We can’t use the word “slave” until we’ve done the necessary lexical and socio-historical analysis to determine the position of these people. In my article I present evidence from the literature that these are indentured servants.
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Thanks, Eddie. I do believe that we both follow the same train of thought–except you are better at explaining how you reached a conclusion. In my younger days, I have hiked quite a bit in our mountains, often ‘off-trail’. Often I would come to a cold, rushing stream that must be crossed to reach my objective. I liken this somewhat with life’s journey–the solid ground standing for the times that decisions can be reached on the basis of facts and logical reasoning. The cold stream represents the chilly uncertainty of Faith. In life, one sometimes comes up to the banks of such a cold stream. The wisest course is to travel along the banks of the stream as far as one can. But at some point that looks most promising, one must take the plunge into the ‘cold waters’ of Faith. Scary at first–but refreshing!
Al Leo
Beaglelady does have a point here with regard to the word “property” does she not, Jonathan? That is something I had not noticed or had forgotten until she brought that passage up. You reference it in your study too, but you noted the verses just preceding where the practice of making fellow Israelites slaves is forbidden, and cut your reference off just before the point where it mentions them being “property” (the NRSV also uses that word) --thanks, Beaglelady. I still don’t concede the wider point given what all the Bible teaches elsewhere, and Jonathan’s points about slaves being permitted to flee without fear of return. But with regard to this word “property” – that does seem to me to ring a common chord with later forms of slavery. I suppose that one answer is that women (wives and daughters) also were considered property. But that may just highlight their own subjugation as much as demonstrate much higher status for slaves. Good points, Beaglelady.
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Do you know any country where Indentured Servants are defined in such a way that the children of Indentured Servants become the property of the contractor? if non-Hebrew slaves are in fact indentured servants … then they should be able to have children and send the children to go live with relatives.
If the “owners” of the Indentured Servants can prevent this … that is … well… you gotta admit … it’s Slavery!
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I agree with the comment that the trajectory of the entire Bible points to the elimination of slavery in a future age. N. T. Wright says that St. Paul set a time bomb on the institution.
Meanwhile, the OT has passages that we don’t want to deal with. But there’s no use sugarcoating them. The atheists out there know all about them.
btw, slavery is alive and well in our own day and age. It’s often in the form of forced labor (adults and children), but also in the form of trafficked females and child soldiers. The child soldiers are often forced to take drugs.
Did you know that in the case of forced labor, it can be difficult to set a slave free if he has acquired a “slave mentality”? Quite a while ago an article in Scientific American discussed some of the roadblocks to eliminating slavery. It mentioned the case of a slave in India who had been set free. But he had been a slave a long time, and was so anxious about looking after himself that he sold himself back into slavery. Poor man.
Were the Israelites the indentured servants of the Egyptians?
Why would I, someone under the Lordship of Christ, set aside his very Word to me in attempting to deal with unbelievers? Why must I lay aside my sword? What good is it to try to convince the atheist (whose worldview is absurd) on his own ground, when the worldview he presupposes steals from mine all the time? Not only that, his presuppositions exclude any claim to the supernatural; why should I step into his worldview and try to convince him that the supernatural exists when he has chosen to reject, a priori, any evidence for the supernatural?
Atheism has no consistent basis for moral absolutes, the laws of logic, etc. Only the existence of the Christian God ensures the existence of logic, science, moral absolutes, etc. The atheist is left to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to prop up his own. There is no neutrality in these discussions; they have chosen to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They know God exists, but they do not honor him or give thanks. Therefore God has given them over to a debased mind.
The London Baptist Confession says it well: “The Scripture is self-authenticating. Its authority does not depend upon the testimony of any man or church, but entirely upon God, its author, who is truth itself. It is to be received because it is the Word of God.” (chapter 1, section 4)
So, no atheists in your life that you love, huh?
No. This is just proof texting, grabbing a verse with a scary word in it without actually looking at the entire Law of Moses to see if these people were defined and treated as chattel slaves. The word “property” is not being used here in the sense of something you own and you can do what you like with, or in the sense in which chattel slaves were “property”.
What’s happening here is that all the verses which define these servants as other than chattel slaves, are simply being ignored, just like the verse which condemns capturing people and selling them into slavery, is being ignored. That’s not sound exegesis. As I’ve pointed out, the early Jews themselves interpreted this text to as saying that the foreign servants would be released at the death of the master or at the next Jubilee year. They had no personal motive for doing so (it was certainly not to their advantage), and they were definitely not motivated by modern concerns about human rights. This was simply the natural reading of the text as far as they were concerned.
Slaves who were actually property where chattel slaves. They could be literally treated like furniture; you could do whatever you liked with them and there were no legal repercussions. In contrast, here’s a summary of the position of servants under the Law of Moses, whether Hebrews or non-Hebrews.
- Servants were protected from injury by their masters, and were set free if they were injured.
- Murdering a slave incurred the death penalty.
- It was illegal to capture individuals and place them in coercive servitude as property (chattel slavery).
