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Morality of the Old Testament

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Your going on and on about this issue is getting really boring. It is obvious that you don't understand the difference between the compilation of the "books" of the Pentateuch and their original authorship. Your argument makes as much sense as saying that the Bible was created in 1611 without considering that there were source documents written in different ancient languages that preceded the King James Bible (and other English translations). You go on and on about this issue to prove yourself right, but nobody cares.

Another reference goes into more detail into the nature of slavery in the Bible, and disagrees with the extremes views of good slavery and bad slavery. The problem is chattel slavery is ownership of slaves regardless of how try to justify it,

The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?
Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.
This book will:
  • Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.
  • Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.
  • Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Your going on and on about this issue is getting really boring. It is obvious that you don't understand the difference between the compilation of the "books" of the Pentateuch and their original authorship. Your argument makes as much sense as saying that the Bible was created in 1611 without considering that there were source documents written in different ancient languages that preceded the King James Bible (and other English translations). You go on and on about this issue to prove yourself right, but nobody cares.

Myth #1: There is one kind of ‘biblical slavery’​

The collection of texts that ended up in the Bible represent centuries of different writers from across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, often in very different circumstances, making it hard to generalize about how slavery worked in “biblical” societies. Most importantly, the Hebrew Bible – what Christians call “the Old Testament” – emerged primarily in the ancient Near East, while the New Testament emerged in the early Roman Empire.

Forms of enslavement and involuntary labor in the ancient Near East, for example – areas such as Egypt, Syria and Iran – were not always chattel slavery, in which enslaved people were considered property. Rather, some people were temporarily enslaved to pay off their debts.

However, this was not the case for all people enslaved in the ancient Near East, and certainly not under the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, where millions were trafficked and forced to labor in domestic, urban and agricultural settings.

Because of the range of periods and cultures involved in the production of biblical literature, there is no such thing as a single “biblical slavery.”

Nor is there a single “biblical perspective” on slavery. The most anyone can say is that no biblical texts or writers explicitly condemn the institution of enslavement or the practice of chattel slavery. More robust challenges to slavery by Christians started to emerge in the fourth century C.E., in the writings of figures like St. Gregory of Nyssa, a theologian who lived in Cappadocia, in present-day Turkey.

Myth #2: Ancient slavery was not as cruel​

Like Myth #1, this myth often comes from conflating some Near Eastern and Egyptian practices of involuntary labor, such as debt slavery, with Greek and Roman chattel slavery. By focusing on other forms of involuntary labor in specific ancient cultures, it is easy to overlook the widespread practice of chattel slavery and its harshness.

A Roman relief portraying an enslaved person being freed. DEA/A. Dagli Orti/De Agostini via Getty Images

However, across the ancient Mediterranean, there is evidence of a variety of horrific practices: branding, whipping, bodily disfiguration, sexual assault, torture during legal trials, incarceration, crucifixion and more. In fact, a Latin inscription from Puteoli, an ancient city near Naples, Italy, recounts what enslavers could pay undertakers to whip or crucify enslaved people.

Christians were not exempt from participating in this cruelty. Archaeologists have found collars from Italy and North Africa that enslavers placed upon their enslaved people, offering a price for their return if they fled. Some of these collars bear Christian symbols like the chi-rho (☧), which combines the first two letters of Jesus’ name in Greek. One collar mentions that the enslaved person needs to be returned to their enslaver, “Felix the archdeacon.”

It’s difficult to apply contemporary moral standards to earlier eras, not least societies thousands of years ago. But even in an ancient world in which slavery was ever present, it is clear not everyone bought into the ideology of the elite enslavers. There are records of multiple slave rebellions in Greece and Italy – most famously, that of the escaped gladiator Spartacus.

Myth #3: Ancient slavery wasn’t discriminatory​

Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean wasn’t based on race or skin color in the same way as the transatlantic slave trade, but this doesn’t mean ancient systems of enslavement weren’t discriminatory.


