Christians who reject the old testament and slavery

[BilliardsBall]

A no true Scotsman fallacy? Is that all you have?

Is this an NTS?

1. All vegetarians avoid meat.
2. My friend eats meat.
3. My friend is no true vegetarian.

NEITHER of us can call an NTS on Christians until we first define what Christians are.

If you want to call birthed or lapsed Christians all Christians YOU are a Christian. Now go ahead and let's define terms.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Of course. But it's also a matter of degree within a particular cultural milieu. The companies we work for often "own us." And we will readily sell our souls to them in exchange for the carrots of health insurance and pension plans they dangle before us, because those things are necessary for us.

You're committing the same form of equivocation I specifically addressed earlier. I made my definition of slavery absolutely clear:

Slavery is when one human being owns another human being AS PROPERTY.

Working for a company is not comparable to ANY form of slavery, and in no way is it a "degree" of slavery. This assertion is ridiculous and I find the comparison offensive.

No, it's really not debatable. They wrestle with that issue, just as we wrestle with equally reprehensible moral issues. the lesson is in the wrestling.

Where in the Bible do they wrestle with it?

Of course it is. But, again,l we're comparing apples with oranges, from a cultural standpoint.

I'm not judging the culture that created the Bible, I'm judging the Bible as touted as an inerrent source of absolute morality.

I disagree, and here's why. First of all, I don't believe for one second that its authority is "unalterable." Second, if we look at the overarching theological scheme of the texts (which is where their value lies) we find mercy, compassion, forbearance, hospitality, love. That is its basis as a moral foundation.

Again, these aren't beliefs I'm ascribing to you. They are beliefs held by some people, and even people who don't necessarily hold those beliefs still try to defend the Bible in its depiction of slavery in ways that I find morally repellent and downplays the obvious immorality of slavery as a whole.

Well... I think the time frame is very important to consider when trying to make sense of the texts. And, "glossing over" parts that simply don't serve our highest good is precisely what we do with many other sections, such as the wearing of 50/50 cotton/poly shirts. As I've mentioned to others, this isn't an "all-or-nothing" prospect. We don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There is nastiness in the bible, because there is nastiness in humanity, and the bible is a human product. I think that we can look at the distasteful parts and learn from them, precisely because they are distasteful, and we don't want to repeat those behaviors.

I agree with all of this. The issue I take is with people who are unable or unwilling to accept this nastiness in the Bible, or attempt to downplay it. I see it as no different to trying to justify slavery. The slavery depicted in the Bible isn't justified simply because it's "not as bad as other historical examples of slavery", it's still morally reprehensible, and I would like to think that we've reached that point as a society where we can say, unfalteringly, that this part of the Bible is morally wrong without having to cushion it with weak justifications and appeals to history.

Slavery should be condemned, period. Not justified.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I don't hold the bible up to that standard. I don't think it ought to be held up to that standard.

But many people do, and I think it's important to challenge that notion and not enable it by making appeals to try and justify the morally reprehensible parts or passages in the Bible.

And I don't think the theological tenor of the texts as positive is debatable.

I believe it is. I think it's positive only if you choose to ignore the negative parts. You're at risk of committing cognitive dissonance.

Get out of your own head and out from behind your own lens, and look at it through the eyes of the ancient Hebrews and Judeans for whom and by whom it was written. Do you not see how God cares for them, has compassion for them, has mercy on them, forgives them for indiscretions, provides pathways to reconciliation for them?

Problem is that when you stop looking at it through the eyes of its intended audience you see that it also justifies genocide, rape, slavery and subjugation.

Remember, they wrote it from their perspective, so, when God "smote their enemies utterly," they saw that as a good thing, because God was taking care of them. They didn't have the more universal view of humanity that we enjoy, and their writings reflect that. Therefore, we need to take that difference into consideration when applying its principles to our perspective and our time.

Which is what makes it practically useless - for most counts - when applied to a far more moral society that we have now, and why defending or ignoring the more morally reprehensible parts of it is both a misrepresentation of the text and a potential misuse of the text as a handbook for modern morality.

 

[sojourner]

You're committing the same form of equivocation I specifically addressed earlier. I made my definition of slavery absolutely clear:

Slavery is when one human being owns another human being AS PROPERTY.

