Slavery in Leviticus

HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
Hi guys,
I'm not sure if Purgatory is where Biblical questions go, so if it isn't, feel free to move it.

While being interested in knowing what the year of Jubilee is, I've read Leviticus 25:44 and became quite stuck on it. After allowing it to ruin half my day, I have an explanation and I'd really appreciate any other perspectives on it.

Lev 25:44 "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves."

Now, I'm aware Hebrews had a special system of buying other Hebrews as slaves to repay debt that meant they were never mistreated. They could be freed after a period of time even if the debt was not repaid.
(I haven't read through the whole of Leviticus to describe exactly how long those time periods are and what they are called. I keep getting the day of atonement and the year of Jubilee confused.)

My issue is with these foreign people being purchased as slaves by Hebrews when Paul stated in 1 Timothy 1:9 "We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexual immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers - and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine"

My explanation for why it is permissible for Hebrews to buy foreign slaves is because purchasing a slave isn't really contributing to slave trading. If you purchase a slave with the intention to free them, you aren't slave trading-

SHIT! THIS FUCKING SUCKS!
«1

Comments

  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    I seems I can't edit. Sorry about that. It's really been getting me down.

    I have two flimsy explanations for why it is permissible for Hebrews to buy foreign slaves. One is that purchasing to own as property and treat him/her as a family member is morally permissible in the eyes of God even though they and their children do not possess the freedom to go when they please.
    The other explanation is this Frank Turek division of the term 'slave' to describe both fairly-treated servants of the Hebrews and highly-mistreated thralls of the other nations. Paul is referring to the later division, not the first, where as Leviticus refers to the first division and not the later.

    I thought maybe purchasing a slave isn't morally classed as helping the slave trade, but it is, isn't it?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 23
    I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Are you saying that the Hebrews were buying foreign slaves with the intention of freeing them?

    Apart from that, my own answer for why Leviticus would say foreign slaves are okay but not Hebrew slaves is that enslaving members of your own group would be disruptive to social harmony, but no one's really gonna care if you do it to a buncha goddam foreigners.
  • stetson wrote: »
    I'm not sure I understand your last paragraph. Are you saying that the Hebrews were buying foreign slaves with the intention of freeing them?

    Apart from that, my own answer for why Leviticus would say foreign slaves are okay but not Hebrew slaves is that enslaving members of your own group would be disruptive to social harmony, but no one's really gonna care if you do it to a buncha goddam foreigners.

    That's pretty common in the ancient world from what I understand -- one raids neighboring tribes for slaves. I don't imagine it would be possible to have a society in which one were in constant fear of being abducted as a slave -- nobody could send their slaves/servants to market for example, let some other slave-owner nab them.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    And what is it you are refering to in your bold-faced, vulgarity-laced coda?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited January 23
    The simplest answer is that it's not surprising that Leviticus doesn't follow 1 Timothy when the latter was written centuries after the former.

    As I understand it, the provisions of the OT law often reflected the morals of the prevailing cultures. Over time, the Jewish understanding of God and his character developed, such that the nature of the one true God as revealed in Scripture gradually became more distinct from the understandings of God within those cultures.

    With the work and teachings of Christ, especially his "antitheses" as exemplified in the Sermon on the Mount, this process took a big step forward as the OT Law and its role was reinterpreted.

    Enter Paul. In his writings we see both an acceptance of the prevailing culture and the seeds of cultural change, change which he did not shrink from implementing personally (with Onesimus in the case of slaves for example) even if he did not make it an immediate revolutionary priority.

    To my mind the verse in 1 Timothy previous to the one you quoted offers a key to understanding this: 1:8, "we know that the law is good if one uses it properly". Paul's view of the OT Law, developed throughout his letters, is that it is not a path to salvation but instead has a twofold purpose: 1) to provoke people's consciences 2) to serve as a basic moral framework for those whose conduct is not (or is as yet insufficiently) guided by the Spirit dwelling within them.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    stetson wrote: »
    And what is it you are refering to in your bold-faced, vulgarity-laced coda?
    My last paragraph. The one you said you couldn't understand. I was mad because it didn't make sense and it was the best explanation I had.

    I guess the land of Canaan was so brutal that taking slaves was expected, similar to the Commache Indians in the Wild West, who took slaves because they expected slaves to be taken from them. It was a method of maintaining numbers and if you weren't engaged in it, other tribes did not take you seriously.