Enslaved people in a stone quarry, detail from an Assyrian relief in the British Museum. DeAgostini/Getty Images

Much of the history of Greek and Roman slavery involves enslaving people from other groups: Athenians enslaving non-Athenians, Spartans enslaving non-Spartans, Romans enslaving non-Romans. Often captured or defeated through warfare, such enslaved people were either forcibly migrated to a new area or were kept on their ancestral land and compelled to do farmwork or be domestic workers for their conquerors. Roman law required a slave’s “natio,” or place of origin, to be announced during auctions.

Ancient Mediterranean enslavers prioritized the purchase of people from different parts of the world on account of stereotypes about their various characteristics. Varro, a scholar who wrote about the management of agriculture, argued that an enslaver shouldn’t have too many enslaved people who were from the same nation or who could speak the same language, because they might organize and rebel.

Ancient slavery still depended on categorizing some groups of people as “others,” treating them as though they were wholly different from those who enslaved them.

The picture of slavery that most Americans are familiar with was deeply shaped by its time, particularly modern racism and capitalism. But other forms of slavery throughout human history were no less “real.” Understanding them and their causes may help challenge slavery today and in the future – especially at a time when some politicians are again claiming transatlantic slavery actually benefited enslaved people.
 

jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Ther is absolutely not evidence of original authorship.

No, you are babbling on and on and not responding to the academic sources cited with documentation.

You need to actually respond to the references or provide your own to support your case instead of babbling on and on.
You rely on academic sources, I rely on God.
 

jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member

Myth #1: There is one kind of ‘biblical slavery’​

The collection of texts that ended up in the Bible represent centuries of different writers from across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, often in very different circumstances, making it hard to generalize about how slavery worked in “biblical” societies. Most importantly, the Hebrew Bible – what Christians call “the Old Testament” – emerged primarily in the ancient Near East, while the New Testament emerged in the early Roman Empire.

Forms of enslavement and involuntary labor in the ancient Near East, for example – areas such as Egypt, Syria and Iran – were not always chattel slavery, in which enslaved people were considered property. Rather, some people were temporarily enslaved to pay off their debts.

However, this was not the case for all people enslaved in the ancient Near East, and certainly not under the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, where millions were trafficked and forced to labor in domestic, urban and agricultural settings.

Because of the range of periods and cultures involved in the production of biblical literature, there is no such thing as a single “biblical slavery.”

Nor is there a single “biblical perspective” on slavery. The most anyone can say is that no biblical texts or writers explicitly condemn the institution of enslavement or the practice of chattel slavery. More robust challenges to slavery by Christians started to emerge in the fourth century C.E., in the writings of figures like St. Gregory of Nyssa, a theologian who lived in Cappadocia, in present-day Turkey.

Myth #2: Ancient slavery was not as cruel​

Like Myth #1, this myth often comes from conflating some Near Eastern and Egyptian practices of involuntary labor, such as debt slavery, with Greek and Roman chattel slavery. By focusing on other forms of involuntary labor in specific ancient cultures, it is easy to overlook the widespread practice of chattel slavery and its harshness.

A Roman relief portraying an enslaved person being freed. DEA/A. Dagli Orti/De Agostini via Getty Images

However, across the ancient Mediterranean, there is evidence of a variety of horrific practices: branding, whipping, bodily disfiguration, sexual assault, torture during legal trials, incarceration, crucifixion and more. In fact, a Latin inscription from Puteoli, an ancient city near Naples, Italy, recounts what enslavers could pay undertakers to whip or crucify enslaved people.

Christians were not exempt from participating in this cruelty. Archaeologists have found collars from Italy and North Africa that enslavers placed upon their enslaved people, offering a price for their return if they fled. Some of these collars bear Christian symbols like the chi-rho (☧), which combines the first two letters of Jesus’ name in Greek. One collar mentions that the enslaved person needs to be returned to their enslaver, “Felix the archdeacon.”

It’s difficult to apply contemporary moral standards to earlier eras, not least societies thousands of years ago. But even in an ancient world in which slavery was ever present, it is clear not everyone bought into the ideology of the elite enslavers. There are records of multiple slave rebellions in Greece and Italy – most famously, that of the escaped gladiator Spartacus.

