Yes @AMWolfe, and in the New Testament, Paul does not strike down slavery … but speaks to its mitigations.
Hardly impressive.
I am speaking only for myself, of course, but I find that either or questions and their answers are seldom fully correct. In the case of the flood, I can see that several other possibilities exist ranging from totally figurative, to representing a local flood, to being a combination, to being literal history with a multitude of miracles to make it appear otherwise for some reason known only to God. And a thousand permutations. My personal belif is that is largely metaphoric and figurative, but based on a local historic event, with God divinely incorporating and maintaining His message within the story through ages of retell ing and re-writing and translation. As such, it can be said to be inerrant, as it serves God’s purpose as He intended.
So let’s not use the flood… let’s use the story of Eve created from Adam’s rib.
Verdict?: Error or Figurative? What are the multiple scenarios for this historical point.
Then please read what I wrote. I’ve given no indication whatsoever that I don’t consider this verse part of the original writing.
I have already addressed this passage and you haven’t responded.
Until you’re actually prepared to read what I have written and address the citations I’ve used, there’s no point in continuing because you’re not having a dialogue, you’re writing with an agenda and simply repeating your views without responding to any answers you’re given.
How ironic! I was thinking the very same thing.
You quote the rabbinical sources… and those who study the rabbinical sources to defend your minority position. But if the rabbis were so convincing, then one might expect that we could convince YEC’s to deny Christianity.
On pages 18 to 19, you write the following:
[Narrative on Laws Regarding Non-Hebrew]
The laws for servants who were non-Hebrews were slightly different. For them there was no automatic
release, either in the Jubilee year (Leviticus 25:44-46), or the seventh year of debt cancellation (Deuteronomy
15:3). These foreign indentured servants were outside the covenant community, and did not receive the
benefit of debt cancellation.
PAGE 19
The Hebrews were permitted to pass them on as an inheritance to the next generation until their debts were
repaid…
[First Part of Narrative]
Leviticus 25 makes no mention of the debts of Non-Hebrew. These are slaves forever.
[Last Part of Narrative]
. . . which is the meaning of ‘olam’ in Leviticus 25:46 (translated ‘perpetually’). The text does not mean
they were permanent possessions, but is an explanation as to why they do not go out at the seventh year of
release or the Jubilee as the Hebrews do (the reason being that their debts are not cancelled).
Evidence for this view comes from some of the earliest Jewish commentaries, which interpreted it in this way (Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael in Mishpatim 2, Kiddushin 15b, and Targum Jonathan at Exodus 21:6).
Note that Targum Jonathan is one of the earliest extant commentaries on the passage. This same understanding was applied to the servant who voluntarily chose to serve his master past the date of his emancipation.
“In subsequent Jewish tradition the statement that “he shall be to you a slave forever” was
interpreted to mean for the rest of the master’s life, or until a Jubilee Year (Lev 25).” 23
“But according to rabbinic interpretation, the new term of service ends at the next Jubilee year or at
the death of the master, whichever comes first.”
[End of Quoted Narrative]
Naturally the rabbinical sources will go into overtime to mitigate the severity of these texts. You might as well quote the rabbis for explaining the true fate of Jesus.
Exodus 21:4
“If his [“his” as in even a non-Hebrew servant’s] Master 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 [the Hebrew bond servant] shall go out by himself.”
If even the children of a Hebrew servant become the master’s slaves … no less will be said and done for the Non-Hebrew servant/slave.
That alone proves these servants are not chattel slaves, or mere property. No one is put to death for breaking a chair.
Nope, looking at the comparative ANE codes we can see this is casuistic law with exemplars. The Law of Hammurabi for example prescribed lex talionis punishment on an lower class member of society who destroyed the eye, broke the bone, or knocked out the tooth, of a member of the aristocracy. This does not mean lower class members of society were free to beat members of the aristocracy as much as they liked, as long as they didn’t put out an eye, break a bone, or knock out a tooth. It means “If a lower class member injures a member of the aristocracy in any way, they will be liable to punishment in like manner”.
Consequently, it is not surprising that early Jewish sources such as Talmud Babylon b. Qidd. 25A and Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael Mishpatim 9 demonstrate that the rabbis did not restrict this law to only injury of the specific body parts named. In fact they wrote a comprehensive list of twenty four items to demonstrate their understanding that this law covered the entire body. Their list even included the very tips of the ears and nose; if these were harmed by a master, the servant would be freed.