    Still doesn't work for me.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    In 1 Timothy 1 :9 Paul explicitly says the Law is for slave traders (amongst others), so there is no inherent contradiction in the Law setting limits on slave trading. If no slave trading was happening, there'd be no need for that provision in the law.

    What I think Paul is also doing (as he does with his long list of "sins" in Romans 1 before his punchline in Romans 2) is taking a swipe at the legalists by pointing out that their self-righteous aspiration to become "teachers of the law" (1 Tim 1:7) is like wanting a degree in prostitution or slave trading rather than an actual means to holiness.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Highfive wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    And what is it you are refering to in your bold-faced, vulgarity-laced coda?
    My last paragraph. The one you said you couldn't understand. I was mad because it didn't make sense and it was the best explanation I had.

    I guess the land of Canaan was so brutal that taking slaves was expected, similar to the Commache Indians in the Wild West, who took slaves because they expected slaves to be taken from them. It was a method of maintaining numbers and if you weren't engaged in it, other tribes did not take you seriously.

    Still doesn't work for me.

    I think your best bet is to be found in Eutychus' post, ie. Leviticus and Paul simply reflect a different morality, and that's really all there is to it.

    Of course, I don't know to what degree you follow the idea that everything in the Bible was wtitten with the direct inspiration of God: if you come down hard on that side, it would indeed be kinda difficult to understand why God's view on slavery would change over time.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    I can't understand how anyone can arrive at a "different morality". That means truth can depend on perspective. There has to be a standard.

    I guess it is possible to trade in slaves in a way that is moral and Paul's just got his broad brush out again.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    To my mind the verse in 1 Timothy previous to the one you quoted offers a key to understanding this: 1:8, "we know that the law is good if one uses it properly". Paul's view of the OT Law, developed throughout his letters, is that it is not a path to salvation but instead has a twofold purpose: 1) to provoke people's consciences 2) to serve as a basic moral framework for those whose conduct is not (or is as yet insufficiently) guided by the Spirit dwelling within them.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    In 1 Timothy 1 :9 Paul explicitly says the Law is for slave traders (amongst others), so there is no inherent contradiction in the Law setting limits on slave trading. If no slave trading was happening, there'd be no need for that provision in the law.
    I like this. This feels warmer.

    Okay, so I guess that means that even though Philemon probably purchased Onesimus, and thus engaged in slave trading, he was not engaged in sound doctrine then, but he is now because he isn't purchasing any more slaves. He can still be involved in the church.

    *blink*

    Have I figured it out now? I..

    I think that's it.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Highfive wrote: »
    I can't understand how anyone can arrive at a "different morality". That means truth can depend on perspective. There has to be a standard.

    Absolute truth may not depend on perspective, but our understanding of it certainly does.

    In Romans, Paul says we are judged according to the light we have.

    I understand divine revelation to be progressive in the sense that as it progresses, we get a better sense of God's character and how that is supposed to translate into our daily lives.

    For the Israelites, it was a huge step to understand that their God was not just their local divinity among many others, but the one true God. How that played out in changing their culturally conditioned treatment of other nations took a lot longer to sink in; it took until the Acts to realise that the implications of divine revelation went still further: that it didn't mean a single culture, that of Israel, should prevail over others, but that all cultures were to be transformed.

    (As we look back on Christians justifying slavery in centuries gone by, with the benefit of our enlightenment, I often wonder how subsequent ages will look back on our own revelatory blind spots).
    Okay, so I guess that means that even though Philemon probably purchased Onesimus, and thus engaged in slave trading, he was not engaged in sound doctrine then, but he is now because he isn't purchasing any more slaves. He can still be involved in the church.

    I think you're missing the point of what Paul is trying to say in 1 Tim 1:9. He is not discussing the ethics of slave ownership. Look at his charge to Timothy from verse 3 onwards. The mission is to combat legalism; "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith [i.e. not observance of the Law]."

    Paul's entire theology rests on the understanding that the Law will not deliver love, or nurture a pure heart, good conscience, or sincere faith: he understands all these things to come from the indwelling of the Spirit.

    I read his list of things addressed in the Law in v9 not as being objectively representative of what the Law is about but as an ironic reminder that it cannot achieve the work of the Spirit; he's being snarkily dismissive of those who think becoming expert teachers in the law will achieve that; it won't. It's not fit for that purpose.

    Indeed, worrying about a perceived "contradiction" between Paul's statement on slave trading and the OT Law amounts to "promoting controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work" (v5) - which is by the Spirit.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Indeed, worrying about a perceived "contradiction" between Paul's statement on slave trading and the OT Law amounts to "promoting controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work" (v5) - which is by the Spirit.
    It's just that advancing God's work also means putting people's minds at ease about the Bible. As an apologist, I have to explain why it was necessary for to God allow the Israelites purchase slaves from foreign slave markets. Maybe you have some thoughts on that, too?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited January 23
    (x-post; I'll get back to you in a while about the above one - although maybe the end of this post sort of answers your question).
    Highfive wrote: »
    Okay, so I guess that means that even though Philemon probably purchased Onesimus, and thus engaged in slave trading, he was not engaged in sound doctrine then, but he is now because he isn't purchasing any more slaves. He can still be involved in the church.

    That's not how any of this works in Paul's mind. "Being involved in the church" or "engaging in sound doctrine" is not conditional on ticking Law-related boxes. In his mind, it's a journey we undertake thanks to the indwelling of the Spirit, as he gradually educates our consciences and we respond to that by changing our behaviours accordingly.

    On a day-to-day basis, that might involve something apparently principled such as giving up slave ownership, or it might be something apparently trivial to the outside observer but fundamental for the individual in terms of "pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith" etc. (even if for the time being one might continue to own slaves, for instance).

    My experience is that God's apparent priorities for the sanctification of any given individual (including myself) often don't correspond to my preferred priorities, or the ones that would have the most PR value.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Highfive wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Indeed, worrying about a perceived "contradiction" between Paul's statement on slave trading and the OT Law amounts to "promoting controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work" (v5) - which is by the Spirit.
    It's just that advancing God's work also means putting people's minds at ease about the Bible. As an apologist, I have to explain why it was necessary for to God allow the Israelites purchase slaves from foreign slave markets. Maybe you have some thoughts on that, too?

    I think you're on a fools' errand there. If you manage to corkscrew your mind around justifying slavery you'll then have to entirely break it to accommodate the founding of a nation by genocide.
  • It's a different world, and entirely foreign to me. I refuse to waste a nanosecond on it. We are not required to implement the Levitican code, for so many reasons, so why the wrestling? There's enough to wrestle with in the world as it is now.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I think you're on a fools' errand there. If you manage to corkscrew your mind around justifying slavery you'll then have to entirely break it to accommodate the founding of a nation by genocide.
    Explaining the massacres to form a holy nation is actually easier because you get to explain the Gibeonites.

  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Brilliant as ever @Eutychus.

    Hi @Highfive. The Bible is not a flat cookbook with one absolute morality over a thousand years of evolving written culture and at least another thousand oral before that. I was a fundamentalist for 30 years who believed it was. I made it all seamlessly work, no problem. I had God the Killer down as being chillingly, ruthlessly pragmatic, situationally ethical in achieving His absolutely morally pure ends of universal social justice in the Millennium, as writ: 'Thou shalt not kill, but when you do, do it like this...'. That apologetic worked just fine for me for decades. I loved that God. Love Him yet. Miss Him. Get a frisson every time He schleps up to Abraham under the Terebinth Trees of Mamre. We have one in Leicester's botanical gardens.

    There is no apologetic for the God projected by the Jews for 1500 years.

    The only apologetic for God is Jesus, as Paul, the devout fundamentalist, was the first to wrestle with.

    One cannot learn enough about the evolution and psychology of religion. And the yin of the gift of faith with its perichoretic yang of doubt can survive that.

    Keep it coming.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    I'd be interested in seeing how Jewish theologians see those passages today.

    To a certain extent I think St Paul is a red herring; the implication is that without Paul, the Levitical rules on slavery would be OK. But Jews don't accept Paul, and yet they aren't sitting round thinking 'Gosh, it's a shame all this secular human rights legislation gets in the way of enslaving the Gentiles'. So there must be some way of getting round it in Jewish theology that doesn't depend on St Paul.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Highfive wrote: »
    advancing God's work also means putting people's minds at ease about the Bible.

    If so, then you need to ask yourself what putting their minds at ease means.

    If you think it means demonstrating how the Bible fits together seamlessly as though it were a gigantic, standard-issue jigsaw puzzle, in which all the pieces are made from a set number of moulds, to portray a uniform image, as @KarlLB says I think you are on a fool's errand.

    The possible outcomes are a) you erect a Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg explanatory system that is even more complicated than the text it seeks to explain (cf dispensationalism) or b) trying to resolve the obvious contradictions kills you (or your faith).

    Someone will probably tear this illustration apart, but my view of the Bible is more akin to a series of world maps from successive ages of exploration, superposed on one another.

    One assumes geographers to be basically honest and working with the best tools available to them. That doesn't mean they're won't be discrepancies between generations of maps, indeed it would be surprising if there weren't. Nor does it mean the earlier maps are devoid of value, provided we understand the context in which they were drawn1.

    And of course, it needs to be borne in mind that none of these maps are the terrain itself.

    I find that approach, and inasmuch as one can be said to be put at ease by the Bible2, puts me very much at ease with it and indeed leads me to see far more of God's hand in it than "jigsaw puzzle" type views. Does that make any kind of sense?
    As an apologist, I have to explain why it was necessary for to God allow the Israelites purchase slaves from foreign slave markets. Maybe you have some thoughts on that, too?
    Like I say, I don't think it was so much "necessary" as not top of his list for sanctifying the children of Israel. And/or beyond their cultural ability to grasp.

    Again, the more challenging and practical question to my mind is what sort of things the people of God of today think of as entirely acceptable, being beyond our cultural ability to grasp their horrible implications, that future Church historians will be squirming to justify.

    **

    1 Beyond pure geography, one might like to consider whether the maps are drawn with the intent of being objective or whether they include political considerations and such like or elements of satire and/or myth and fantasy...

    2 "It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand" —Mark Twain (attributed, but apparently without much foundation)

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Ricardus wrote: »
    I'd be interested in seeing how Jewish theologians see those passages today.

    Fresh takes on previous writings seems to have been a legitimate and intrinsic part of Jewish theology since the Pentateuch.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    It's a different world, and entirely foreign to me. I refuse to waste a nanosecond on it. We are not required to implement the Levitican code, for so many reasons, so why the wrestling? There's enough to wrestle with in the world as it is now.

    I sympathise with this view, but I think that one of the best ways of wrestling with the world as it is right now - including populism and its thrall for some self-professed Christians - is to give ourselves some critical distance.

    One way of doing that is to look back over history, including the history of the people of God as contained in the Pentateuch and the OT, trying to understand that "different world" with all its foreigness, and how it is part of the ongoing story we own to today, is a vital key to understanding oneself and the world. Those nanoseconds may not be all that wasted.

  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Excellent point @Ricardus. Judaism continued to evolve in the Christianizing Greco-Roman world and past the tipping point of Christian and antisemitic supremacy to this day. We must have an expert on board? A passing rabbi? Or three, one for each of Orthodox, Reform and Liberal traditions.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    @Highfive - you're just not trying hard enough to justify your God. It's easy when you let go of woolly, bleeding heart liberalism. If your evolutionarily genetically hard wired other four moral taste receptors are as strong as the liberal two. But I'm not optimistic. I think you're a liberal trapped in a conservative upbringing.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    Thank you, Eutychus. I think that is the best explanation I'll ever hear and I'm going with that.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Result!
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    It just occurred to be that Israelites captured by the enemy would probably also be sold as slaves, so...
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Eutychus wrote: »
    It's a different world, and entirely foreign to me. I refuse to waste a nanosecond on it. We are not required to implement the Levitican code, for so many reasons, so why the wrestling? There's enough to wrestle with in the world as it is now.

    I sympathise with this view, but I think that one of the best ways of wrestling with the world as it is right now - including populism and its thrall for some self-professed Christians - is to give ourselves some critical distance.

    One way of doing that is to look back over history, including the history of the people of God as contained in the Pentateuch and the OT, trying to understand that "different world" with all its foreigness, and how it is part of the ongoing story we own to today, is a vital key to understanding oneself and the world. Those nanoseconds may not be all that wasted.

    You have a very good point: that's the only way round that makes the effort make sense. Start from where we are and look for parallels. In this case, a culture which looks to its god to justify, even sanctify, enslaving those around it. We do it economically, or try to, but it's the same fundamental process. Is that just? Juxtapose it with the prophetic tradition, which sees the man of God as being a humble suffering servant, and the priestly self-justification becomes at very least not automatically the line of holiness. That is a direction in which I can see some value. I also believe, personally, that yet again we see the huge harm done by the versification of the bible. No verse makes sense or justifies anything on its own. Not even my favourites, sadly.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Highfive wrote: »
    It just occurred to be that Israelites captured by the enemy would probably also be sold as slaves, so...