Working for a company is not comparable to ANY form of slavery, and in no way is it a "degree" of slavery. This assertion is ridiculous and I find the comparison offensive.

Actually, with debt-slavery, the one holding the slave did not own that person. Just as companies do not literally "own" their employees. My point was that, in that culture, it was sometimes necessary for a person to "give themselves over" to the one to whom they owed a debt. A better term than "debt-slave" is probably "bond-servant."

Where in the Bible do they wrestle with it?

Take a look at this excerpt from arguably oone of the most scholarly bible commentaries:
"Jacob Milgrom, in Leviticus 23-27: The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, goes even further, suggesting that the Torah actually tries to make enslaving others difficult, if not impossible. He writes, “For Israelites, both 
kinds
 of 
slavery, chattel 
and
 debt, are
 prohibited.” In other words, no Jew may own another person, and strict constraints limit how long a person may be held as an indentured servant before the debt is paid off. This is especially relevant today, when debt-bondage continues to be a major form of slavery.

Milgrom’s analysis centers on Leviticus 25, where in verse 42 God says, “For they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt; they may not give themselves over into servitude.” The

uses this same verse as evidence to say that workers always have the right to quit—i.e., they cannot be forced to work beyond the span they wish to (Bava Metzia 77a).

It is also relevant to note that later rabbis eliminated the category of the Eved Ivri."

"We should remember too that Jews have always read the Torah through a rabbinic interpretive lens and not simply on the plain meaning of its words."

We have to remember that the bible isn't one big story, along a proscribed timeline. It flipflops between time frames, subcultures, etc.

I'm not judging the culture that created the Bible, I'm judging the Bible as touted as an inerrent source of absolute morality.

Noted. Thanks for the clarification. I agree.

Again, these aren't beliefs I'm ascribing to you. They are beliefs held by some people, and even people who don't necessarily hold those beliefs still try to defend the Bible in its depiction of slavery in ways that I find morally repellent and downplays the obvious immorality of slavery as a whole.

Again: thanks for the clarification. I agree.

I agree with all of this. The issue I take is with people who are unable or unwilling to accept this nastiness in the Bible, or attempt to downplay it. I see it as no different to trying to justify slavery. The slavery depicted in the Bible isn't justified simply because it's "not as bad as other historical examples of slavery", it's still morally reprehensible, and I would like to think that we've reached that point as a society where we can say, unfalteringly, that this part of the Bible is morally wrong without having to cushion it with weak justifications and appeals to history.

Well... I'm not trying to justify it, so much as explain it, so as to enlighten people to the fact that the bible is not a cut-and-dried proposition. If we can't justify it totally on its humanitarian merits, neither can we totally condemn it for its struggles with slavery. As you noted above (and which I'll paraphrase here) we have to hold the texts gently, and not subject them to some absolute authority or standard. Yes, the bible "condones slavery." But it's not a complete or all-encompassing rubber-stamp for all times, people and places. It's clear that the people who wrote the bible wrestled with the morality of slavery, and I think that's what the texts bring out. So, we can't just make a generalized, blanket statement that "the bible condones slavery," and have that mean something other than what the biblical culture was dealing with.

 

[sojourner]

But many people do, and I think it's important to challenge that notion and not enable it by making appeals to try and justify the morally reprehensible parts or passages in the Bible.

Right. but again, the temptation is to just write the whole bible off as "useless." We don't want to do that, either, anymore than we want to write off all Muslims as "evil," just because some radical Muslims make life difficult for everyone.

I believe it is. I think it's positive only if you choose to ignore the negative parts. You're at risk of committing cognitive dissonance

Not really. Because the theological thrust is not that "God kills people." That's mythic imagery to foster the idea that "God is good to us." You're reading mythic, literary devices as either factual history, or cosmological truths. The cosmological truth the bible fosters is that "God loves us."

Problem is that when you stop looking at it through the eyes of its intended audience you see that it also justifies genocide, rape, slavery and subjugation.

I don't think so, for the reasons listed above. And, again, as I quoted in my post above, the Jews have always understood the texts through a rabbinic lens -- the texts do not stand on their own, as you're suggesting here.That's precisely why the exegetical process teaches us to constantly police our biases and to practice the art of not looking through our own filters.