If a servant lived a day or two and then died, the action was considered manslaughter rather than murder. This is exactly the same as with non-servants. When a free man injured another free man grievously but the injured man took a day or two to die, it was considered manslaughter rather than murder. Consequently, the manslaughterer was fined rather than put to death. In the case of the master and the servant, the assessment is the same; it is considered manslaughter rather than murder. The only difference is that the master is deemed to have paid through loss of service, so a fine is not imposed.
The Law of Moses is a complex and layered set of legislation which requires considerable effort to disentangle and interpret. That’s why entire books have been written on the subject. We can’t interpret it correctly by pulling verses out of it here and there and waving them around. Like any legislation it needs to be assessed holistically (and in the case of the Law of Moses, chronologically as well).
Again, the example of Jesus is instructive here.
- Jesus never condemned punching people in the face.
- Jesus certainly did say that victims of face punching are not allowed to retaliate. In fact he never even says they’re allowed to defend themselves.
- The legitimate conclusion we can draw from this is that according to Jesus, we Christians are entirely at liberty to punch people in the face as much as they like, and our bullied victims are not permitted to retaliate.
This is a pretty big deal, given people can actually die from being punched in the face.
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Indeed. Clearly because we find Jesus’ words so abhorrent that we ignore them.
Yes, which is the direction I briefly outlined in my post #111
But if we want to say that the institution of chattel slavery existed under the Law of Moses (though regulated), we need to do the necessary work starting with the lexical evidence and the socio-historical context. Simply exegeting the English won’t do. There’s an academic definition of chattel slavery which needs to be acknowledged for a start, and if that’s ignored then the argument which follows is unlikely to get close to reality. We have to be intellectually honest with the text.
To me it’s ironic that we can treat Genesis 1-11 with the exegetical sophistication it clearly deserves, and then turn around and treat the Law of Moses (which has an even more complex textual history), in the same way that Ken Ham treats Genesis 1.
4 Likes
The problem is how you have over-played your exegetical analysis of the Biblical terminology for slavery.
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There is more than one form of objectionable slavery. You have loaded all your eggs into “chattel slavery” … ignoring the variants which are still morally objectionable, even if not as extreme as chattel slavery.
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You have expended 80% of your analysis on the various forms of bondage that the Hebrew were allowed to perform on fellow Hebrew … which is not the most morally objectionable form of slavery we encounter in the Bible.
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While you eagerly provide citations for various Rabbinical works and commentary on those works, you do not provide the actual text of these works… leaving us to simply imagine how brilliant your analysis of rabbinical works applies.
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What you need to provide is more robust analysis on Hebrew law on the enslavement of non-Hebrew servants… covering multiple points:
i) whether or not they can be passed on to the surviving heirs of Hebrew owners;
ii) whether the children of such non-Hebrew servants also become de-facto slaves; and
iii) how the issue of “unpaid debt” does or doesn’t touch on non-Hebrew slavery at all.
Considering the importance of this topic, citing the rabbis is not really going to be enough. You need to provide the actual wording of the rabbis … based on the contention that the logic of the rabbis would not be adequate to convince any of the Church Fathers, or the more recent Protestant theologians we implicitly rely on here in BioLogos.
Please go ahead and list them. See, what you do is bandy about the word “slavery” and apply it to pretty much anything you like, in order to try and make everything sound like “chattel slavery”. That’s why you avoid terms like “indentured service” and “vassalage”.
Well no I haven’t, but they are actually the forms which are described in the most detail in the Law of Moses, so it would hardly matter if I had.
But I don’t rely on my analysis of any rabbinical works. I cite scholarship which has interpreted them; Naham Sarna for example. But every time I cite arguments by actual scholars you ignore them and try to claim I’m just making all these arguments up myself, and claiming I’m asking people to trust my analysis of the texts. You’re just trying to find ways of avoiding the scholarship. I can imagine how you would respond if you quoted a passage of Scripture and I told you that you have not provided the actual text, you’ve just provided a bunch of unidentified people’s translations of unidentified texts claimed by some unidentified people to be copies of copies of copies of copies of something resembling Scripture, and asserting you need to show me the actual text of Scripture itself because I can’t rely on your “analysis” of these ancient texts.