    Of course, spoils of war. There were W. Eurasian cultures, Christian and Muslim, doing that for over two thousand years later and worse beyond.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited January 23
    And here is a discussion on the issue from a Jewish point of view. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/does-the-bible-condone-slavery/
    And another - on Israelite slaves only.
    https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/biblical-slavery/
    And this, really interesting.
    https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-treatment-of-non-israelite-slaves-from-moses-to-moses

    And there's a lot more out there. I do find reading Jewish discussions interesting.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Highfive wrote: »
    It just occurred to be that Israelites captured by the enemy would probably also be sold as slaves, so...

    Yeah, but two wrongs don't make a right. To use an extreme yet still valid example, murdering the children of the enemy for shit and giggles doesn't become more acceptable just because their armies do the same thing. The children themselves are undeserving of any such punishment.

    (This is assuming that the captured slaves were civilians, not soldiers. I suppose if they were the latter, you could argue that enslavement is a risk you take when you sign up to go marauding into other peoples territory.)
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »
    Highfive wrote: »
    It just occurred to be that Israelites captured by the enemy would probably also be sold as slaves, so...

    Yeah, but two wrongs don't make a right. To use an extreme yet still valid example, murdering the children of the enemy for shit and giggles doesn't become more acceptable just because their armies do the same thing. The children themselves are undeserving of any such punishment.

    (This is assuming that the captured slaves were civilians, not soldiers. I suppose if they were the latter, you could argue that enslavement is a risk you take when you sign up to go marauding into other peoples territory.)

    They do if God orders you to swing babies against the wall, as He did Saul through Samuel. C'mon, work harder on God's pragmatism everyone. It can be done... Believe me.
  • I think maybe you need a paradigm shift. It sounds to me as if you were working from the idea that the Law of Moses was God-given (yes, I agree) and therefore wholly perfect, infallible and complete (er... not so much). Take a look at this bit from Matthew 10, where Jesus clearly states that the Law is NOT a full rendering of "this is now it oughtta be." He does it on the subject of divorce, but the principle applies to slavery, reparations to rape victims and etc. etc. etc.
    3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

    ... and then Jesus goes on to outline what marriage was really intended to be, from Eden forward.

    Note that phrase: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you". Evidently there were some situations in which the ancient Israelites were so far from God's will that even God felt the need to step things back a bit--to give up on abolishing the evil outright (at least at that time) and take a baby step by regulating it. So he does not say "don't divorce" to Israel, knowing that they are absolutely going to divorce regardless of what he tells them. Instead he says "When you divorce, at least give the poor woman a certificate so she can prove that the marriage is over and get remarried." Because, of course, it was entirely possible to kick one's wife out of the house and leave her to starve on the streets (since she probably had no trade she could support herself with in that very farm-based economy), and if any man expressed an interest in marrying her (and providing for her!), one could just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but we're still married." Who could contradict that? The woman would be chained to her old marriage (which is in fact still a Thing today--look up "agunot"). Unless her birth family took her back, she would probably be forced into prostitution. So God commands through Moses that the asshole husband give her a certificate of divorce, to prevent him from playing this sadistic little game that could destroy her life. It isn't the whole enchilada, but it's something. And God is wise enough to know it's better to salvage something from the wreck of sinful human lives than to hold out for perfection and get nothing. (Remember, this is long before the coming of Christ and the wholesale gift of the Holy Spirit to people.)

    Okay, apply it to slavery. God knows very well that this is yet another situation where he's not going to win. If he says, "No slaves period," they're still going to take and keep slaves, because that's what you did with prisoners of war in those days, and your only other option was to kill them (because nobody but nobody was going to set them free and say "Go in peace, and we'll help you rebuild your homes and farms as well." And there were a helluva lot of wars in those days and in that particular part of the world, sitting on the crossroads of empire as they did.

    It was also the only real way of dealing with overwhelming debt in a society where you have no modern economic system, and thus no welfare state, no bankruptcy protection, and no insurance (to protect the creditor). If a man stands in front of you and says, "I can't possibly pay," and demonstrably has absolutely no freaking assets left, what can you do? You can either walk away and absorb the loss yourself (which would be the Christian thing to do, but yeah, what are the chances even today, when we DO have all the support of the Holy Spirit, Christ's redeeming action set before us, etc.?)_ or you can take the man himself in payment for his debt. Which at least gets you something (his labor) and incidentally provides him with food and shelter, both of which are pretty precarious for him at that moment.