Which is what makes it practically useless - for most counts - when applied to a far more moral society that we have now, and why defending or ignoring the more morally reprehensible parts of it is both a misrepresentation of the text and a potential misuse of the text as a handbook for modern morality.

For the first part of your statement, I disagree. The truth of love, compassion, mercy, etc. are most useful -- especially in a world where humanity has the technology to completely destroy the earth. For the second part of your statement, I think I agree, with a proviso. While defending and ignoring does misrepresent the text (I think we have to wrestle with the texts in all aspects), I'm not at all convinced that weighing the merits of certain parts over certain other parts represents a "misuse." We weigh texts all the time. Jesus weighed the texts (again, against his rabbinic lens). We need to do the same, in order to glean from them what is best for us. In that way, the "potential misuse of the the text as a handbook for modern morality" is averted.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Is this an NTS?

1. All vegetarians avoid meat.
2. My friend eats meat.
3. My friend is no true vegetarian.

NEITHER of us can call an NTS on Christians until we first define what Christians are.

If you want to call birthed or lapsed Christians all Christians YOU are a Christian. Now go ahead and let's define terms.

Then by your standards there are no "true Christians". A Christian is simply someone that says that they believe in the Jesus story and claims to be a Christian. Either one has to include all that say they are Christians or deny that anyone is a Christian.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Why would we be interested in a world other than that which was created?

God, by participating in this world, should be studied, yes? He gives our lives meaning, yes?

The story is an ideological lesson. Not a history lesson.

But people think it's history, and it shows the ideological lesson that people will bend over backwards to make people like them innocent and "others" guilty, even if the truth is the exact opposite.

Slavery was always wrong.

Yeah, I mean, Hebrews/Jews weren't big fans of the idea when THEY were the slaves. This is similar to what I just said: justify cruelty to others and give your own peeps some slack. It's wrong. This is why we have MAGA today!

It might be moral for their culture.

It reminds me of the threads where certain cultures are evil for doing this and that but we aren't because we're awesome.

Look wisdom is like the thinnest liquid. In other words it flows more than water. You can't contain it in exactitude. You can hardly put it into words.

Unwise people can't hold onto wisdom. My mom can't figure out how to use a basic cellphone. It doesn't mean no one can figure it out. I mean, I'm the one who put in her contact list she never reads.

That is why wisdom is best conducted through proverbs and similes.

If it can fit on a bumper sticker, it didn't require much thought. *goes to check if this fits on a bumper sticker LOL*

And Loving your neighbor as yourself is not a cliche. Not sure why you think that.

What if you hate yourself?

Yet God shows mercy.

Sounds more often like apathy, not mercy.

Anyway if they obeyed the whole law including to love their neighbor as themselves, then they would not treat their slaves bad.

They wouldn't have slaves since they didn't particularly care for being slaves themselves. How come no one who thinks slavery was fine and dandy ever signs up for the "pleasure"?

The very law itself "Love your neighbor as yourself" means that technically you should release a slave if they want it

How about not having slaves in the first place? The Hebrews were supposedly slaves in Egypt and lived in the most plush, epic landscape in the region, hence all the whining when some murderous religious terrorist drags them out into the desert and keeps them there on what should've been a three hour tour, a three hour ... no, wait, wrong stupid plot...

He provided laws that prepared the Hebrew peoples for conquest of the land and to establish a civilisation.

One wonders if this conversation with the Canaanites would've been more effective:

Moses: Okay, so it turns out Hebrews are just self-hating Canaanites. There was a famine a few centuries ago and the ancestor to most of these people left his brethren to die of starvation to go eat mountains of food in Egypt. I can understand the pain and loss you must have felt. It's impressive that so many people were dying and yet here are, centuries later, a bunch of cities that seem to be doing okay. Not okay by Egyptian standards, but none of us went to Egyptian schools. Well, okay, I did, but I was an Egyptian prince or whatever at that time, but I'm not really an Egyptian anymore, because I broke a law that in a little bit I shall condemn as well on a big piece of rock. I can even understand your concern that things wont' go well with you since I just terrorized the best nation of the region of the time period. It makes it sound like the people I just adopted yesterday are ungrateful or something for being given our own place in a rich nation. So, I'm hear to ask for these people's lands back, because after a few centuries, they'd rather be the slavers than the slaves. Are we good with that?

