that there are trans-cultural criteria for determining the adequacy of any particular culture’s moral practices. I just think those criteria are grounded in facts about human flourishing and facts about the flourishing of nonhuman beings on which we are ecologically dependent. That’s enough objectivity in ethics for me — or, I would like to think, anyone.
Only in cases of real estate disputes
All the bible says is right about these matters.
First it was only Caanan that was to be a servant. not all of ham. Not all blacks, i say, are from Ham. some from shem.
Its fine as a punishment fpr people to be made slaves. Its a punishment.
The other verses are about voluntary servanthood. Not against the free will.
The Christian doctrines teach love, kindness, and justice. So slavery would be impossible from Christian teachings. Thats indeed why the mopst Christian were the most opposed to slavery . ending it in the Roman empire and finally the most obscure peoples and areas.
Slavery is not the worst thing . There are worst things. It depends on how the person is treated even if its against their will.
The bible recognizes contracts between humans while not holding humans to the high standards that God expects.
The bible clearly opposed the illegal stealing of people.
So its about a species of employment and not imprisonment as later slavery became.
Could you explain how he “acts as if objective moral values exist”?
What prevents a person from subjectively condemning a defense of slavery?
I believe I can provide very strong evidence* that certain secular interpersonally subjective moral systems are considerably better at furthering overall societal human wellbeing, than claimed-to-be-objective theistic moral systems are.
So if someone has an interest in furthering human wellbeing (rather than mindlessly adhering to theistic doctrines), that would imply they should elect to go with those particular secular moral systems. So yes, I concede that if you do not have an interest in furthering human wellbeing, then I don’t know what I should say to convince you that you should further human wellbeing. It seems obvious to me why you should…
* That evidence would be the strong systematic correletion between lower propensity for religiosity with higher living standards and happiness.
I believe I can also provide a very simple philosophical argument that explains that evidence: Some secular interpersonally subjective moral systems put the wellbeing of humans over and above the supposed word of god, instead of the other way around. Obviously, obviously that should lead to a better overall outcomes with respect to human beings.
One of the reasons claimed-to-be-objective theistic moral systems have so colossally failed to instill in the majority of it’s adherents, a sence of common decency, is that it teaches (among other things) that people are inherently a bunch of unworthy sinners. If you tell people they are unworthy sinners, they will behave as unworthy sinners.
I agree, That is why I don’t reject evolution or God.
…..or design
😉
peace
This seems like a testable hypothesis.
I wonder if we could compare the behavior of people raised to believe that they were sinners in need of Grace verses precious little angels who are naturally morally upright.
yeah science
I would hypothesize that even children raised to think that all their actions were morally blameless would eventually come to feel a tinge of guilt from time to time.
I would also expect that you would find less empathy for folks involved in behavior that the little darling objected to for some reason.
I would expect the kids raised to think “there but for the Grace of God go I” would have a sense of gratitude for their situation and sympathy for those who morally mess up in life.
how would we conduct the experiment?
peace
Objective morals FTW. Thank you christianity!
You precipitated a case where enforcing the rules would fail to support the goals of the site. I informed Lizzie of my decision.
If you have evidence of this, please raise it in Moderation Issues.
My lack of religion doesn’t cause me to condone slavery or disparage the impact it has on real human beings. It takes religion to do that.
Why are you offended by me stating a fact? Would you be offended if I said that people can be very cruel?
I’m not sure why you think it is my bible. And where did I say that slavery doesn’t matter?
CharlieM,
21:7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
Cut the crap and tell us how does one rationalize this piece of obnoxious crap in your Bible. And when you’re done, it won’t matter in the slightest, because anyone could promote slavery and human trafficking based on passages like this, and that’s exactly what’s happened historically. A few centuries ago slave owners would burn in you a cross for heresy for questioning the literarity of the Bible.
Employment gets income, income gets you food, and food ensures your survival on basic level. Without employment you will die. This applies to all times, not just modern times.