Myth #3: Ancient slavery wasn’t discriminatory​

Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean wasn’t based on race or skin color in the same way as the transatlantic slave trade, but this doesn’t mean ancient systems of enslavement weren’t discriminatory.


Enslaved people in a stone quarry, detail from an Assyrian relief in the British Museum. DeAgostini/Getty Images

Much of the history of Greek and Roman slavery involves enslaving people from other groups: Athenians enslaving non-Athenians, Spartans enslaving non-Spartans, Romans enslaving non-Romans. Often captured or defeated through warfare, such enslaved people were either forcibly migrated to a new area or were kept on their ancestral land and compelled to do farmwork or be domestic workers for their conquerors. Roman law required a slave’s “natio,” or place of origin, to be announced during auctions.

Ancient Mediterranean enslavers prioritized the purchase of people from different parts of the world on account of stereotypes about their various characteristics. Varro, a scholar who wrote about the management of agriculture, argued that an enslaver shouldn’t have too many enslaved people who were from the same nation or who could speak the same language, because they might organize and rebel.

Ancient slavery still depended on categorizing some groups of people as “others,” treating them as though they were wholly different from those who enslaved them.

The picture of slavery that most Americans are familiar with was deeply shaped by its time, particularly modern racism and capitalism. But other forms of slavery throughout human history were no less “real.” Understanding them and their causes may help challenge slavery today and in the future – especially at a time when some politicians are again claiming transatlantic slavery actually benefited enslaved people.
Plagiarism?
 

jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
You see, you rely on academic information; I rely on God. Your information "swells your head". I have faith that results in eternal life.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
You see, you rely on academic information; I rely on God. Your information "swells your head". I have faith that results in eternal life.
Duck, Bob and Weasel and failure to respond to the well documented academic sources.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
You rely on academic sources, I rely on God.
I will take that as a complement that I rely on academic references.

Stoic stonewalling denial is your last resort when you cannot respond to well documented references.

Too generic a claim to be meaningful when avoiding the references provided. Explain the many diverse conflicting claims of relying on different beliefs and Gods.
 
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jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
No sound referenced academic source.
So what? You like to think of yourself a knowledgeable as though the answers to matters of faith, God, etc. are found in academia. I'm sure that you haven't read, or at least haven't understood the lesson when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus.

John 3:1-15, "Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people [including you, shunydragon!] do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

So much for academic knowledge versus God's truth! You will never understand faith, God, being filled with the Holy Spirit, etc. as long as you stubbornly cling to academic knowledge!

You think you have all the answers, but you're not even at square one.
 
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jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Too generic a claim to be meaningful when avoiding the references provided. Explain the many diverse conflicting claims of relying on different beliefs and Gods.
Obviously you do not understand God, faith, etc. All you rely on is (conflicting) academic information. Why not give God a try instead of your own head?
 
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shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Obviously you do not understand God, faith, etc. All you rely on is (conflicting) academic information. Why not give God a try instead of your own head?
My sources are well documented consistent academic sources, and not conflicting in any way.

Your last resort is stoic stonewalling without coherent supported responses.

You modus operandi in virtually all threads,
 

jimb

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
My sources are well documented consistent academic sources, and not conflicting in any way.

Your last resort is stoic stonewalling without coherent supported responses.

You modus operandi in virtually all threads,
Academia vs God! Your constant reliance on head knowledge is a sad joke. You can't even write a sentence correctly: "You modus operandi in virtually all threads," Two errors!
 

Elihoenai

Well-Known Member
Like many who take an arrogant egocentric conflicting views of only a select few that understand some sort mythical truth you believe only those that believe as you do understand scripture.
1 Corinthians 2:14

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.



What conflicting view? I'm in Total Agreement with the Holy Scriptures/Bible that the Natural Man cannot understand the Spiritual Things of Elohim/God. You are Arrogant and Egocentric for challenging this. Only a Select Few are Really interested in the Spiritual because Elohim/God has Ordained that 7.9 Billion people be Content with Life in the Flesh/Body.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
1 Corinthians 2:14

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.



What conflicting view? I'm in Total Agreement with the Holy Scriptures/Bible that the Natural Man cannot understand the Spiritual Things of Elohim/God. You are Arrogant and Egocentric for challenging this. Only a Select Few are Really interested in the Spiritual because Elohim/God has Ordained that 7.9 Billion people be Content with Life in the Flesh/Body.
I am not arrogant nor egocentric, because I acknowledge a wide range of fallible human beliefs and interpretations of the scripture of the world as part of the spiritual nature of humans.

You on the other hand only acknowledge exclusively one possibility your beliefs of a select few, which is arrogant and egocentric by definition, See bold above.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Academia vs God! Your constant reliance on head knowledge is a sad joke. You can't even write a sentence correctly: "You modus operandi in virtually all threads," Two errors!
I do not consider your problematic view of "academia vs God." remotely valid. Grammar errors is not a valid argument for anything. You are simply denying the archaeological, historical and scientific objective evidence to justify the belief in one and only one belief where you throw up a stoic stonewall of denial with the intentional ignorance of the factual history behind the Bible. Your stoic denial is sad, but not a joke.

My references include Jewish scholars over the past 200 years who know their scriptures far better than you or me in their own language. My references also include factual citation of scripture, which you also deny. They do not believe in academia vs the God that they do sincerely believe.
 

Elihoenai

Well-Known Member
@Elihoenai :

But that's exactly what the Gnostic document "On The Origin Of The World" I cited does! It seems to me that you're advocating a variant of Gnosticism that has strayed from its roots.
Galatians 5:17

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.



The Root of Christian Gnosticism is Dualism. At the Core of Gnosticism is the War between Elohim/God and Devil/Satan, the Battle between Good and Evil and the Conflict between Spirit and Flesh that has been ongoing for thousands of years.

Yes, Gnosticism is not Monolithic and the Gnosticism that I teach has differences from Traditional Gnosticism. I'm the first in this Era to practice this Branch of Gnosticism. Really is is not new, because it is the Original Teaching of Yeshua Messiah/Jesus Christ.









@Elihoenai :

Job 38:4-5
4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Real Christian Gnosticism is All About becoming Unified With Elohim/God through Total Religious Devotion/Obedience. On the Journey to becoming Unified with Elohim/God the things Hidden from Mortal Man are Revealed. I'm at the Beginning Stages of the Spiritual Journey.

You're very good at citing passages from the Bible that support your theological position, but your answer to my direct questions about other passages in the Bible seems to be "those passages don't matter; the only passages that matter are the ones I care about." I can find passages from the Bible that support any of a range of theological positions-- some of them anathema to many major Christian sects. Citing a specific subset of passages as proof of the "truth" is a common Christian gimmick. The real question shouldn't be "What do the specific passages I love say?" but should instead be "What is the broad message of the Bible as a whole?" That's a much more difficult thing to assess-- and it certainly can't be arrived at by simply ignoring vast swaths of the biblical writings. As far as the original Gnostic literature goes-- at least as concerns those documents retrieved from the Nag Hammadi library-- in my opinion that body of works is a morass of woolly speculation and conjecture.
Matthew 1:21

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.



Every Word, Sentence, Passage, Page and Book in Holy Scriptures/Bible from Genesis to Revelation is of Critical Importance and has Unified Central Message. That Unified Message is Revealed by the Meaning of the name Yeshua/Jesus. You will notice in the Gospels that Yeshua's/Jesus's teaching is All About Total Devotion to Elohim/God and Not anything to do with Scientific Speculations and Conjecture.
 
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shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
So what? You like to think of yourself a knowledgeable as though the answers to matters of faith, God, etc. are found in academia. I'm sure that you haven't read, or at least haven't understood the lesson when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus.
I rely on academic Christian and Jewish scholars not my own knowledge.
God's truth! You will never understand faith, God, being filled with the Holy Spirit, etc. as long as you stubbornly cling to academic knowledge!

You think you have all the answers, but you're not even at square one.
You are the on that thinks you know all the answers and believe that only those that believe as you do understand the Bible. Your denial of the view of scholars and actual citations of the Bible concerning slavery is problematic.
 
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