The Israelites had fought neighbouring peoples to eventually establish and secure their nationhood.

And what we learn is that xenophobia and quests for religious "purity" will lead to the downfall of a nation within a few generations. Yaaaay?

Polytheism wasn't just about worshiping lots of gods, but about political diplomacy. Tossing that all out was an insult to how politics was played back then. Even Israelite kings understood the point of political marriages. David never really loved any of his wives. He just needed some sort of heir and Prince John wouldn't have been able to pull that off for him.

Because they were men of their time. The texts all have intended audiences who live in their time.

We have this little genre called SCIFI where we can envision futuristic societies all the time. Hell, most of our modern conveniences were only invented by geeks and nerds who read scifi in the first place. If we can tell of a time when we have electric lighting and cars and trips to outer space (and which became reality), how come God can't give them a heads-up on how to act?

You need to understand that we non-believers are going to form our opinions based on what we read. Your telling us that we don't understand what we read, and expecting us to take your word for it, is similar to what we hear from those people in politics we call "spin doctors."

Remember, the kids aren't in concentration camps, just summer camps with chain link fences inside the building.

It’s an unrealistic expectation for what the texts are.

Calling it divinely inspired is such an unrealistic expectation since God is dumber than most humans (at least as characterized). Fortunately, I believe God is a real entity and not just a literary character so I'm not enslaved to how He's written by a bunch of idiots who just want to make sure people are buying their books.

You Christians level the same charge against each other.

Exactly. I'm not an atheist and I see the very same problems as you do.

Bad writing is bad writing.

Many people assume that there are no differences between the writers/intended audience and we moderns.

I agree, but c'mon, don't they read like the MAGA folks? No brains and enough nationalism as to qualify for idolatry?

Slavery was the order of things in the ancient world

And in those ancient times, they were terrified of slave revolts. Revolts only happen if people are unhappy. Why would they be unhappy, you think?

You know who DOESN'T revolt? Happy, well-paid people. It's why the rich elite are always wanting the status quo and to hell with everyone else.

Causing poverty will ALWAYS result in bloodshed because, amusingly enough, being shafted is BAD.

 

[PureX]

But people think it's history, and it shows the ideological lesson that people will bend over backwards to make people like them innocent and "others" guilty, even if the truth is the exact opposite.

Some people is not most people. Most people do not think the Bible is historically accurate. And anyway, people will use any sort of reasoning to puff themselves up by putting others down if that's what they need to do to feel better about themselves. I don't see how this has anything to do with the Bible, particularly. Self-righteous biblical interpretation is just one of many warped bits of reasoning that people use to do this.

 

[Milton Platt]

Here is some info so that you can educate yourself on the matter.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Abolitionism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_the_United_States

http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/brief.htm

Enjoy!

Okay, so some Christians were opposed to slavery, and others used their religion to justify slavery. Now what?

 

[MJFlores]

You haven't answered my question. If slavery is wrong, why does the Bible not explicitly condemn it, and why does it repeatedly endorse it?

And I am specifically referring to one human being owning another human being as property which is something the Bible explicitly addresses and lays out laws regarding when you can buy, sell, trade, marry-off, rape and beat your slaves.

Slavery is wrong - in our time.
Slavery was right - in their time.

Someone here posted he was a wage slave. Permalink #104 on this thread.

Good post. I, who am now 76, and who was a bond slave to the National Bank of Australia for some 45 years, am now a free man: my debt having now been paid in full..

We are really slaves working each day for nothing.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Slavery is wrong - in our time.
Slavery was right - in their time.

View attachment 23313

Someone here posted he was a wage slave. Permalink #104 on this thread.

Do you understand that slavery means "owning another human being as personal property to be bough, sold, traded and inherited"?

I've specified that multiple times. Why does nobody understand this?