- Any servant who ran away from their master automatically gained their liberty and were free to live wherever they chose; not only was it illegal to return them to their master, it was also forbidden to oppress them in any way.
All servants under the Law of Moses (whether Hebrew or non-Hebrew), maintained kinship rights, physical protection rights, movement rights, and access to liberty rights, and killing them incurred the death penalty just as killing a free Hebrew did. This is the opposite of chattel slavery, and these are rights which are not granted to people who are property.
Actually I deal with it specifically, saying “The Hebrews were permitted to pass them on as an inheritance to the next generation until their debts were repaid”. I then go on to explain why this does snot mean they were “property” in the sense of being chattel slaves, and explain how the early Jewish commentators understood this passage to preclude permanent servitude. Previously I had explained in detail the difference between chattel slavery and the forms of service permitted under the Law of Moses.
[quote=“gbrooks9, post:203, topic:5757”]Do you know any country where Indentured Servants are defined in such a way that the children of Indentured Servants become the property of the contractor?
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I don’t believe that was true of the Law of Moses.
No. The Hebrews did not owe them any money, and they did not enter into servitude in the form of a contract to pay off a debt (indentured service). They were slaves because they were compelled to serve against their will, their service was maintained by threat of force, they were denied the rights of non-slave workers, and they were treated as chattels. This was not true of service under the Law of Moses (whether of Hebrews or non-Hebrews).
I agree. That’s why I take care to cite the relevant scholarly literature. I cite both religious and secular commentators in support of my argument, to demonstrate that I am not inventing my own word meanings, I am not presenting an argument I’ve made up myself, and I’m reading the text in its original socio-historical context. Any atheists wanting to argue the point need to address the literature I cite. I have had this discussion many times with atheists, and to my complete lack of surprise virtually none of them are even willing to do the necessary lexical research, let alone pay any attention to the relevant scholarly literature on the subject.
I think the arguments being made here are akin to the idea that Jesus “regulated punching people in the face”. He never forbade it, and just said that people who get punched in the face aren’t allowed to punch back. So he was cool with people punching other people in the face, as long as their victims didn’t punch back. That’s a kind of regulation, I guess, at least you end up with only one person injured instead of two.
I find it difficult to countenance the idea that this is permitted under the Law of Moses.
Yes. The evidence we have in the Old Testament is that this didn’t happen to the servants of the Hebrews. You don’t have laws about servants who run away from their masters, if servants aren’t going to run away from their masters. Other passages in the Old Testament also talk about servants running away from their masters, so it’s clear this was actually a thing which happened.
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Fine. Neither was I.
When it comes to first things, there will always be circularity. If a man’s highest authority is his senses, then you ask, “Why is your highest authority your senses?” He will reply, “Because I perceive it to be so.” You ask an atheistic scientist, “Why is science the lens through which you view all of reality?” And he will respond, “Because science tells me it is so.”
The presupposition that you hold, of course, is that we must argue with the unbeliever on their terms. I reject that. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him.” Only fools say there is no God. I refuse to assume the unbelieving worldview in order to prove the believing worldview; that’s nonsense. In fact, by the unbeliever’s appeal to logic, they have already conceded the debate; logic cannot exist apart from the Christian God. You must assume the Christian God in order to argue logically.
Greg Bahnsen’s debate with Gordon Stein is a good example of this in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anGAazNCfdY.
I communicate with non-Christians not by assuming their worldview in an attempt to prove my own, but by showing them the inconsistencies within their worldview, over and against the complete consistency of the Christian worldview. That is the only way that makes logical and biblical sense to me.
The only problem here, of course, is that the Vedas are not consistent, either with themselves or with reality. Logical inconsistencies abound within the Hindu religion that render it as meaningless as atheism. Again, I don’t approach the Hindu in an attempt to find common ground with them to argue from there; I approach the Hindu, ready to defend the wholeness of the Christian worldview over and against the inconsitent Hindu worldview.
I will again quote the London Baptist Confession: “The testimony of the church of God may influence and persuade us to hold the Scripture in the highest esteem. The heavenliness of its contents, the efficacy of its doctrine, the majesty of its style, the agreement between all its parts from first to last, the fact that throughout it gives all glory to God, the full revelation it gives of the only way of salvation – these, together with many other incomparably high qualities and full perfections, supply abundant evidence that it is the Word of God. At the same time, however, we recognize that our full persuasion and assurance of its infallible truth and divine authority is the outcome of the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
No one is ever persuaded into the kingdom by means of arguments about Scriptural authority; God has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
What I find absolutely devastating to the evidentialist position is that there is not one example of an apostle or prophet arguing from the available evidence for the existence of God. No, the existence of God is always assumed, right off the bat; “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” No argument given.
False. That is exactly what presuppositionalism invites: do an internal critique of your own worldview and see if it is consistent. If it is inconsistent, abandon it in favor of the only consistent worldview on the planet, that of the Christian. Of course, none of that can happen without a work in the heart of the unbeliever by the Spirit of God. Without the Spirit, a man (or woman) will remain dead in sin, continuing to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
False again. You ought to listen to James White ably defend Christianity against Muslims in debate from a presuppositional perspective. The Quran claims that the Bible is the word of Allah; the problem, of course, is that the Quran is contradictory to the Bible, so therefore, a massive inconsistency lies within the Islamic religion according to their own sources.
