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.
He prolly does, but like the rest of us, he’s waiting for your OP on the psychology of admissions of error to understand precisely how masters like you make such concessions so frequently and with such grace.
Old Chinese proverb: Of a poor leader, the people say “we fear him.” Of a good leader, the people say “we love him.” Of a great leader, the people say “we did it ourselves.”
KN,
You’re repeating a number of errors you’ve made in past discussions of this topic.
1. You’ve defined morality narrowly in terms of human societies and human flourishing, but your intent is not to exclude the well-being of other sentient creatures.
2. What counts as “flourishing” is not itself an objective question. Is it happiness? Is it the accumulation of wealth? An increase in population? Military conquest? Is it longevity (in which case Egyptian society was extraordinarily moral)?
3. Even supposing you could settle on, and justify, an objective definition of “flourishing”, there is nothing to establish it as more objective than, say, a morality dedicated to increasing the amount of the color blue in the universe.
I love this. Always thought a healthy democracy needs no great leaders, just decent representatives. The irony is that China is not precisely the paradigm of that motto these days
I have just a little time to kill so I will address this yet again. I don’t have much hope that you are actually interested in dialogue but I’ll give a quick try anyway
If the bible condoned slavery it would be wrong. It does not condone slavery so therefore that is not an issue.
You have misinterpreted what the Bible says.
If the bible said what you think it says I would also reject it. The problem is that it does not say what you think it says.
The author of a text is the final authority on the meaning of the text. here is the syllogism to make it simple for you.
Premise 1) The author of the Bible (God/Jesus) is adamant that the Old Covenant should not be read in any way that contradicts the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
Premise 2) Slavery clearly contradicts the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself
Conclusion) Therefore the Old Covenant does not condone slavery
There it is in black in white.
If you disagree with my conclusion you need to either demonstrate that one or both of the premises are false or that the syllogism is invalid
I’ll be waiting
peace
KN,
It’s because we can see the difference between
1) objectively applying an objective moral standard, and
2) objectively applying a subjectively-chosen moral standard.
#2 is possible, but #1 is not. A morality based on a sufficiently well-defined concept of “human flourishing” would qualify as an instance of #2, not #1.
fifth,
You are assuming that the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, either explicitly or implicitly.
That’s a goofy (and false) assumption.
Perhaps. but that would need to demonstrated
On the other hand you are assuming that the bible does contradict itself implicitly or explicitly . This is clearly an uncharitable position to take for any text. It’s much better to give the author the benefit of the doubt
You would object if I simply assumed that you contradicted yourself with out providing evidence that is the case.
Even leaving aside the question of Christ’s divinity for the sake of argument.
It’s clear that he thought that the Old Covenant did not condone anything that is inconsistent with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no dispute that Jesus is a better judge of what the text of the Torah says than you are sitting 2 thousand years away and in an entirely different culture.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
The fact that Jeebus/Gawd didn’t tell everyone that what he really meant was that everyone should love one another to begin with is hilarious enough. But he clearly said, according to the babble (Matthew 5:17), “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them”
Now since the “Law or the Prophets” clearly states that… well, just reread Patrick’s post… the babble clearly endorses and condones slavery. Therefore, christianity is false
There it is in black on white.
I have to commend your approach to this though. Many christians would just explain this away by claiming that slavers could very well love their slaves or something like that. Erik was pretty close when he compared slavery to employment. But now you have to face the obvious contradiction. You can’t be moral and a bible literalist. It’s simple logic
I have provided numerous direct quotes from both the old and new testaments of the bible that explicitly condone slavery.
Damn me for quoting directly from the book and providing full context!
It’s not what I think, it’s what it actually says. Anyone can look up the verses I referenced and read them for themselves.
Assertion without evidence and in the face of the actual evidence.
That depends on the definition of “neighbor”. The bible makes it very clear that certain neighbors may be enslaved.
Except for all the passages that do explicitly condone slavery.