If I can dumb things down just a little bit, I'm reminded of part of a rap by comedian/writer/musician Bo Burnham:

It's too early in the morning, glory
To read another allegory story
The father reads a little bit farther
Assuring the assured that they need not bother
"When God, in verse 45
Said that slaves are okay to buy
He meant that people all from the start
Each have 'slaves' within their hearts:
Things that we have sold or bought
That are forced to pick our moral cotton
God calls us to set these free
Free our hearts from slavery
And then as God goes on to explain
The logistics of buying and selling slaves
Uh...he...the bible's sorta like...uhhh...there's like...typos"

We are really slaves working each day for nothing.

But you are not literally owned as legal property by another human, cannot be bought, sold, traded or inherited. You and your family can legally be beaten, raped or forced to marry by your owners. The Bible specifies that all of these things were permitted, and laid down ground rules for how they work.

Do you believe this kind of slavery is okay?

 

[MJFlores]

Do you understand that slavery means "owning another human being as personal property to be bough, sold, traded and inherited"?

I've specified that multiple times. Why does nobody understand this?

If I can dumb things down just a little bit, I'm reminded of part of a rap by comedian/writer/musician Bo Burnham:

It's too early in the morning, glory
To read another allegory story
The father reads a little bit farther
Assuring the assured that they need not bother
"When God, in verse 45
Said that slaves are okay to buy
He meant that people all from the start
Each have 'slaves' within their hearts:
Things that we have sold or bought
That are forced to pick our moral cotton
God calls us to set these free
Free our hearts from slavery
And then as God goes on to explain
The logistics of buying and selling slaves
Uh...he...the bible's sorta like...uhhh...there's like...typos"


But you are not literally owned as legal property by another human, cannot be bought, sold, traded or inherited. You and your family can legally be beaten, raped or forced to marry by your owners. The Bible specifies that all of these things were permitted, and laid down ground rules for how they work.

Do you believe this kind of slavery is okay?

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration.

Does anybody else know what slavery is?
I used to watch ROOTS TV series [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots_(1977_miniseries)] and I have a DVD of AMISTAD.

My statements are simple:

Slavery is wrong - in our time.
Slavery was right - in their time.
It is written as history.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration.

Does anybody else know what slavery is?
I used to watch ROOTS TV series [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roots_(1977_miniseries)] and I have a DVD of AMISTAD.

My statements are simple:

Slavery is wrong - in our time.
Slavery was right - in their time.
It is written as history.

Your definition just agreed with mine, and yet you keep saying that slavery is equivalent to being a "wage slave". This isn't the slavery talked about in the Bible. The Bible specifically depicts (and endorses) slavery as the owning of another human being as property.

Do you believe that this form of slavery is justified?

Please note that saying it was "justified in their time but not ours" is no different to saying "slavery is justified". If you believe slavery was EVER anything other than immoral, then you are immoral.

 

[MJFlores]

Your definition just agreed with mine, and yet you keep saying that slavery is equivalent to being a "wage slave". This isn't the slavery talked about in the Bible. The Bible specifically depicts (and endorses) slavery as the owning of another human being as property.

Do you believe that this form of slavery is justified?

Please note that saying it was "justified in their time but not ours" is no different to saying "slavery is justified". If you believe slavery was EVER anything other than immoral, then you are immoral.

True, slavery was discussed in the Bible.

Genesis 15:13-15 New International Version (NIV)
Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

Does the Bible endorse slavery?

1 Timothy 1:9-11 New International Version (NIV)
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 sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Slavery isn't endorsed by the Bible, but slavery was mentioned in the Bible. Assuming I am a slave in that time period, what would I do? Should I fight, kill and murder for my freedom? This is what the Bible instructs me to do:

1 Peter 2:18 New International Version (NIV)
Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

It is very fortunate for us, that we are not slaves but in other countries today - they have slaves.and the majority of these countries are non-BIBLE believers.

So the Bible has no hand on SLAVERY whatsoever.
It is man's evil love for money which is the root of Slavery.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

True, slavery was discussed in the Bible.

View attachment 23315

Genesis 15:13-15 New International Version (NIV)
Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

Does the Bible endorse slavery?

View attachment 23316

1 Timothy 1:9-11 New International Version (NIV)
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 sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Slavery isn't endorsed by the Bible, but slavery was mentioned in the Bible. Assuming I am a slave in that time period, what would I do? Should I fight, kill and murder for my freedom? This is what the Bible instructs me to do:

1 Peter 2:18 New International Version (NIV)
Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

It is very fortunate for us, that we are not slaves but in other countries today - they have slaves.and the majority of these countries are non-BIBLE believers.