What I cannot figure out is how the evidentialist argues against the Muslim; after all, you both use the same arguments for the existence of God/Allah! The Kalam cosmological argument, for example, was stolen from the Muslims.
Since their “revealed truth” contradicted what God had already given afore (at various times and in various ways, and finally in his Son), then it was obviously not truth at all. This is so simple. I should not have to lay aside my claim that the Bible is the Word of God in order to prove that the Jones’ “revealed truth” was not. But that is what you are asking me to do.
It is actually quite easy to demonstrate from the Jehovah’s Witnesses own material that their religion is so obviously false. Not only have they mangled the Bible through their New World Translation, but what they print in their publications, oftentimes, directly contradicts what can be found in that very translation. Again, inconsistency.
The only touch point is that all of us are made in the image of God, and have therefore been gifted with the capacity for reason.
I wonder if you have read 1 Corinthians 1-2 lately. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power of God to those who believe. We have the mind of Christ; those who are perishing do not. You do believe that, don’t you?
I think I’ve demonstrated that this is false.
No, and neither do you.
Does having an atheist in my life that I love somehow make their worldview less foolish? Come now.
“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Psalm 14:1, and Psalm 53:1 (as if saying it once wasn’t enough). “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:22-24.
Catching up on this long thread and indulging in a tiny continuation of this tangent, but just to say:
Slavery is still being promulgated on this earth, in many ways, shapes and forms. Insofar as it succeeded, the British Parliament only helped put an end to one form of slavery in one country (albeit a very influential one in the West). Only the power of Jesus can put an end to slavery once and for all, not the British Parliament or any other earthly authority.
The Bible often does seem to accommodate slavery, but one does find a redemptive trajectory at work. The African American scholar who taught me Greek exegesis liked to point to Revelation 18:13: “cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.” The use of a corrective appositive in “slaves, that is, human souls,” shows that the author of Revelation was aware of the dehumanizing effect of the slave trade.
Just my $0.02. Now back to your regularly scheduled long, tangent-riddled conversation. 
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This is true
Nope, they were only set free if a master knocked out a tooth or an eye.
So except for this, a master was free to beat the hell out of a male or female slave, as long as the slave didn’t die immediately. If the slave lived a day or two and then died, the master was not punished.
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No. But I expect it might change your attitude on how hard you might be willing to work to communicate with them and whether that work has any value. The attitude you conveyed was something like, “Why should I bother to meet a fool on his own turf? I know I’m right and that is all that matters.”
I would submit that Jesus and the apostle Paul did some accommodating of foolishness in their attempts to communicate the gospel, and we should do no less, out of love for the lost and broken. A huge part of effective communication of the gospel is stepping into another person’s worldview for a moment.
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Yes. Three of my closest, life-long friends are atheists. Two grew up in cultish Christian environments that they rejected in high school. The other grew up in a Southern Baptist church that preached literalism and YEC. Presuppositionalism and arguments don’t work for them. (Actually, nothing seems to work, but I will keep trying until my dying day!)
Pascal made a few good observations in this regard. I’m paraphrasing, but the first is that people are more convinced by reasons they discover for themselves than those that occur to others. The second is that people don’t like to be told they have made a mistake in their logic, but they are not surprised or offended when it is pointed out that they may have overlooked something. The implications are that it is better to be the “guide on the side” rather than the “sage on the stage,” and rather than confronting someone with their error, give them a new way of looking at the problem. I have found these approaches work best for me.
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Inerrancy is a tough topic, in part because it is defined in different ways by different people. Please refer to the moderator’s note added to the OP reminding us of the Biologos position, and reminding us that opinions expressed here are our own, and not necessarily those of Biologos. That said, it is a good discussion, and hopefully can bring clarity to what inerrancy really means to ourselves and others.
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Gbrooks wrote:
“Do you know any country where Indentured Servants are defined in such a way that the children of Indentured Servants become the property of the contractor?”
And yet we read this in Leviticus about non-Hebrew slaves:
Leviticus 25:44-46: “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”
So… I can’t tell if you are ducking and weaving over whether you consider this verse as part of your original writing or not.
But now we are looking at something here that is pretty clear: non-Hebrew slaves can be given to one’s children.
And in this verse:
Exodus 21:4
"If his master [master of even a bond servant] have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he [only the bond servant] shall go out by himself [be liberated].
So how do you, @Jonathan_Burke, conclude that the children of non-Hebrew slaves can be sent away in freedom … let’s say to relatives who will raise them in freedom?
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According to the OP reminder … BioLogos doesn’t Take a position on Inerrancy.
So … if I state that BioLogos is satisfied that the flood story is either figurative or erroneous … would that be right ?
Eddie, I think you may be on to something. Maybe if God had told them the sky was not solid and holding back an ocean, they would have been scandalized.
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