Syllogism fail.
No, I provided the black and white evidence. You’re doing nothing more than closing your eyes and plugging your ears while spouting irrational apologetics.
So demonstrated.
Now let’s hear you admit the bible is wrong to condone slavery.
We also still have the issue of you trivializing the suffering of real human beings as being “temporary and local”.
Here’s one of many lists of biblical contradictions available via a quick Google search. And here’s an visual search tool for contradictions and biblical support for other unsavory matters like slavery.
Not at all. The fact that the bible contradicts itself is based on the numerous actual contradictions found in the bible. One could go in with the greatest assumptions of good faith and the evidence would be the same.
You do realize that every one of those apparent contradictions has been dealt with many times. It’s easy to do if you give the author the same benefit of the doubt you yourself would ask for.
If you are interested here is one such effort among many
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/bible.htm#INDEX
I could take an uncharitable approach to your writing and come up with a much more convincing list than the one you did. 😉
Besides arguing for a contradictory text defeats the purpose of your OP
You need to make up your mind does the Bible contradict itself in these matters or does it explicitly condone slavery?
You can’t have it both ways
peace
FMM: “You do realize that every one of those apparent contradictions has been dealt with many times.”
If by “dealt with” you mean “rationalized” and “equivocated”, we all agree.
Maybe you can answer one small contradiction. How did Herod order the killing of newborns in an attempt to kill Jesus when he died years before Jesus was born? Clairvoyance?
Cross-posting this from the “Species” thread, since it illustrates just how ridiculous Christian rationalizations can be:
Patrick:
fifth:
That just might be the stupidest rationalization for Yahweh’s actions that you’ve ever offered at TSZ, fifth. Which is saying something.
Here’s the passage:
By that inane logic, God knowingly caused more of everything that he forbade in the Old Testament.
God wants us to murder more, so he forbids it. He wants us to steal, commit adultery, and dishonor our parents more, so he forbids it. He wants us to worship other Gods, so he forbids it.
I nominate fifth for Worst Apologist Ever.
Yep, that one really does take the cake as the Most Idiotic Rationalization of all time.
That encapsulates your problem, FMM. I’m not sure whether you insist that the bible is inerrant, every word being literally true, which seems a consistent but doomed position, or whether you allow yourself some leeway in interpretation or accept the guidance of your chosen church authority on the issue. But, as you say, one can’t have it both ways.
Once you allow interpretation (exegesis is it?) a foot in the door, where do you draw the line? I think it is a shame that the bible, its origins and assembly into its current set of texts isn’t studied more for its own sake. The real intentions and situation of the people responsible for various bits of it I’m sure must be fascinating. Yet we know nothing for certain even about the identities of the authors of the gospels.
Brilliant.
Of course you know this is false.
We know for certain that the authors are not twentieth century Frenchmen for example.
Perhaps you were using exaggeration for effect but it’s not helpful to these discussions.
When you get down to it we know a lot about the identities of the authors of the Gospels even starting from your presuppositions.
If you begin from where I do we know a good deal more
peace
There was a guy who used to post here that was a some sort of theologian who pointed out that the idea that the Bible is literal is absurd – for example, when Jesus said that he was the “true vine”. Was he actually claiming to be a vine? Nobody takes the Bible literally, word for word.
He also pointed out that correctly interpreting a spiritual message required spiritual understanding/knowledge. It would be like an older, wiser person trying to explain something to a teenager who thinks they already know everything.
You draw the line at Christ. He is the Author of Scripture He is the authority and expert on it’s meaning.
The same thing applies to the relationship of any writing with it’s author.
I’m amazed that folks who spend so much time decrying quote mining when it comes to a biology text are so quick to engage in the very same thing when it comes to Scripture. The double standard is glaring
peace
Amen
He did not order the killings before Jesus was born. Ive never heard any serious scholar of any stripe claim that he did.