So the Bible has no hand on SLAVERY whatsoever.
It is man's evil love for money which is the root of Slavery.

Do you or do you not acknowledge that the Bible specifically instructs people in how they can own, sell, trade, rape and marry slaves - including within it a loophole designed so that the Hebrew people can enslave their fellow Hebrews indefinitely?

 

[BilliardsBall]

No, they're really not. Plus, this is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

ABSOLUTELY WRONG, no offense meant.

1. True vegetarians avoid meat.
2. My friend avoids meat at all times.
3. My friend is vegetarian.

The above is NOT an NTS fallacy, because of defined terms. We must define terms like "what is a Christian before anyone can be accused of an NTS." The Bible is THE source text, original for ALL Christians. Period.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Then by your standards there are no "true Christians". A Christian is simply someone that says that they believe in the Jesus story and claims to be a Christian. Either one has to include all that say they are Christians or deny that anyone is a Christian.

No, I said we need to define terms, implying we would do so together, and then you added a straw man term, if unintentionally, since you did not use the Bible definition:

1. The Bible does not say a Christian "believes in the Jesus story"
2. The Bible specifically says some people claiming to be a Christian (and to believe Jesus's words as you wrote) will be judged for Hell (Matthew 7)
3. What the Bible rather says is "Anyone who trusts Jesus to receive His free gift of salvation is converted from lost to salvation--they receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to start fresh life following Christ--following Christ--Christian/Messianic"

We can simplify the three points above to:

Of the set of persons who claim to be Christian or were born Christian or raised Christian, there is a subset of persons who have as individuals trusted Jesus for salvation.

Likewise, it is not an NTS fallacy to say, "Of the set of persons who claim to be vegetarians, some eat meat, and a subset of these claimants actually does not eat mean, being true vegetarians."

 

[MJFlores]

Do you or do you not acknowledge that the Bible specifically instructs people in how they can own, sell, trade, rape and marry slaves - including within it a loophole designed so that the Hebrew people can enslave their fellow Hebrews indefinitely?

Ain't no Hebrew, neighbor. But this is what I could read from the Bible:

Jeremiah 34:9 New International Version (NIV)
Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.

I'll be....ain't that right?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Ain't no Hebrew, neighbor. But this is what I could read from the Bible:

Jeremiah 34:9 New International Version (NIV)
Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.

I'll be....ain't that right?

Selectively quoting the Bible is dishonest. Here are the next few verses:

10 Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.

11 But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

12 Therefore the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 13 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, 14 At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.

The passage isn't a an instruction to the Hebrew people to release their slaves, its a recounting of an instruction by God to free slaves after they have served a certain amount of time, and how the princes turned on this instruction by following it at first and then immediately enslaving the released slaves again.

And you're still not answering my question:

Do you or do you not acknowledge that the Bible specifically instructs people in how they can own, sell, trade, rape and marry slaves - including within it a loophole designed so that the Hebrew people can enslave their fellow Hebrews indefinitely?

 

[MJFlores]

Selectively quoting the Bible is dishonest. Here are the next few verses:

10 Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.

11 But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

12 Therefore the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 13 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, 14 At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.

The passage isn't a an instruction to the Hebrew people to release their slaves, its a recounting of an instruction by God to free slaves after they have served a certain amount of time, and how the princes turned on this instruction by following it at first and then immediately enslaving the released slaves again.

And you're still not answering my question:

Do you or do you not acknowledge that the Bible specifically instructs people in how they can own, sell, trade, rape and marry slaves - including within it a loophole designed so that the Hebrew people can enslave their fellow Hebrews indefinitely?

That is the problem with KJV - it cloudeth the mindeth of people who readeth it. Let us do that again - from the top but NIV this time.

Jeremiah 34:9-15 New International Version (NIV)
Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage. So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’ Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.

Voluntary slavery, in theory, is the condition of slavery entered into at a point of voluntary consent. In actual practice, it is often a euphemism used to hide conditions of slavery which are, in fact, less than completely voluntary. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_slavery]

That is the instruction of the Bible regarding Hebrew slaves in voluntary slavery.