    I'm not justifying slavery. It is a very great evil. But if you cannot remove the evil entirely (and I'm certain that was the case at that point and time in history), you can at least regulate it. Thus all the rules about who you may and may not purchase, and for how long (less time than the owner wants, of course!), and under what conditions, and what you must give them when they are set free. And severe injuries to slaves (including teeth knocked out, etc.) are cause for freedom.

    And in particular, the question of sexual exploitation of slaves is completely ruled out--anyone who has sex with a slave is promoting that person out of slavery into marriage or concubinage. They cannot be disposed of to another owner after that point. True, they cannot of their own free will leave the owner/husband either, but that was AFAIK true of women in general in marriage at that time and place. So in essence, having sex with a slave was manumitting them and marrying them at once.

    None of this is perfect. But that's my argument--that the Law of Moses, by Jesus' own testimony, is not perfect, whole, un-watered down. God has adjusted it in places because the depth of evil in the people's hearts is so great. He has no intention of leaving things that way forever--notice Matthew 5-7 for an example of Jesus pulling up the standards. But the original OT standards are still there in the text, and give us something to look at and marvel that we've come so far--if we have in fact done so.

    So regarding apologetics--

    If you have a person who really wants to know, and is not just hurling objections at you for the fun of it, or out of anger or boredom--take them through this argument. (If they're just messing with you, smile at them and start asking THEM questions. Why should you be the only one on the hook?)

    And if anybody starts arguing about the Psalm verses like 19:7, "The Law of the Lord is perfect," and so forth, and they really want to know, then you can have a nice little discussion about a) the meaning of the word "Torah," which goes way beyond the rules contained in Exodus through Deuteronomy; and b) the meaning of the word "perfect," which does not rule out different kinds of perfection at different stages of development.

    Good luck.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I also believe, personally, that yet again we see the huge harm done by the versification of the bible. No verse makes sense or justifies anything on its own. Not even my favourites, sadly.

    @ThunderBunk I've been thinking about this. I think you're right in that 'versification' has the drawback of breaking down the Bible into what look like equivalent units - a bit like the puzzle pieces in my illustration.

    This equivalence can fuel the temptation to try and use verses in some sort of simultaneous equation:

    (Lev 25:44) + x = (1 Tim 1:9) + y

    and then strive to 'solve' it.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    I also believe, personally, that yet again we see the huge harm done by the versification of the bible. No verse makes sense or justifies anything on its own. Not even my favourites, sadly.

    @ThunderBunk I've been thinking about this. I think you're right in that 'versification' has the drawback of breaking down the Bible into what look like equivalent units - a bit like the puzzle pieces in my illustration.

    This equivalence can fuel the temptation to try and use verses in some sort of simultaneous equation:

    (Lev 25:44) + x = (1 Tim 1:9) + y

    and then strive to 'solve' it.

    Point of order: you can't have a single simultaneous equation. That's (sort of) the equation of a straight line you've got there.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    I believe that for the vast majority of history, God has just let us get on with it. The writers of the Old Testament were very good at using God as an excuse for the misdeeds of the Jews. Slavery has only been condemned in the world in the past 250 years and in some countries even more recent.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I also believe, personally, that yet again we see the huge harm done by the versification of the bible. No verse makes sense or justifies anything on its own. Not even my favourites, sadly.

    @ThunderBunk I've been thinking about this. I think you're right in that 'versification' has the drawback of breaking down the Bible into what look like equivalent units - a bit like the puzzle pieces in my illustration.

    This equivalence can fuel the temptation to try and use verses in some sort of simultaneous equation:

    (Lev 25:44) + x = (1 Tim 1:9) + y

    and then strive to 'solve' it.

    Point of order: you can't have a single simultaneous equation. That's (sort of) the equation of a straight line you've got there.

    Yeah, if you're going to solve for two variables you're going to need at least two equations. (Fortunately, there appear to be plenty of verses left.)
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    Note that phrase: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you".
    I don't know how to express gratitude over what was completely overlooked. Thank you so much, Lamb Chopped!