It’s this sort of naive ignorance that makes Bible study with you guys impossible.
peace
Can somebody with the requisite ‘spiritual understanding’ please weigh in here?
This explicitly says I can safely beat the living shit out of my ‘servant’ because he is my property.
But, we are told, that can’t be the case because it would contradict Jesus’ golden rule.
Very well – what do these passages actually mean?
PS – I’m amazed at the retreat to the Golden Rule. ‘Do Unto Others’ is the definition of moral subjectivism – a direct appeal to one’s own character as a basis for morality.
If cultural knowledge is required for one to judge the divine Word of God, is that cultural knowledge divinely revealed?
I think it is based on the assumption that all people share an objective set of actions which they wouldn’t want done to them. Poked in the eye with sharp stick,etc
Just to note, the biblical reflection of slavery is done in two ways. 1) it reflects a moral code for how servants ought to be treated because for the most part, the societies around then (particularly Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Sumeria, Israel, Phoenicia, and Philistia) were not kind to subjugated peoples. Not that the Romans or the Greeks were a blessing either, but they came much later (long after most of these “laws” were established for particular situations.) 2) It represents how the some Hebrews in particular, but all sorts of subset groups cropping up at the time as well, viewed their relationship with God. Keep in mind the way the bible (and other religious documents of the time) refer to the gods as “Lords”, “Kings”, “Tutelaries”, “Potters”, and even “Conquerors”. Gods were to these peoples no different that the most powerful rulers and similarly, they they people his (her) subjects and servants. In fact, Romans 6:15-20 even states outright that the people are no longer slaves to themselves (their sins) but are now slaves of God (and yes…Paul insists that’s a good thing).
So of course the bible does not condemn slavery, mostly because the bible was not written for the leaders of the world or for the gods themselves, but for the people of the lands – most of whom were slaves and didn’t know any other way of living or any other relationship with leaders of the time.
Of course, its stance on slavery makes absolutely no sense from the perspective that it was written by a slave-owner who believes slavery is wrong. There is no logical way to reconcile such a perspective, but then compartmentalization and cognitive dissonance don’t seem to be hard for some folks.
Also makes said god look like a horribly wicked dudebro for punishing Adam and Eve for sin they could not possibly know about since “The Law” was not then presented.
Not all Christians considered blacks as fully human, that was a common political view as evidenced by our slave owning Christian founding fathers as well. Therefore slavery did not contradict love your neighbor. I am suprised that you are not aware of this view growing up in the South.
Here you go (Romans 9:18-23):
Basically, any lord has not only the right, but the explicit requirement to beat the shit out of some servants so that other servants might know mercy and thus reflect his glory.
Of course, Paul raises a lot of questions here, particularly if one is to take the passage literally. What is “long-suffering” to an eternal entity and how much of said “long-suffering” can a mortal, finite entity actually cause? In what sense can any sort of omni-god experience any emotion, particularly something like “wrath”? Why would anything that knew all that would ever take place ever get frustrated over how something occurred, particularly if that something was the creator of all that would unfold to begin with?
Anyway, if you don’t spend too much time trying to peak behind the curtain, it’s at explainable on some levels, but there are plenty of holes…
“Less evolved” or “closer to the ape” was a common way of putting it in my youth. I could list half a dozen lines of evidence commonly cited.
Please don’t
I realize that they have been the subject of much handwaving, special pleading, and when those don’t work simple ignoring by biblical inerrantists. They have not been refuted.
Acartia has already asked about Herod. Here are three more that demonstrate that your bible cannot be inerrant:
What was the order of creation?
From The Thinking Atheist:
Genesis 1:11-12 and 1:26-27 Trees came before Adam.
Genesis 2:4-9 Trees came after Adam.
Genesis 1:20-21 and 26-27 Birds were created before Adam.
Genesis 2:7 and 2:19 Birds were created after Adam.
Genesis 1:24-27 Animals were created before Adam.
Genesis 2:7 and 2:19 Animals were created after Adam.