In old times, slavery was a form of employment. Sure, slaves were taken from conquered tribes and what not, but an indebted man (personal bankruptcy) could submit himself to a voluntary slavery, which was term-limited in the Bible, so it was far from the kind of evil slavery that prevailed in America up to the civil war.
Among people with decent education, all this is self-evidently known and would need no mention.
Erik,
Disgusting. If you can’t quit your “job”, that’s slavery, not employment. And again, what about women?
Ahhh, benign slavery. Isn’t christianity great?
I lived in Mississippi for 27 years. My first day of high school was the first day of integration of public schools in the state. My most rewarding experiences as a teacher were at Jackson State University (95 percent African American undergrad population). I have known Klansmen. I have known members of the John Birch Society. And I judge, not your ignorance, but your aggressive ignorance, of who and what they are as positively evil.
Who gives a rat’s ass to know what you did or did not hear growing up? What a shabby excuse for pronouncing on what you have not bothered to investigate. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the Civil War knows that, leading up to the war, preachers in the North found a biblical basis for abolishing slavery, and preachers in the South found a biblical basis for maintaining the institution of slavery. Do you have your head too far up your ass to notice that the Ku Klux Klan still burns crosses? Or are you too cowardly to wonder why? You don’t know jack about the Klan or the John Birch Society, do you? Admit it. You don’t. You think that the Bible Belt would be named as it is, and that the hideous oppression of racial minorities in the region would be orthogonal to religion? Evidently you do. And that makes you fabulously ignorant of the American South.
You’re so friggin’ ignorant, you don’t even know the recent history of your own religious beliefs:
There is no quick remedy for your ignorance. It not only takes openness, but also a lot of work over a number of years to acquire a broad education. But you can do something immediately about your aggressiveness. You are not a particularly intelligent man, no matter how you compare to the people at your church. You are not a particularly well educated man, no matter what degrees you have. So you had better add a some genuine humility to that “peace” you toss off so freely.
Patrick thinks its ok to give crack to young babies.
I find that offensive.
That’s right, which is why modern employment is also slavery for most people, because without their jobs they would die in short order. Where I live, we see the similarity and we don’t hesitate to call our jobs slavery.
What about them?
I must disagree. The dismissal of slavery as “temporary and local” demonstrates a clear moral flaw.
Just because they aren’t advocating something even worse does not make their position acceptable. Is it really so hard to say “Slavery is wrong and the parts of the bible that condone it are wrong.”?
Well, no. First off if you can choose to quit your job and live in poverty or even die, that’s more freedom than the slaves in the bible enjoyed. The problem with modern employment is that all too often people can barely make a living even if they work around the clock. Not surprisingly conservatives (mainly christians) are often perfectly fine with this form of modern “slavery”
They clearly were second class slaves according to the Bible.
Evolution doesn’t approve or disapprove of anything. Unlike your holy book, it’s not a prescription for moral behavior.
Interesting that you don’t provide the full verse: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law of the prophets.” A simple restatement of the golden rule, which one can of course interpret to forbid slavery. It’s certainly not an explicit denunciation of all the passages explicitly condoning the practice, including those from the New Testament referenced in the original post.
You can only say that slavery is wrong according to your bible by ignoring all the biblical passages that explicitly condone it. What would your god think of you presuming to decide which of its words to privilege above others?
The golden rule, which predates your scriptures by some time. I would not be enslaved so I will not enslave. Not too difficult.
You dare play the race card when your scriptures have been used to defend slavery? Looks like you’re taking a page from the SJW playbook — just spew vile accusations even if it means you’re claiming that being anti-slavery is racist.
Now, I don’t have an objective morality handed down from some supernatural critter that seems conflicted on the issue of slavery. If you’re continuing to support the old book that condones that practice, all I can do is point out that your commitment to that book is interfering with your natural human decency, empathy, and compassion.