    Also, in 1 Timothy 1:10, "slave trader" is derived from the greek word "andrapodistes", which means someone who reduces men to slavery or kidnaps men for slavery. Someone who buys slaves and adapts them to servants would not fit that description.
  • So it's okay to buy slaves, but not to sell them?
  • I note the word in 1 Timothy is ἀνδραποδισταῖς and could mean slave-trader but also seems to mean enslaver, one who kidnaps free people and (illegally) sells them into slavery (elsewhere it is translated as kidnapper or man-catcher). So there might be the question of whether the writer of 1 Timothy is talking about traders in legal slaves or someone who is dealing with people who are not legally slaves (e.g., kidnapped freeborn children). Legal slaves were those born to a slave, those who sold themselves into slavery (e.g., to pay off a debt), children sold into slavery by their parents, those enslaved by government authority, or those captured in a military expedition.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    mousethief wrote: »
    So it's okay to buy slaves, but not to sell them?
    Look at it this way.

    Anyone who sells a slave is holding a human-being against their will as property.
    Paying them to give you the slave is the same as paying a ransom for a hostage.
    Paying a kidnapper does not make you a slave trader.

    When the slave comes into your custody, how you treat them becomes the moral argument. If they have to work for you and in return they eat the same food as you, get to rest for one day in seven, they get to go free if they are seriously injured and if you get them pregnant, you have to marry them, I'd say they get a pretty good deal at the time.

    It's not perfect. They are still in bondage and their children are still in bondage, but it was the Law written by Moses. It was not direct orders from God.
  • So in other words, buying slaves is okay, but selling them is not. Not buying them to set them free. Buying them to work them to death.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited January 24
    I think maybe you need a paradigm shift. It sounds to me as if you were working from the idea that the Law of Moses was God-given (ye,
    Highfive wrote: »
    Note that phrase: "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you".
    I don't know how to express gratitude over what was completely overlooked. Thank you so much, Lamb Chopped!

    Also, in 1 Timothy 1:10, "slave trader" is derived from the greek word "andrapodistes", which means someone who reduces men to slavery or kidnaps men for slavery. Someone who buys slaves and adapts them to servants would not fit that description.

    I think you've missed my point--and Jesus's, as well. This is not a case of Moses adding bad stuff to God's perfect law off his own bat. God stands behind these hard bits, too, when it comes to inspiration. The decision to adapt was God's, not Moses's. Do you really think God would have let Moses do such a thing and get away with it?

    Consider also the unlikelihood of Moses getting the adaptations in the right places and to the right degree. He was a man of his time, after all. No, that wisdom is God's.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited January 24
    I note the word in 1 Timothy is ἀνδραποδισταῖς and could mean slave-trader but also seems to mean enslaver, one who kidnaps free people and (illegally) sells them into slavery (elsewhere it is translated as kidnapper or man-catcher). So there might be the question of whether the writer of 1 Timothy is talking about traders in legal slaves or someone who is dealing with people who are not legally slaves (e.g., kidnapped freeborn children). Legal slaves were those born to a slave, those who sold themselves into slavery (e.g., to pay off a debt), children sold into slavery by their parents, those enslaved by government authority, or those captured in a military expedition.

    This is informative but I think it runs the risk of misapplying 1 Timothy 1:9.

    Paul's charge to Timothy in v7 is for him to to head off those who
    want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm
    At the start of v9 he reasserts a favourite theme of his:
    the law is made not for the righteous
    and then proceeds with a list of suitably evil people, the aim being (as I see it) to point out, by hyberbole, that the Law is not designed, (as the aspiring superspiritual "teachers of the law" doubtless misguidedly believed) to regulate the behaviour of believers but the behavour of rank unbelievers. These aspiring teachers are heading off in totally the wrong direction, focusing on everything that is "contrary to the sound doctrine" (v10), injecting legalism into the Church instead of educating their prospective congregations in the New Covenant.

    Paul's whole point, developed throughout his letters, is that continuing to hairsplit the Law is barking up the wrong tree: 'his' gospel is one of grace, worked out in individual consciences by the Spirit, from the heart.

    So the aim of this passage is not to refine, qualify, or clarify the exact detail of the Law (e.g. is one allowed to purchase legitimate slaves, but not deal in them?). It's to underscore the fact that for a church leader/teacher, the Law is the wrong thing to focus on, period.

    In other words, Paul is not carefully choosing the word he uses in order to write a decree of application defining just how much involvement in the slave trade of his day was morally OK. He was far more radical: he was changing the paradigm for determining what was morally OK from one based on the Law to one based on the indwelling Spirit.