Genesis 1:26-27 Adam and Eve were created at the same time.
Genesis 2:7 and 2:21-22 Adam was created first, woman sometime later.
The logical conclusion is that Genesis is composed of two different creation myths.
How did Judas die?
From Answering Christianity:
After he threw the money into the temple he went away and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5)
After he bought the field with the price of his evil deed he fell headlong and burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18)
For extra credit you can try to reconcile Acts 1:18 with Matthew 27:5.
Do hares chew the cud?
From Infedels.org:
LEV 11:6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
“Gerah,” the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does *not* mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated “chew the cud” in the KJV is more exactly “bring up the cud.” Hares do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that’s that. Hares do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it.
Before you respond, remember that you’ve complained about people making assumptions before drawing conclusions. Leaving aside the validity of those complaints, to avoid hypocrisy you need to consider these verses without the assumption that the bible must be inerrant. Without ad hoc justifications or reading into the text material that simply isn’t present, there is no way to conclude other than that the bible contains numerous contradictions.
Both. There are numerous passages in the bible condoning slavery and dozens if not hundreds of clear contradictions.
I note that you still haven’t addressed your trivialization of slavery. The demonstrates that whatever morality you get from your religion leaves much to be desired.
You can hardly reject the existence of the spiritual and then expect anyone to take your interpretation of spiritual texts seriously.
Of course you can. I reject the existence of Narnia yet can still follow the messages in “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”
1. I’m a weak anthropocentrist (as the term goes): I think that we ought to care about the integrity and well-being of ecosystems because our own health and well-being is materially dependent on those ecosystems. I don’t doubt that sentient animals have rights.
2. I think that flourishing is best explicated in terms of the capability approach developed by Sen and Nussbaum.
3. For you to say that, I am beginning to wonder if you are using “objective” means something like “wholly independent of and indifferent to all human and animal needs, interests, and desires”. By that criterion, there’s no such thing as objective morality (obviously), nor is there any such thing as objective knowledge.
But then I want to say that since “objective” would turn out to be something that has no relevance at all for human life (since it is defined as being irrelevant!), we’d be much better off developing a conception of “objective” that does have relevance for our epistemic and ethical practices.
Woodbine:
That’s one of my favorite passages, because in two short verses it completely undermines the claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of a perfectly loving God.
1. It explicitly establishes that you can own other people.
2. It explicitly establishes your right to beat them.
3. It even establishes your right to beat them fatally, as long as they don’t die right away.
4. It explicitly exempts you from punishment because the slave is your property.
A question for Christian inerrantists: Do you really think this is the word of an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly loving God? If so, what is wrong with you?
Or like a mental patient trying to explain how he is most certainly Napoleon. I can see how that could be frustrating.
This clearly exhibits why you are not only incapable of properly interpreting spiritual texts, but unwilling to even admit your shortcomings. You insist that the reading of the text is everything there is to know about it, or at least enough to properly interpret the text. That’s not even true of historical documents; even when they aren’t talking about anything spiritual. You have to understand the context of what is being written to understand what was written.
Documents written just 250 years ago in English in our own country suffer the same problem; terms and phrases meant other things back then than they do now and were written in a context very different from the current context. For example, “Freedom of Religion” or “Separation of Church and State” are phrases that meant something very different back when the country was being founded. “Deism” meant something completely different. Separated from such relevant context, quotes fromf our founders can be used to mean very different things than were meant by those terms at the time.
So, stack on this the problem of proper language interpretations and a spiritual context which physicalists are blind to, one can hardly expect a physicalist to make a proper interpretation of a spiritual book. Nor can you expect to be able to explain a spiritual matter to a physicalist – they lack the necessary understanding to properly interpret any such instruction and are usually actively defensive against such ideas.