I’ve already done this. More to the point, you’ve avoided all the key points my article. This is like debating an IDer on evolution; they do their utmost to focus on what’s uncertain or unknown or disputed, without actually addressing the established facts which support the entire case for evolution. What you need to do, is integrate all the passages the way I’ve done.
I already have listed the nature of that bondage above … with a quote from Leviticus as my basis. Non-Hebrew slaves can be passed on to surviving heirs… and their children become enslaved from birth.
I do not pretend to give that form of bondage a fancy name. If you would like to name it, please do. I will be happy to use your terms to distinguish between Chattel Slavery and whatever form of slavery you think the Non-Hebrew bondage represents.
I am impressed at your honesty here, Jon:
“Well no I haven’t [robustly treated non-Hebrew bondage by Hebrew], but they are actually the forms which are described in the most detail in the Law of Moses, so it would hardly matter if I had.”
It is my contention, Biblically supported, that there is a huge difference between the two forms of bondage.
[quote=“gbrooks9, post:233, topic:5757”]
I already have listed the nature of that bondage above … with a quote from Leviticus as my basis. Non-Hebrew slaves can be passed on to surviving heirs…[/quote]
And I addressed this directly.
[quote=“gbrooks9, post:233, topic:5757”]… and their children become enslaved from birth.
Nah, it doesn’t say that.
No… of course Leviticus doesn’t say that… Ugh! Jon!
In this other post I explain where the connection to the children of slaves is brought in:
Please explain to us how the requirement about the children of Hebrew bond servants would be more strict than the requirement for non-Hebrew bond servants ? I assert the logical answer is that the non-Hebrew servant would have just as severe a rule about the status of their children as the children of a Hebrew servant would be!
Yeah I know how you made the leap of logic. I just don’t agree with it.
Right, you say it is a leap of logic… but you really haven’t explained how your logic is less of a leap.
You cite “unpaid debts” in your analysis (of Hebrew bondage of Hebrews!) … but this isn’t even mentioned in the relevant section of Leviticus on non-Hebrew slaves … let alone regarding the relevant section of Exodus.
You provide the references to rabbinical analysis… but you do not provide the analysis itself… not even a single sentence of it.
I think the reason is pretty clear - - the rabbinical analysis is not relevant to Christian analysis of those sections, and are almost certainly silent on the issue of how non-Hebrew slaves and the children of non-Hebrew slaves are treated in any way differently from the modern man’s notion of what slavery can be … and how horrible it could be to be a non-Hebrew slave of the Hebrews.
[ quote=“Jonathan_Burke, post:234, topic:5757”]
And I addressed this directly.
[ /quote]
And by the way, @Jonathan… your reference to post 233, Topic 5757 is obviously an error … if there are currently only 215 posts in topic 5757.
But you have a chance to redeem your citation … by actually addressing the topic of non-Hebrew slavery robustly (including the treatment of the children of non-Hebrew slaves) somewhere below…
George
You mean I haven’t explained how the fact that it doesn’t say the children are automatically slaves for the rest of their lives, gives us any warrant to say that the text doesn’t say the children are automatically slaves for the rest of their lives? Ok!
Look, we know why this discussion isn’t going anywhere. It’s because you and I have fundamentally different views of Scripture, and very different approaches to the text (you’re very resistant to the use of scholarship, whereas I take scholarship seriously).
Because it uses the same language as is used for the “purchase” of Hebrew indentured servants.
You mean apart from the times that I actually quote scholars like Nahum Sarna giving their analysis. Ok!
his slave According to rabbinic tradition,66 a non-Israelite.
eye … tooth Or any other of the chief external organs of the body. Rabbinic law lists twenty-four such, including the fingers, toes, tips of the ears, and the tip of the nose.67 Should the master injure any of these, the slave is given his freedom.
66 MdRY Mishpatim 9, p. 280.
67 Ibid., p. 279; Kid. 25a.", Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (The JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 127.
Sorry Mr Sarna your argument is dumb and wrong because George says so. And you didn’t even quote your sources, so that proves how wrong you are! (pity he’s dead so he can’t benefit from all this)
Please put this in a paper and address it to the relevant scholarship, the academics who cite the rabbinical analysis as relevant to Christian analysis of those sections.