    (Which, in its time, I believe did contribute to the rejection of slavery by the Church as our collective moral consciences were so educated).
  • Thanks for chewing over this stuff I really should have properly internalised a long time ago. Things are popping up here which I am finding useful; formalising things which previously, merely, ‘didn’t feel right’.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Leviticus set, like concrete, by 332 BCE, a process that evolved in a thousand years and more from Israel's divergence from the Canaanites. God did not micromanage that process and He certainly didn't macromanage it either: there was no Exodus, the mythic context of Leviticus. Assuming God and that He did anything at all, He aligned human hearts on His field lines of Love. Minimally even that's just poetry and highly evolved human compassion, the genetically hard wired moral foundation taste receptor of care/harm then fairness/cheating were in operation in the Bronze Age just as they are now. Just as they are now. As an afterthought to authority/subversion. We come pre-wired for experience and social, like biological, evolution is in to possibility space. Slavery is inevitable. Is. So is our amelioration of it.

    Given God, as only demonstrated in Jesus at most, I am intrigued by what, if anything, He had to do to create a milieu for the Incarnation. And that radical story's influence on the world since. The first concrete example that came to mind was Gandhi. Any more?
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Highfive wrote: »
    My explanation for why it is permissible for Hebrews to buy foreign slaves is because purchasing a slave isn't really contributing to slave trading. If you purchase a slave with the intention to free them, you aren't slave trading-

    Except non-Israelite slaves were not freed during the Jubilee. For them slavery was a lifelong condition and they were considered inheritable property. There was a longer discussion about this a couple years ago.
    mousethief wrote: »
    That's pretty common in the ancient world from what I understand -- one raids neighboring tribes for slaves. I don't imagine it would be possible to have a society in which one were in constant fear of being abducted as a slave -- nobody could send their slaves/servants to market for example, let some other slave-owner nab them.

    It's a fairly obvious problem that comes up when you have both the idea of durable debt and slaves as a marketable asset. For obvious reasons a lot of ancient societies bumped up against this problem and its destructive social effects. Athens and Rome both fought low-grade civil wars over the issue of debt slavery of freeborn citizens. Eventually both societies hit on the solution of outlawing debt enslavement for Athenian/Roman citizens. In their estimation Athenians/Romans were meant to have slaves, not be slaves. The Israelites found a different method to avoid this socially destructive trap; a form of temporary debt indenture with a fixed expiry date. For fellow Israelites only, of course. Anyone else was more the kind of lifelong chattel we normally associate with the term "slavery".
    Highfive wrote: »
    Also, in 1 Timothy 1:10, "slave trader" is derived from the greek word "andrapodistes", which means someone who reduces men to slavery or kidnaps men for slavery. Someone who buys slaves and adapts them to servants would not fit that description.

    The King James version translates this as "menstealers". The distinction between "slave owners" and "slave takers" persisted (and was actually deepened) during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
    mousethief wrote: »
    So in other words, buying slaves is okay, but selling them is not. Not buying them to set them free. Buying them to work them to death.

    Pretty much. It's sort of the same way "Thou Shalt Not Steal" is part of God's Big 10 while "Thou Shalt Not Traffick in Stolen Goods" is somewhere in a later corollary derived by inference.
  • It doesn't work to try to slide a moral barrier between those who commit a crme and those who willingly profit from it. If you stretch your apologetics in this way, the thing will stink to high heaven. Better no defense than that one.
  • It doesn't work to try to slide a moral barrier between those who commit a crme and those who willingly profit from it. If you stretch your apologetics in this way, the thing will stink to high heaven. Better no defense than that one.

    Kind of my point.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    The King James version translates this as "menstealers". The distinction between "slave owners" and "slave takers" persisted (and was actually deepened) during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

    It's my experience that a lot of legalism stems in the end from building a whole distinction on a single word, quite probably written without too much thought for all its specific connotations, in a passage about something completely different (as here). And all too often it turns out to revolve around a hapax legomenon.
  • Yeah, those situations suck. Usually best to avoid any dogmatism about them, lest a new manuscript turn up tomorrow and make you (or me) look like an idiot.
  • HighfiveHighfive Shipmate Posts: 22
    The decision to adapt was God's, not Moses's. Do you really think God would have let Moses do such a thing and get away with it?

    Consider also the unlikelihood of Moses getting the adaptations in the right places and to the right degree. He was a man of his time, after all. No, that wisdom is God's.
    HELP!
    PLEASE!
    Is there anywhere in scripture that describes this?
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