This is an rather odd statement. Clearly there’s a good chance that those who reject the spiritual will agree with others who reject the spiritual in terms of interpretation of spiritual texts. They may not all necessarily agree with the interpretations, but there’s still a good chance that such folks will take each others’ interpretations quite seriously. That certain spiritual people likely won’t take the spiritual interpretations of secular people seriously hardly matters, particularly to the secular people.
That’s the beauty of the published word in this country; anyone is free to comment on it and point out when it’s just plain silly. And others are free to agree or disagree in kind.
And since the vast majority of people reject FMM’s interpretation of spiritual text, it’s rather moot whether anyone takes my or any other secularist’s interpretation of his spiritual texts seriously or not.
William,
Then by all means, take on Woodbine’s challenge and explain Exodus 21:20-21 to those of us who lack your special ability to interpret spiritual texts.
You can hardly reject the existence of the spiritual and ridicule any attempt at explaining contextual/interpretation issues and then expect anyone to take your interpretation of spiritual texts seriously.
If you just want to ridicule the texts, fine. But, you don’t have a sound case against such texts because you don’t have the requisite spiritual understanding to understand the texts, much less make an argument against something they say. You’re just extracting words and phrases and interpreting them however you wish and juxtaposing them against other quotes so that they appear to you to be contradictory or morally unacceptable to us in this particular culture and linquistic frame of reference.
I’m not a christian, and I’m certainly not a Christian theologian who understands Christian spirituality.
I didn’t say you were a Christian, William. But as someone with an ability to “properly interpret spiritual texts”, you should be able to help us out.
Have at it.
Who can claim to be doing anything different from that? If the text is open to interpretation… You (as in anyone) can then support any particilar religious or moral claim by
manipulatinginterpreting the text to suit the claim you are making. Seems you are damned if you claim the text is inerrant because of these “quaint” bits on slavery and damned if you allow interpretation as who can say which makes more sense.Those of us who view the bible as an eclectic and arbitrary assembly of historical documents don’t have to worry. Lucky us! 🙂
Case in point about interpreting phrases.
That people do take seriously the interpretations of the secular who ridicule the very idea of the spiritual doesn’t explain why anyone should take them seriously. Why should I take seriously a view about a legal matter from someone who is not an attorney and who scorns the very idea of law?
Nor were the intended recipients of this ‘wisdom’ contained in Exodus.
Exodus 21:20-21 is not a ‘spiritual’ text requiring some deeper understanding – these are plainly spoken and explicit instructions for how to conduct one’s life.
Somehow, John 3:16, or Jesus’ statement of the Golden Rule, are invoked without bringing up the need to be “spiritual” in order to understand them (though clearly context matters). Likewise Genesis or what-not, the people who “spiritualize” it into non-literal meanings tend to be derided by many believers.
But, oh yeah, bring up legal codes–apparently among the least spiritual writings in the Bible–that not only sanction slavery but rather brutal treatment of slaves, and suddenly it’s all about “spiritual discernment” or some such thing. Hence, endless weaseling about slavery in the Bible becomes appropriate.
Glen Davidson
I don’t know whose comment(s) you are referring to here, but I happen to have a perfectly sound case against the texts from scholarly hermeneutic training. FMM may not care for my interpretations based on said training and reject my points outright. But so what? Others may well find wisdom and understanding in them and that’s the only reason to make any such counter arguments anyway in such a venue.
Of course, FMM is, …just extracting words and phrases and interpreting them however he wishes… as well, in apparent contradiction to what the words themselves actually mean in context. Spiritual basis or no, no one has a sound case for saying that Exodus 21:20-21 actually means that the bible condemns slavery. And since no one of any “spiritual acceptance” has offered a different way to understand that text, it’s rather dubious of you (who isn’t a Christian anyway) to insists that those questioning it don’t have a sound case.
It’s the oldest trick – Found a morally repugnant prescription in the Bible? Well that’s just a metaphor.
Anyway, according to WJM the entire Bible is unintelligible to anyone but a Christian. Let’s see…
Nope!
No fucking idea what any of that means. If only I was more spiritual….