Another "What do we do with slavery in the OT?" thread

Faith & Science Conversation
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I know my religious history quite well enough as well as the fallacy in question. I looked that up years ago when somebody was making nonsensical claims about Hitler’s “Christianity”. Your example doesn’t make much sense --at least I’m not seeing it. The fallacy has more to do with moving defining goal posts … here’s an example that you would find amenable:

Uninformed Christian: “All Christians all through history have always been exemplary people.”
Challenger: “Well what about the nefarious X?”
Christian: “Ahh --well he couldn’t have been a true Christian because he wasn’t exemplary.”

That’s the fallacy you’ve been referring to … “No true Scotsman would drink tea” (or something like that …) hence its name.

And yes. I did see perfectly well where you’ve taken it. You’re right on script.

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The No True Scot strategy is used to discount confounding evidence by ruling it out of order or immaterial. My example attempted to capture what I think you’re saying; your example (the classic one) is perfectly good as well.

To argue as you have, that somehow “the atheists” are attacking strawmen in the form of gods who were “eradicated” before your religion even wrote its creeds, is an attempt to discredit legitimate arguments using the same logic as the No True Scot maneuver. Your strategy was to refer to “the terms that classic Christianity has attempted to understand” – that’s your True Scot. You then proceed to mock and invalidate a whole group of people by claiming that they are failing to address your True Scot.

Your last sentence, “You’re right on script,” shows you to prefer contempt to discussion, so I’ll let you continue in your beliefs about atheists. Since I don’t care at all what you think.

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Who is the angel Moran? Are you thinking of Mormonism’s angel Morani?

I don’t think it’s a sound argument to say a person is more atheistic if he only believes in one god, rather than hundreds of them.

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Lev. 25:44-46
“As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. (45) You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. (46) You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.”

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Well I must confess you are correct about my sharp edges and sarcastic edges here. I am tempted to rationalize it by insisting that I really don’t mock people but do let that spill out some regarding ideas and arguments, but I realize that’s a meaningless distinction to whomever is on the receiving end. So I should just own up to all the heat I added here. Sorry about the ‘script’ and other comments.

I don’t know if you’ll still read this as you may rightfully be ignoring me as a jerk after this. But for what it’s worth, this almost makes me wish I was a drinking —person—* so I could find out if you lived nearby and buy you a beer. Having a chocolate milk together at the counter just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
*[edited for gender neutrality]:neutral_face:

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I’d like to add that many Christians (not all) were vigorously anti-slavery, especially the Quakers. Other abolitionists include Darwin and his family.

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Being pretty close to a True Scot*, I am both understanding of sharp edges (and the regrets that often follow) and fond of beers of all sorts. No harm done, and when/if we have our chance to meet, we’ll go somewhere that serves both beer and chocolate milk. I think they call that ‘heaven,’ but I’m a bit rusty in my soteriology. :smiley:

*I prefer gender-neutral terms, in case you were wondering. It’s a lame atheist thing.

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Atheism is the belief that there are no gods. Zero. Monotheism is the belief that there is only one God. Typically the one that you believe in. Polytheism is the belief that there are multiple gods.

Islam is an example of monotheism. Hindu is polytheistic. You really can’t say that Christianity is monotheistic as there is the trinity as well as the devil and all those good and bad Angels.

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Yes, but whats your point of quoting this scripture?

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@David1,

You have zero evidence to support your imagination on slavery in ancient Palestine. If you weren’t a Hebrew … you were just in for a very bad time … though you did get a day off every week. When the Romans finally showed up … it really didn’t help things for you either.

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What are you talking about, I have zero evidence? The Biblical regulations are quite obvious all throughout the Old Testament, I’m not making up any of my claims regarding Biblical servitude or slavery, its all perfectly readable throughout the Torah and Tanakh in general.

How were non-Hebrews in for a very bad time? Lets see how non-Hebrews were treated:

Leviticus 19:34: The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God

Deuteronomy 10:19: And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

Exodus 23:9: You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 22:21: You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:33: When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

And lets not forget Caleb, who was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses into Canaan. His father, Jephunneh, appeared to have belonged to an Edomitish tribe called Kenezites. And, if you don’t already know, Edom and Israel aren’t exactly pals. Foreigners, as seen by Caleb, could become not only Israelites, but possibly even high ranking ones (Caleb represented the tribe of Judah through his work as a 007 spy under Moses).

So, maybe I’m wrong, but what makes you conclude that non-Hebrews were in for a bad time?

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Exodus 21:21 Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slaves dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
Judges 1:28 When Israel became strong they pressed the Canaanities into forced labor …
Exodus 21:2-11 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the males slaves do. If she does not please her master, he doesn’t have the right to sell her to foreign people.

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Why not? If a person believes in only one god then he doesn’t believe in all the rest. People in various cultures have believed in and written about over 5000 gods over the last several thousands of years. A monotheist believes in one and doesn’t believe in 4999. That is certainly more atheistic than a polytheist. Monotheism is as atheistic as you can get without being 100% atheistic.

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Even though this was entirely off our topic of Christs sacrifice and whether it was immoral or just, I’ll delve into this and give it my best shot.

Exodus 21:21: Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slaves dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

Now, most people (I imagine like you) would love to assume that this is a direct advocacy of beating innocent slaves, (again, as if its a comparison to American slavery) almost like what was done during American chattel slavery.

However, in ancient Israel, slaves/servants were not to be oppressed and beaten (shocker). Israelites were prior slaves themselves (in much, much harsher conditions), I find it illogical to assume that Israelites went around abusing their slaves.

The reason a slave might be beaten, however, is two options:

The slave denies working/rebels, or the slave commits a crime (Deuteronomy 25:2).

  1. If a slave rebelled and didn’t work, should they talk to him and give him warm cookies? No. We don’t do that in our American prisons, either, if someone rebels they’d be lucky to get away with anything less than being tackled by police and tased. So I question how a rebelling slave (who either committed a crime or sold himself) is supposed to change my mind. This sounds an awful lot like an appeal to emotion.

If the slave committed a crime, it was the law for him or her (according to their law) to be beaten with however many lashes, depending on the severity of the crime. The greatest option? No. But the only option. There was no other way to punish people back then, prisons didn’t exist and they didn’t have any way to securely detain them for a prison sentence. Lashings was a fast way to punish crimes given their absence of prisons.

Another very important thing to note is two things:

  1. Slaves could not be maimed. (Exodus 21:26-27). Knocking even a single tooth out of the slave was immediate freedom, whether a criminal or not. So, to me that seems to outlaw permanent damage in general, unless there was some kind of special, divine law to protect eyes and teeth.

  2. Slaves could run away, not to be returned. (Deuteronomy 23:15-16). Apparently, if a slave ran away, he was not to be returned. So, tell me this: If you sold yourself into slavery to pay off a debt, and your master was a dick who beat you, would you run away? I would. And then you get to pick your city and not be oppressed, so yay for running away, I guess.

I think that pretty much covers Exodus 21. If I missed anything, drop an indication on a brother and I’ll get straight into researching my flaw.

Judges 1:28: When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely.

So, let me get this straight: The pagan, sexual orgy partying, bestiality loving, child sacrificing Canaanites were not all killed, in battle, but instead were spared as forced labor…

And you expect… sympathy?

No.

Exodus 21:7-11: 7 “And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. 9 And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. 10 If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. 11 And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

This is dealing with a man selling his daughter (just like he’d sell his sons, assuming he even has sons, many people don’t have sons, ya know).

Verse 8 seems to be what you’re struggling with, and I can’t help but wonder why… if the two engaged people don’t get along, he can give her back to her father.

Why is that supposed to bother me? That’s in favor of the slave woman…

Are you reading a bit too much into “please her master”? I think you are.

The rest is in favor of her. He isn’t to sell her to foreign people, since she isn’t a virgin (they were engaged and all). If he engaged her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money.

Maybe you could help me out a bit, since apparently I’m just a blind, indoctrinated Christian: What is wrong about that? Sure, arranged marriages aren’t ideal, I don’t like them either. But that’s how things were done in the ancient world, and even are still occurring to this day, and weren’t uncommon in the late 1800’s. It wasn’t just Israelites.

I hope I’ve shed some light on these verses. Don’t get me wrong, I know you won’t accept them, but nonetheless you should admire the time I took to type all this out, right? Well, I hope you do.

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Yes, we do say that Christianity is monotheistic; we have one God in 3 persons, not 3 Gods. btw, some Hindus don’t like people to say that they are polytheistic, but I don’t know much about this.

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Which scripture are you referring to?

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@David1

Oh, I get it now… you think the last part of Leviticus 25:46 is saying that slaves are not to be treated harshly. Right?
Well, that is not what it says. Let’s walk through the last parts together:

The verses of Leviticus 25:44-46 includes:

“… it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you … and they may be [allowed to be] your property. You may keep them as possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.”

"These you may treat as slaves
[the ones identified as either “from the nations around you”, or “from the aliens residing with you”],
But As For Your Fellow Israelites, No One Shall Rule Over the Other With Harshness."

I think you have sunk your own battleship, David.

It’s pretty clear here that the slaves from the surrounding nations, and from aliens residing with the Israelites, you may “treat as slaves” << which is not a good thing.

If they are Israelites, “no one shall rules over … with harshness”!

Follow?

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Lol! So you quote Leviticus 25 out of no where, I ask why, and you make a claim that I “thought that last part of Leviticus 25:46 is saying that slaves are not to be treated harshly”.

Um, no, I never said anything regarding that. But, we can surely jump right into this!

What you’re trying to say is that foreign slaves were treated harshly since God didn’t explicitly say “and treat foreign slaves good, too”.

That’s not quite the case.

God always, throughout the Old Testament, was attempting to teach the Israelites one thing: Love. Loving of ones neighbor, and loving of ones fellow Hebrews especially (no one survives if they fall apart from the inside).

So, I’m not buying that Israel bought and abused foreigners (being ex slaves themselves).

Now, you missed two things in your little conclusion:

  1. The word used is “rigor”, meaning exhaustive or severity.

  2. This exhaustive, harsh or severe treatment was not physical abuse or whatever you’re thinking of, but rather lifelong slavery is seen as “exhaustive” or harsh compared to the six years Hebrews would be serving.

So, perhaps I fail to see your point here?

Lets recall how slaves of any kind come about:

  1. Sell themselves to pay a debt.
  2. Criminals forced to work to pay off a debt.

So, don’t get it twisted, innocent foreigners weren’t snatched up and sold into some kind of abusive and oppressive. They either sold themselves, or they committed a crime and now they have to work for it.

For the very necessary and fundamental record concerning this topic:
Slaves could legally run away, and not be returned. Ever. (Deuteronomy 23:15-16).

Oh, P.S., I don’t have a battleship. :slight_smile:

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I wanted to add one thing about this. Islam, like Christianity, has angels, devils, and a head devil Satan (called “Shayṭān”). As a matter of fact, the angel Gabriel is said to have revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad.